The Bombay City Police: A Historical Sketch, 1672-1916 — John Shaqi
The Bombay City Police: A Historical Sketch, 1672-1916Edwardes, S. M. (Stephen Meredyth)
History
The Bombay City Police: A Historical Sketch, 1672-1916
Edwardes, S. M. (Stephen Meredyth)
Crime -- India -- Mumbai; Police -- India -- Mumbai
While allowing for the many difficulties confronting him, Tod cannot
be held to have achieved much success as head of the police. His old
critics, the Grand Jury, returned to the charge at the Sessions which
opened on April 30th, 1787, and protested in strong terms against “the
yet inefficient state of every branch of the Police, which required
immediate and effectual amendment”. “That part of it” they said, “which
had for its object the personal security of the inhabitants and their
property was not sufficiently vigorous to prevent the frequent repetition
of murder, felony, and every other species of atrociousness—defects that
had often been the subject of complaint from the Grand Jury of Bombay,
but never with more reason than at that Sessions, as the number of
prisoners for various offences bore ample testimony.”
They animadverted on the want of proper regulations, on the great
difficulty of obtaining menial servants and the still greater difficulty
of retaining them in their service, on the enormous wages which they
demanded and their generally dubious characters. So far as concerned
the domestic servant problem, the Bombay public at the close of the
eighteenth century seems to have been in a position closely resembling
that of the middle-classes in England at the close of the Great War
(1914-18). The Grand Jury complained also of the defective state of the
high roads, of the uncleanliness of many streets in the Town, and of “the
filthiness of some of the inhabitants, being uncommonly offensive and a
real nuisance to society”. They objected to the obstruction caused by the
piling of cotton on the Green and in the streets, to the enormous price
of the necessaries of life, the bad state of the markets, and the high
rates of labour. They urged the Justices to press the Bombay Government
for reform and suggested “the appointment of a Committee of Police with
full powers to frame regulations and armed with sufficient authority to
carry them into execution, as had already been done with happy effect on
the representation of the Grand Juries at the other Presidencies.”
The serious increase of robbery and “nightly depredations” was ascribed
chiefly to the fact that all persons were allowed to enter Bombay
freely, without examination, and that the streets were infested with
beggars “calling themselves Faquiers and Jogees (Fakirs and Jogis)”,
who exacted contributions from the public. The beggar-nuisance is one
of the chief problems requiring solution in the modern City of Bombay:
and it may be some consolation to a harassed Commissioner of Police
to know that his predecessor of the eighteenth century was faced with
similar difficulties. The Grand Jury were not over-squeamish in their
recommendations on the subject. They advocated the immediate deportation
of all persons having no visible means of subsistence, and as a result
the police, presumably under Tod’s orders, sent thirteen suspicious
persons out of the Island.[27]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account