In 1699, Chikka Devaraja Wadiyar, King of Mysore, sent an embassy to the court of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, then at Ahmednagar, to ensure the continuity of friendly relations between the two states after the death of Kasim Khan, the Mughal governor of Sira, with whom the Wadiyar had had a personal friendship. At Aurangzeb's court the ambassadors observed that administrative functions were divided into eighteen departments; inspired by this, the Wadiyar reorganised his own government similarly.^[1] The secretariat thus came to be called Attara Kacheri, with Attara meaning 'eighteen' and Kacheri meaning 'department' in Hindustani.^[2][3]

The Mysore secretariat moved into the building, which was called the Public Offices Building, upon its completion in 1868.^[4] Over time, the building itself began to be called Attara Kacheri.^[2] The building was also called 'Bowring Buildings' and 'Bowring Attara Kacheri', after the British commissioner of Mysore, Lewin Bentham Bowring, who ordered its construction.^[2]

A revolt occurred in many parts of the Kingdom of Mysore in 1830, as a consequence of which William Bentick, the East India Company's governor-general, deprived the Maharaja of Mysore of administrative powers in 1831, and vested the government in a British Commission. Ten of the eighteen departments of Mysore's secretariat - the Commissioner's office, the Petition Department, the Judical Court, the treasury, the cavalry, the infantry, the Police Department, the Postal Department, the Huzur office, and the department of sandalwood - were shifted to Bangalore, where they functioned in Tipu Sultan's summer palace, which was the only building large enough to accommodate them all. The remaining eight departments, which exclusively concerned royal affairs, stayed at Mysore.^[2][5][6]

Over time, the palace was found unsuitable due to lack of space, as the offices had grown significantly since they were first shifted there, and because of fears of the building collapsing. Lewin Bentham Bowring, who took charge as Commissioner in 1862, was concerned about the safety of the treasury (worth ten lakh rupees) stored in the aging palace.^[7][8][9] Additionally, the palace was at a distance from the British cantonment, and the scattered nature of offices in the palace campus was considered a nuisance.^[10]

Plans for a new building housing all offices under one roof had been drawn up in 1857, but the project could not proceed because of the Indian Rebellion that year. Further plans had been drawn up in 1860, but were rejected by the Government of India. A revised plan by Richard Sankey, the chief engineer of Mysore, was accepted, and Bowring ordered the construction to begin.^[10][11][12]

The contract for building the structure was awarded to Messrs. Wallace and Co., who sub-contracted the work to Arcot Narrainswamy Mudaliar and Bansilal Ramrathan.^[13] Construction began in October 1864. The site, originally chosen by Mark Cubbon, facing the parade grounds of the Bangalore Cantonment, had several boulders and nullahs (large ravines), and Sankey initially found it seemingly "hopeless to do more than provide standing ground for the work". Solutions were found in building a foundation fourteen feet deep where the nullahs once were, and using large stone slabs (each around six to nine feet long) to distribute the weight of the building. Sankey sometimes faced difficulties with the workers on the site, who poured mortar down the plumbing "once or twice... when the walls were well up, thus giving most serious trouble".^[10] Nevertheless, construction was completed in April 1868, at a total cost of Rs. 4,27,980,^[2] of which Rs. 3,68,981 was for the construction and the rest for purchase and levelling of the land.^[10][11] An equestrian statue of Mark Cubbon was installed in front of the building during construction, in March 1866.^[8]

There were two expansions of the building. An annexe was built in 1917 and a major extension of the entire building took place in 1995, in the same architectural style as the original.^[14]

Use edit

Upon completion of construction, the administrative departments of the princely state shifted to the building. Apart from the secretariat, the building also housed the High Court of Mysore and the office of the Commissioner of Mysore, and later, that of the Dewan of Mysore.^[10][14][15]

After Indian independence edit

The building continued to house the High Court and secretariat after Mysore acceded to India in 1947.^[16] Bangalore became the capital of the new Mysore State, and each house of the Legislative Assembly of Mysore held its sessions in the third floor of the Attara Kacheri, with joint sessions being held in the Bangalore Town Hall.^[17] The court occupied the entire building after the legislature and the secretariat shifted to the newly-built Vidhana Soudha in 1956.^[8]

The court was renamed the High Court of Karnataka when the name of the state of Mysore was changed to Karnataka in 1973.^[2]

Threats of demolition edit

1950s edit

In the early 1950s, Kengal Hanumanthaiah, Chief Minister of Mysore, wanted to demolish the Attara Kacheri, seeing it as a vestige of colonialism.^[18] Lacking the requisite permission, he instead ordered the building of the monumental Dravidian-style legislature building, the Vidhana Soudha, at a slight elevation directly opposite the Attara Kacheri.^[4][16] A government committee probing concerns of overspending on the Vidhana Soudha deduced that:

"[Hanumanthaiah] was driven primarily by the desire to vanquish visually the Attara Kacheri building, a symbol of imperial power, in length, height and majesty."^[4]

1980s edit

On 24 March 1982, the Government of Karnataka approved the demolition of the Attara Kacheri and the construction of a new court building on the site.^[4] A public interest litigation, or PIL, was filed in the Karnataka High Court, pleading for the demolition to be cancelled. The case - B. V. Narayan Reddy v. State of Karnataka - was heard in the same building that was slated to be demolished.^[19][20] The petitioners pleaded that the Attara Kacheri was

"...precious cultural heritage and a part of an ancient legacy which any city would treasure... [the building is] a symbolic connecting chord for the future, and its destruction snaps an emotional experience vital to a sense of belonging to this beautiful city."^[4]

The state government defended its decision, saying that the building was in need of expensive repairs, and even then would be inadequate for expanded uses. The High Court struck down the petition on the basis that it could not change the law to make it a duty for the government to protect heritage buildings. Hearing the appeal against the High Court decision, the Supreme Court of India asked the state government to reconsider its proposal. In 1985, the proposal to demolish the building was dropped, and repair and expansion work was begun.^[2][14][21]

The Attara Kacheri has two storeys. The walls of the bottom story are built of gneiss stone in chunam (a kind of Indian cement), and those of the upper story are built of brick in chunam. The main structure of the building is surrounded on all sides by porticoes and verandahs. The entire building is surfaced with plaster and painted with red ochre. The verandahs prevent direct sunlight from reaching much of the main body of the building; despite this, the rooms are well-lit and well-ventilated.^[10]

The building is built in the neoclassical style, with Ionic porticoes on the facades of every wing, and with the wings connected by arcade-style lengths.^[22][23] The porticoes on both sides of the central wing each have twelve Ionic columns.^[4][7] The tops of the roof tiles of the wings are modelled in the style of Grecian tiles.^[10]

• M. Fazlul Hasan (1970). Bangalore Through The Centuries. Bangalore: Historical Publications (Republished in 2023 by Metaform Design). ISBN 978-81-963415-0-3.
• A. Satyanarayana (1996). History of the Wodeyars of Mysore, 1610–1748. Directorate of Archaeology and Museums. Archived from the original on 5 January 2021.
• Ba. Na. Sundara Rao (1985). ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಇತಿಹಾಸ [A History of Bengaluru] (in Kannada). Bangalore: Ankita Pustaka. LCCN 2012351011.