The stray dog crisis is real. But the solution cannot be cruelty

Indian Express

a day ago

Towards the end of the Mahabharata, the five Pandavas and Draupadi renounce their kingdom, wear clothes of bark and begin the arduous walk to Mount Meru. Only the most righteous gain heaven, and this is their goal. During their long walk, a stray dog tags along, as strays tend to do. One by one, each of the Pandavas drops dead because each has a flaw that makes them unfit for heaven. Only Yudhishthira, son of Dharma, reaches the gates of Heaven — with the dog.
They are met by Indra, who welcomes Yudhishthira in, but tells him to leave the dog behind: 'Dogs disrupt sacrifices and offerings, make them impure. You abandoned your wife and brothers on the journey. Now abandon the dog!' To this, Yudhishthira says he would rather give up heaven than a loyal friend: 'This dog is alive and has taken refuge with me. I will not abandon one who is devoted to me. That would be a sin equal to killing a woman, robbing a Brahmin, or harming a friend.'
It turns out that Dharma himself has taken on the guise of a dog. The test of integrity in this greatest of epics is a man's treatment of a stray dog. Indra tells Yudhishthira, 'King, you are the greatest of kings, with intelligence, morality and compassion. You have given up a chariot to heaven for the sake of a loyal dog. Because of this you have gained the highest heaven.'
It would be futile and wrong to deny that the population of stray dogs in our country, and their capacity to cause injuries and fatal disease, is a huge problem. Other countries manage stray dogs efficiently, and we have only to look to the West or to China for two templates. The former is based on respect for non-human lives, sanity and compassion; the latter is as brutal and draconian as ethnic cleansing.
India long ago opted for the former, with policies to control dog populations and make it safe for both animals and humans. Corruption, laziness, and apathy have made sure those policies failed. As a consequence, humans and animals both suffer. Stray dogs multiply, they starve, they are subjected to horrifying cruelties. Human lives are lost to rabies and the dogs die wounded and in pain. This is not a situation that ought to continue. But the solution is not an authoritarian sweeping of the streets; it needs to be more humane, knowledge-based, and measured than the recent order of the Supreme Court. It needs to take into confidence those who look after strays all over the country: Ordinary people, NGOs.
A couple of years ago, there was a rabies outbreak in Ranikhet, where I live. A few dogs died of it, and panic spread. The response from the population at large was to arm itself with sickles and lathis and attack any passing dog. The solitary animal NGO here, Himalayan Tails, went around tirelessly and fearlessly netting stray dogs and vaccinating them against rabies while euthanising those that were infected. In time, the threat passed. Since there is no government sterilisation facility here, the NGO holds camps, the public contributes funds, and dogs are vaccinated, sterilised, and returned to their spots on the streets.
'Why should that stray dog come back to that locality… What's the idea behind it?' asks Justice Pardiwala. This reveals a lack of understanding about animals, most of whom, from birds to dogs, have a homing instinct embedded in their genes. Like leopards and tigers, dogs are territorial. There are legendary stories of lost dogs running alone for hundreds of miles to return home. When you propose to vacuum them from their streets and cram thousands together in cages, it is an extermination order in disguise.
The dogs have no idea that a cleansing is around the corner. There they still are: Wagging their tails and trying to be friends, cadging a bit of paneer here or a biscuit there, ambling around, scrounging for scraps, trying to survive somehow, as they always have. Those who look after them have long been pilloried for caring about dogs but not for humans — as if the two are mutually exclusive. In this myopic, petty, vindictive worldview, if you care for animals you do not care for the suffering of the underprivileged or oppressed human, nor for the mother who has lost her child to rabies. Compassion for animals is seen as the lordly affectation of the privileged.
I've seen how at dawn, in Kolkata, patient knots of street dogs wait — for ordinary people, who are neither rich nor privileged, to come around with tubs of food and medicines. In the worn-out parks of East Delhi, I've seen labourers share scraps of their rotis with dogs. The stray dogs of our cities have always been cared for this way rather than by the state.
A starring role in the Mahabharata hasn't cut much ice for strays in the ages since. Bulls get away with goring people to death because they are holy, and when tigers turn maneater, those particular animals are tranquillised and caged. The former is protected by religious beliefs, the latter by wildlife laws. The dog has neither. It is time for that to change, for protection to be put in place for this most gentle and loyal of animals. Those who have never known the love of a dog have never known heaven.
Ever since 9/11, entire human populations have been punished for acts of violence by a few. If the Supreme Court has its way, all of Delhi's strays will pay the price for the few that have caused death or disease. What should the Indian state choose: Yudhishthira's dharma or blind brutality?
Roy is a writer based in Ranikhet