On the streets, in the fields, on the sidewalks, under public stairwells, or sprawled across and inside historical monuments. They try to stay at a safe distance from human habitation, far enough to escape any sudden aggressive moves or spurts of cruelty, yet close enough to scavenge for leftover tidbits of food.

And thus, they thrive.

Street dogs in India are just as common as bicycles, pedestrians, or cows. City dogs can usually be seen weaving in and out of crowds of people milling about the streets, looking either for food or shelter. These dogs are skin and bones, sometimes injured or diseased, and have the ragged look of hardship and suffering. They’re the unlucky cousins of the ‘pet dogs’; they ran out of luck centuries ago, and were condemned to live among humans, sans masters or affection.

Still, they seem to be able to carry on. They live on scraps of garbage and human kindness- that is, until some dog in some city gets rabies and is unfortunate enough to bite a human. That is when society collapses on itself, and finds a new species to blame it all on.

I grew up in a neighborhood in India that had its fair share of ecology – there were cows, dogs, pigs, monkeys, and even peacocks. A friend and I even gave the dogs names, some of whom had been adopted by servant families. Following some complaints of the increase in the number of dogs in the area, there was a massive movement in our campus area towards the removal of the said ‘menace’. A few days later, when I came back from school, I saw a street dog lying dead in the drain outside our house. My own dog lamented over him for days, refusing to eat.

That was the first time I became painfully aware of the human mentality of wiping out species that were in our way and the seemingly common indiscriminate killing of innocent animals as a way of life. I found out later that poisoning the dogs in my neighborhood had been the cheapest solution – having professional dog-catchers come in would have cost the authorities of the district Rs.500 per dog (about $12).

And the harsh truth is that this was not an isolated incident. Thousands of dogs are killed in India on a regular basis – especially if there are reports of attacks of dogs on humans. Ironically, the ‘Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act’ of 1960 is completely ignored. When two children were killed by stray dog bites in early 2007, there was a public outcry, which led to city officials ordering all the stray dogs to be rounded up.¹ Many of these dogs were killed eventually.

I understand that human rabies is a critical problem, and needs to be addressed. But killing off dogs is not the solution. Some would call the culling ‘inhuman’, a laughable term considering that such an atrocity is committed by humans alone and none other in the entire animal kingdom. Humans are usually humane enough to let other humans live, but as the most powerful species on the planet, we should have a responsibility towards all other animals.

But not all dogs are condemned, thanks to several animal friendly groups that are emerging all over the country. ‘Help in Suffering’ is one such organization, founded in 1994 in Rajasthan, a state in Western India. The group has, over ten years, sterilized and vaccinated over 25,000 street dogs, and brought down human rabies incidents by almost 30%. Individuals such as Lila Parulekar from Pune, prove that one person alone can make a difference. Her house is now a shelter for homeless animals, which goes by the name of ‘Jeev Raksha’ (Protection of Animals). Dogs, and virtually all animals are fed and looked after by volunteers and a qualified veterinarian.

Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta, writer for ‘The Hindu’, a prominent newspaper in India, says that ‘humankind will take a long time, it seems, to understand that we have no right to enslave the rest of nature: we must share the planet.² I couldn’t have said it better. I don’t see the point of looking for more species of life on this planet, or life on other planets, when the beautiful life we see around us isn’t cherished or respected.

Footnotes:

¹ http://ananimalfriendlylife.com/2007/03/guest-post-bangalores-war-against.html

² http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2004/02/22/stories/2004022200340400.htm

Photo Courtesy: Dey

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