VETERINARY MEDICINE AND ANIMAL HEALTHCARE IN HYDERABAD STATE UNDER THE NIZAMS

Abstract

The history of veterinary medicine in Hyderabad State has received far less attention than the histories of human medicine, public health, education and urban institutions under the Asaf Jahi Nizams. Yet livestock were indispensable to the agrarian economy: bullocks supplied draught power and transport, cows and buffaloes supported dairying, sheep and goats sustained pastoral and household economies, and horses retained military, police, transport and ceremonial importance. This article examines the development of organized animal healthcare in Hyderabad State from the late nineteenth century to the end of Nizam rule. It traces the transition from stud and breeding administration to a more specialized veterinary establishment, the formal existence of the Civil Veterinary Department from 1920, the growth of hospitals, dispensaries and touring services, and the increasing use of preventive inoculation and veterinary investigation. Particular attention is given to rinderpest and other contagious livestock diseases, cattle breeding, livestock enumeration, and the interaction between official programmes and communities whose livelihoods depended on animals. The article also considers the Lambadas as a case through which the relationship between state regulation, grazing, cattle breeding and local knowledge can be examined. The establishment of Hyderabad Veterinary College on 5 August 1946 as a constituent college of Osmania University marked an important stage in the professionalization of veterinary education. Rather than presenting modernization as a simple replacement of indigenous practice, the study argues that institutional veterinary medicine expanded alongside established systems of animal care and that its reach remained uneven. Veterinary development under the Nizams is therefore best understood at the intersection of agrarian history, medical history, state formation and rural society.