Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has spent much of the past 12 years attempting to decolonise India’s institutions, symbols and social practices, aiming to strip away the lingering legacies of the Raj by governmental fiat, nearly eight decades after independence.
Since 2014, his Hindu nationalist administration has renamed and revised colonial-era laws, relabelled avenues and public institutions, localised Victorian-era court rituals and Indianised military traditions, among numerous other measures aimed at restoring India’s civilisational heritage.
Yet, in a small but highly visible facet of everyday life, a colonial hangover survives – on a leash or roaming free – in the form of dogs bearing quintessentially English names such as Tommy, Jackie, Bruno, Leo, Oreo and Brandy.
Step into any urban park, walking track, neighbourhood street or even a village square at dawn or dusk, and scores of such dogs are frolicking and asserting themselves, entirely unaware that their identities – and, for many, their pedigrees – hark back to a colonial past.
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In a south Delhi neighbourhood, for instance, a pug named Caesar was recently strutting around proudly, determined to live up to his grand imperial name, while Theo, a frisky Labrador, paid him little heed; he was content to chase sticks, examine puddles and pursue everything that moved on the road.
Wordlessly, these two dogs – and tens of millions like them nationwide – carry forward the Raj’s heritage through their Anglicised names, a quiet reminder that even after India’s independence in 1947, some colonial habits endure, defying even Modi’s avid decolonisation efforts.
Even Indies – the centuries-old native dog recently recognised as an indigenous breed – often bear English names, like the foreign-origin Pointers, Saint Bernards and Irish Setters, highlighting the irony of a wholly Indian dog with foreign names.
Animal activist Anjali Daphtary, who owns two Beagles, Fido and Chewy, says dog names in India are a “rebellion against traditional naming conventions”, a telling reminder that colonial influences, however marginal, linger in India’s daily life, beyond the reach of laws or policies.
Generations of dogs with English names, she drolly adds, carry the empire on their collars, well past the days of the Raj.
However, every now and then, a home-grown name such as Sheru (lion), Moti (pearl), Kaalu (black) or Shahji (king) surface, asserting a distinctly native identity, though such names remain rare amid the abundance of foreign ones.
Before the Raj, dogs in India served largely functional roles – guarding property, accompanying hunters or roaming freely – while also holding symbolic significance in Hindu mythology, appearing in epics such as the Mahabharata and the Puranas, a collection of allegorical narratives blending history, philosophy and moral instruction.
In daily life, however, dogs were valued more for their utility than companionship, rarely sharing the indoors with their owners or receiving much affection from them.
But the arrival of the British in India from the 17th century onward transformed the role of dogs for natives, associating them with a Victorian culture of leisure, pedigree and social status. Dogs became resident fixtures in British bungalows, cantonments, clubs and civil lines – carefully bred, fancifully named.
Thereafter, through proximity and aspiration, Indian elites – maharajahs, soldiers, clerks and professionals – emulated these English habits of dog-keeping, adopting their breeding, naming and training. They began displaying them as markers of refinement, social status and cosmopolitanism, and eventually took them in as household pets, lavishing affection upon them.
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Gradually, this practice spread beyond metropolitan centres into small towns and villages, but without losing its English cultural imprint with regard to naming. Even here, dogs began to be gradually valued not merely for their utility but as companions, their carefully chosen English names, pedigrees and appearances serving as indicators of social aspiration and participation in a broader, Anglicised lifestyle.
And long after the Raj ended 79 years ago, these habits endured, perpetuated by those adopting colonial lifestyles even then regarded as the height of refinement.
Hence, what began with dogs as objects of imitation gradually hardened into convention, passed down as an emblem of taste rather than a reviled colonial inheritance.
Today, many wealthy Indians, like the English before them, flaunt rare or exotic dogs as status symbols, expressions of wealth and signs of style – often sourcing them from abroad, even in defiance of import restrictions.
For them, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, French Bulldogs or Tibetan Mastiffs are more than just companions or sources of emotional attachment: their pedigree and accessories signal status, but it is their distinctly English names that unmistakably reinforce it.
