Odisha Government Bans Use Of 'Harijan' Word In All Official Communications
The Odisha government has asked all its departments, public and educational institutes and others to stop using the term 'harijan' in communications, officials said on Wednesday.
The government suggested the authorities concerned that words like 'scheduled caste' in English and 'anusuchita jati' in Odia or other national languages should be used to "denote persons belonging to scheduled castes as notified under Article 341 of the Constitution", according to a letter issued on August 12 by the commissioner-cum-secretary of the ST and SC Development, Minorities and Backward Class Welfare Department.
The letter was sent to all the additional chief secretaries, principal secretaries, and commissioner-cum-secretaries, the officials said.
"They have been instructed to ensure that the word 'harijan' does not appear in any official communications, records, transactions, caste certificates, publications, departmental names, or any other form of use," one of the officials said.
The authorities concerned are also directed to educate their staff and update existing documents and records accordingly, he said.
They are also told to submit a compliance report on the action taken on the matter, another official said.
The state government's action came in the wake of the guidelines issued by the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC), prohibiting the use of the word 'harijan'.
These guidelines will be strictly enforced in all government offices, the official said.
In 1982, the Centre had asked all state governments not to use the term 'harijan' to refer to Dalits.
Following fresh guidelines prepared by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, a similar order was also issued in 2013 to all the states, directing them to ensure non-use of the 'harijan' word not only in caste certificates but also in official communications, the officials said.
The Odisha Assembly has also prohibited the use of the word 'harijan', they said.
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The National Action Plan for Rabies Elimination, scientifically calibrated to eradicate dog-mediated rabies by 2030, remains a parchment promise, starved of funding and crippled by absent state-centre coordination. Vaccination coverage of the stray dog population remains inadequate to establish effective herd immunity, while most districts lack comprehensive surveillance systems to monitor and respond to outbreaks. View this post on Instagram A post shared by People For Animals Public Policy Foundation (@pfappf) The Directorate General of Health Services under the Health Ministry has issued a comprehensive order to strengthen rabies control. The directive mandates hospitals and healthcare providers to provide quality data on animal bites, specifically distinguishing between bites from pet and stray dogs, and to maintain a dedicated Animal Bite Exposure (ABE) Register. The order also requires facilities to ensure the availability of Anti-Rabies Vaccines (ARV) and Sera (ARS), maintain an Adverse Event Following Immunization (AEFI) registry, investigate all suspected rabies deaths, and share bite and case data fortnightly with veterinary authorities. This data collection is essential for effective surveillance, timely post-exposure prophylaxis administration, and focused vaccination campaigns. However, these compliances remain largely unimplemented, ensuring that policy decisions continue to be made on muddled data that confounds the very sources of the problem authorities claim to address. These parallel failures reveal a pattern; we have the policies but lack the political will to execute them with the rigour they demand. Nowhere is this institutional betrayal more visceral than in Delhi's Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme, where, by early 2025, four of the city's twenty ABC centres lay shuttered, and those still operating reeked of dysfunction. In fact, many padded their records with sterilisation figures for surgeries that never happened. Law Is A Myth Here This systematic corruption is compounded by the unchecked and illegal pet breeding and abandonment pipeline that continuously replenishes street populations even as Animal Birth Control efforts struggle to contain them, with unregistered breeders and pet shops operating illegally and with impunity despite clear provisions in the Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules, 2017, and Pet Shop Rules, 2018, requiring State Animal Welfare Board registration. True reform demands Animal Birth Control implementation on war footing with proper execution of existing protocols: functional State ABC Monitoring Committees for monitoring and oversight, gap analysis and performance reviews of all 20 centres; zone-wise allocation of sterilisation, ensuring 80% coverage before territorial advancement with female-centric sterilisation targeting 70% of operations; mandatory Animal Welfare Board of India registration for all implementing agencies; specialised training for veterinarians and handlers at recognised training centres; establishment of animal helplines at each Animal Birth Control Centre; keeping proper bite case protocols; immediate closure of unregistered pet shops and dog breeding establishments; transformation of Delhi's 77 veterinary hospitals into in-patient facilities for injured street animals; closure of every illegal pet shops and dog boarding establishments, and promotion of street dog adoption through shelters with post-adoption support. These are not ambitious proposals but basic compliance measures requiring proper implementation and can be achieved by a fraction of the monstrous cost required for mass removal. Devise Actual Solutions The Hon'ble Court's order serves no purpose but perpetuates failed colonial methods. The choice before us is not between dogs and humans, but between competence and chaos, between the patient work of sterilisation that eliminates rabies and controls street dog population and the colonial theatrics of elimination that eliminates nothing. Because the policy is impossible to implement at scale, Delhi will end up with dogs both on the streets and crammed into disease-prone warehouses, doubling the problem instead of solving it. What Delhi needs is not compliance with this misguided order, but solutions that actually work. The Hon'ble Court may have spoken, but history, science, and compassion speak louder. In the end, the systemic failure to implement proven solutions is the problem; not the animals who have shared our streets for millennia. (Gauri Maulekhi is an animal welfare activist. She is the Trustee of People for Animals, India's largest animal welfare organisation, founded by Maneka Gandhi, Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha) Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
