What the outrage over stray dogs says about the moral compass of middle-class Indians

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2 hours ago

The emotional response that followed the Supreme Court ordering the removal of all stray dogs in the National Capital Region is a grim reflection on the moral priorities of India's middle-class.
On August 11, the Supreme Court instructed the Delhi government and civic bodies to house stray dogs in shelters and said that animals must not be allowed back on to the streets.
Soon, an Instagram post on how the ruling would deprive stray dogs of freedom and shelter had reached a million shares. Animal rights activists and citizens mobilised protests in multiple cities. Such an expression of empathy and solidarity, in barely two days, is astonishing.
It is in stark contrast to the usual enabling hush over instances like, to name just a few: the detention of Indians in centres across Assam over disputed citizenship, the forced expulsion of Bengali-speaking Muslims accused of being 'Bangladeshis' and Rohingya refugees, and the illegal bulldozing of Muslim homes.
Instead, these incidents have been cheered on or justified as necessary for 'national' security.
It is tempting to dismiss the outrage over stray dogs as an instance of misplaced priorities or to accuse people of caring about animals more than humans.
But human suffering, particularly when it is caused by poverty, war, casteism, racism or displacement, is politically messy. It implicates power structures, governments and entrenched hierarchies. To acknowledge it fully would require one to confront their own privilege, complicity and ideological alignments.
Animal suffering is perceived as morally 'clean'. Stray dogs become 'pure' victims: voiceless, without political agency and incapable of being blamed for their condition. They are easier to empathise with because that empathy carries no political risk.
Instead of confronting the grave injustices of our times, the Indian middle class has chosen 'safe empathy' – compassion that enables them to feel moral without challenging the status quo.
Animal rights activists scuffled with police & were detained during a protest against the relocation of stray dogs near Hanuman Mandir in Connaught Place. The rally was billed as a 'Chakka Jam for Our Stray Babies'
Photos by Ankit Roy @photojournalog #ThePrintPictures pic.twitter.com/9VJsOXvPvK
— ThePrintIndia (@ThePrintIndia) August 12, 2025
The silence on Gaza
Consider Gaza. It has been nearly two years of Israel's military assault on the blockaded strip since October 2023. Relentless bombardment has reduced vast stretches of Gaza to rubble, destroyed health, education and water sanitation infrastructure with a death toll of 61,000 as of August – many of the dead are children.
Israel has choked aid to the strip, causing a man-made famine that is claiming more lives. The very possibility of life itself has been deliberately strangled. It is widely recognised as an ongoing genocide.
India's official stance has long been in support of Palestinian statehood. In December, the Ministry of External Affairs told Parliament that it is concerned about the situation in Gaza and that it has emphasised the need to safely deliver humanitarian assistance.
But barring isolated instances of protests, which were quickly cracked down upon, there has been little public outrage in India over the situation in Gaza.
When the Communist Party of India (Marxist) sought to hold protests in solidarity with Gaza, the Bombay High Court was critical: 'You are looking at Gaza and Palestine while neglecting what's happening here,' the court said in July, according to The Hindu. A few weeks later in August, the court allowed the party to hold a 'peaceful assembly'. 'Demonstration sounds more intense,' said a judge.
The judiciary is the same institution that Indian liberals will turn to, seeking protection for stray dogs.
#Breaking: Mumbai Police permits Communist Party of India (Marxist) to hold a peaceful protest to condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Bombay High Court division bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Gautam Ankhad accepted the statement made by the Mumbai Police that the… pic.twitter.com/7PWuzBcz2H
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) August 12, 2025
But political solidarity with Palestine would have meant confronting Hindutva's alliance with Zionism and the broader Islamophobia that underpins public discourse.
Similarly, there has been silence when it comes to India's own Muslim population. Indian citizens were among those illegally pushed into Bangladesh after the police, especially in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states, rounded up Bengali-speaking Muslims and demanded proof of Indian citizenship following the Pahalgam terror attack.
Elsewhere, Muslims have been lynched for their religious identity and visibility, their homes illegally bulldozed in defiance of Supreme Court orders, their businesses boycotted and their places of worship demolished.
Hindutva parties and their supporters have actively celebrated these acts as furthering the establishment of a Hindu nation. But the tragedy and the hypocrisy is that much of the liberal and centrist middle-class has also either justified this violence under the garb of 'law and order' or looked away, unwilling to confront majoritarian hatred.
It is a court order against stray dogs that suddenly awakens public conscience. When the victims are Muslim, whether in Palestine or in India, liberal outrage collapses into moral cowardice or polite distance. For Gaza, the refrain was that 'it's too complex' or 'too far away' to take a stance. Complexity, however, was not an obstacle when it came to stray dogs in Delhi – an issue that demands balancing human safety with empathy for animals while addressing administrative failures.
Animal right activists for a noble cause are having a candle light march on Kartavya Path New Delhi against the Supreme Courts orders on Stray dogs in the capital pic.twitter.com/wCIevE1b7i
— Ravinder Kapur. (@RavinderKapur2) August 13, 2025
Convenient empathy
Advocating for animals rarely attracts the kind of social or political backlash that campaigning against caste violence, Islamophobia, or settler colonialism does. One can campaign for stray dogs without worrying about losing a job, alienating their family, or facing state surveillance. Fighting for oppressed humans has real consequences. The path of least resistance becomes the path most travelled.
The mainstream media and nonprofits know this. They package animal welfare stories accordingly: apolitical, emotionally accessible and with feel-good sentiment – 'adopt, don't shop'. Reporting on caste atrocities, religious hatred, or settler colonialism, on the other hand, demands naming perpetrators and acknowledging systemic injustice, which makes audiences uncomfortable.
This discomfort is evident in the silence and selective outrage of India's liberal class.
There is also an undercurrent of cynicism and misanthropy. Many have internalised the belief that humans are inherently selfish, corrupt and unworthy of trust, a belief shaped by personal betrayals or repeated exposure to systemic injustice. Animals, in contrast, are idealised as loyal, honest and incapable of malice.
This makes animal advocacy emotionally safer; one can help without fear of ingratitude or manipulation. But this cynicism feeds political disengagement. If humans are 'hopeless', the incentive to fight for them disappears. This belief serves the interests of oppressive systems, as it channels moral energy into spaces that pose no threat to power.
None of this is to argue against caring for animals. Empathy is not a finite resource. Protecting stray dogs from cruelty is important. But empathy that does not extend to fellow humans is an empathy shaped and limited by blind privilege. The legal and political systems that abandon stray dogs are the same ones that let poor families starve, imprison minorities without trial and support genocide abroad.
The outrage over the Supreme Court's stray dog order has shown that mass empathy can be mobilised quickly, creatively and with impact. If the liberal Hindu middle-class can find its voice for stray dogs within 48 hours, its silence on human suffering is a deliberate choice, not an oversight.
Real solidarity requires dismantling the hierarchy of empathy that places animals above humans when human beings are politically inconvenient. It means recognising that the fight for animal welfare and the fight for human dignity are bound by the same thread: resistance to cruelty, exploitation and systemic neglect. Severing that connection allows the oppressor to define the limits of compassion.
Until that selective and comfortable activism changes, every candle lit for a stray dog will cast a shadow long enough to hide the silence and complicity in majoritarian hatred – at home and beyond.