World Animal Day is an International Day of Action for Animal Rights and Welfare celebrated annually on October 4, the feast day of Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals. The mission of World Animal Day, according to the official World Animal
Day website is "To raise the status of animals in order to improve
welfare standards around the globe. Building the celebration of World
Animal Day unites the animal welfare movement, mobilizing it into a
global force to make the world a better place for all animals and pets
such as Cats. It's celebrated in different ways in every country,
irrespective of nationality, religion, faith or political ideology.
Through increased awareness and education we can create a world where
animals are always recognized as sentient beings and full regard is
always paid to their welfare."
Man & Animals - Once Companions, now Enemies?
Anyone can be pretty sure that there was a time when man and animals were in harmony. As time passes by, both seems to be in a struggle to live on. Still the sight of busy passerby vanishing ahead, vehicles storming, along with innumerable four footed legs wandering along for a shelter is very common and thought provoking. Without the natural protection, nor protection that humans are privileged to (though the sight of unprivileged humans finding solace atop pavements at nights is no better), animals mostly suffer for reasons not produced by them. Animals, though unlike the the more mighty Nature cannot retaliate much. Their retaliation is seen as a threat to the present day Busy Bodies.
Swinging wildly between wanton killing of dogs and extreme ‘pro-life’ interventions, India has never framed a rational, scientifically valid dog ownership or population control strategy
Everyday, India wakes up to horrific stories of attacks
on people by street dogs and equally horrific acts of cruelty towards
dogs. There is extreme polarization on this issue between the advocates
of human rights versus animal rights. The lack of a critical and
scientific analysis is glaring.
A dog is considered
to be man’s best friend, but there is, unfortunately, a dark side to
having dogs on streets. More than 20 million people in India are bitten
by dogs, and 20,000 die because of rabies, annually. Dogs also directly
kill a dozen or more people, mostly children, every year.
Confused legislation
India,
with the third highest dog population in the world, has some confused
legislation to deal with this problem. In 2001, the Ministry of Culture
issued the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, or the ABC rules, under
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 (PCA Act). According to
the ABC Rules, the population of street dogs must be controlled with
sterilisation surgeries and these dogs are to be released from where
they were caught.
However, these ABC Rules contravene the PCA Act in
several places. Take Section 2(f) of the PCA Act, for instance, where an
owner of an animal “…includes not only the owner but also any other
person for the time being in possession or custody of the animal,
whether with or without the consent of the owner.” This means that once
municipal authorities and animal welfare organisations pick up free
roaming dogs from the streets (and these dogs are unclaimed by anyone),
they lawfully become the owners of those animals.
Further,
Chapter 3, subsection 11 of the PCA Act clearly lists the
responsibilities of owners and makes it an offence to “abandon any
animal in circumstances which render it likely that it will suffer pain
by reason of starvation or thirst”, or “wilfully” permit any animal that
is “affected with contagious or infectious disease or, without
reasonable excuse, permits any diseased or disabled animals… to die in
any street.”
By the logic of this subsection, the
biggest offenders under the PCA Act are the state and animal welfare
organisations themselves as they capture and then release dogs back on
the streets. While the ABC Rules are silent on who is ultimately
responsible for these animals, the PCA Act is clear.
There
are also contradictions within the ABC Rules. Subsection 7(9) states:
“…female dogs found to be pregnant shall not undergo abortion
(irrespective of stage of pregnancy) and sterilisation and should be
released till they have litter.” This means that the law meant to
control stray dog populations suggests that dogs should be born on the
streets!
Commendably,
India became one of the first countries globally to provide rights to
domestic animals so that they may be protected against cruelty. However,
the ABC Rules, in requiring the release of unclaimed dogs to an
unsupervised life on the streets where nobody is held responsible,
directly undermine the spirit and the letter of the law.
An exalted position
These self-contradictory
rules place street dogs in an administrative grey zone. They are not
owned by anyone but are not wildlife either. Municipal and State
authorities are duty-bound to control any animal, whether mosquitoes or
rats, that can spread diseases to humans (under various Municipal Acts).
However, ABC Rules prohibit the confinement or killing of dogs unless
they are mortally wounded or sick. But what is bizarre is that the rules
also forbid euthanising suspected rabid animals. Instead, they demand
that these dogs be kept in isolation till they die a “natural” but slow,
horrible death. Thus, neither people nor dogs are protected. Such an
exalted position is not given to any other animal in India.
This
extreme level of protection for dogs is unheard of even in countries
with strict animal welfare laws. The removal and euthanasia of unowned
dogs is routinely practised throughout the developed world. For example,
in 2013, the Humane Society of the U.S. euthanised 3.4 million unowned
dogs and cats. In the U.K., an owned dog that is considered dangerous
can be “destroyed” and the owner penalised or jailed. These laws accept
that the welfare of companion animals is best served in homes rather
than on the streets.
Belling the wrong dog
What
is the cost of the dog problem in India? Other than the terrible human
costs associated with direct and indirect fatalities, the treatment of
20 million bite cases annually runs to hundreds of crores of rupees, and
results in the loss of 38 million man-hours (2003 survey). A large
number of vehicle accidents result from collision with or avoidance of
dogs. The cost of the ABC programmes implemented across the country
alone runs into several crores, but this is just a drop in the bucket
compared to what it would actually cost to fix the problem.
The
ABC programme as implemented will not result in bringing down the dog
population in India for several reasons. One, it is logistically and
operationally challenging to sterilise 50 millions dogs. Two,
unsterilised dogs will always “spill over” into areas where
sterilisation has been done. Three, the infrastructure needed for such
large-scale surgical interventions do not exist. Instead, shady NGOs
currently keep and operate on dogs in deplorable conditions. These are
examples of real animal cruelty.
For more than a century, India has swung wildly between
wanton killing of dogs and extreme “pro-life” interventions. It has
never framed a rational, scientifically valid, and widely implementable
dog ownership or population control strategy. We need to make a
decision; to call dogs our best friends should mean that we don’t
abandon them on streets. The street is no place for a dog — both for the
welfare of humans as well as for dogs.
Abi T.
Vanak is Fellow, Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Programme, and
Fellow, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment.
Aniruddha Belsare is with the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, U.S. Meghna Uniyal, who
contributed to this article, is an independent legal researcher.
