Sharing rotis with cows, dogs or birds before you eat yours is a principle that many Indians follow. Living harmoniously with animals naturally comes with defined boundaries. They do not enter your house and you take care of their basic food needs.
However, in the last 2-3 decades, the way we live has dramatically changed. We no longer have houses with lawns and boundary walls. Most of us live in dense urban pockets with small common areas. These lead to conflicts, including defining the boundary beyond which animals become a safety threat and bring down the health and hygiene standards. Children need these common spaces to play, adults including the elderly and disabled to walk, and the community to hold common events.
Stray dogs in these areas are bound to raise safety and health risks. Most communities have a policy requiring pet owners to bring out their dogs on leash. But stray dogs run around and defecate anywhere, and can bite even when unprovoked. Add to this the fact that human activities are now round-the-clock in urban areas, unlike rural areas where outdoor activities are limited at night.
The problem escalates when dog feeders enter the picture. They raise money for feeding dogs, which is directly proportional to the number of canines they feed. They may bring dogs from all around to their vicinity. Once the population reaches beyond what an area can hold, these dogs can be a menace. Several videos of fatal stray-dog attacks from across the country are available online. No feeders take responsibility for cleaning the litter they create. They are often vehemently against moving dogs to state-owned shelters, where all kinds of facilities are available on public money. Is the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) simply outsourcing their work to NGOs? If relocation of dogs is an illegal activity, what about feeders relocating dogs to their vicinity? AWBI has only a handful of approved care-takers and representatives listed on their website. Why this gap?
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In 2024, 22 lakh dog bite cases were reported, that included 5 lakh children and 37 deaths, not counting the unreported cases. Karnataka alone has seen more than 1 lakh dog bite cases and 12 deaths in the first three months of 2025. Many of these come from areas that have active dog-feeding carers. Can you imagine the agony of those bitten by a dog when they are forced to face the same dog every day? Victims and their families must live with this trauma.
Dog feeders are well organised with ample funding, their appeals often raising substantial sums on crowdfunding platforms. This gets them legal aid to file cases against anyone who tries to engage with them. Women feeders have at times threatened false cases, taking advantage of their gender. It is a full-time profession for them while the impacted citizens are typically middle-class, tax-paying families, with young children, elderly parents and demanding jobs. They struggle to file complaints even when dogs are fed right outside their doorsteps.
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In this era of dog love, real and perceived, where are the human rights of those whose security is threatened? Is the right to live in a clean neighbourhood not a basic human right? Do children not have the right to play peacefully without the fear of bites? How does one deal with a pack of dogs that pounces upon you when you return home after a late night at work? When they howl together at midnight, none can sleep peacefully. The basic human right to life, safety and liberty is violated. What if one fears dogs, for whatever reasons?
No human can touch another human without their permission; but letting the dog lick you is what dog activists expect from others. To adopt a human baby there is a lengthy process that rightfully assesses the financial, emotional and mental well-being of the adopter to be able to take care of the baby. Dogs, now treated as babies by dog parents, can be adopted just like that and then forced upon neighbours. Humans can face a legal case if they hurt a dog even in self-defence, but there is no recourse for humans bitten by dogs. Rabies is still fatal.
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Dog menace complaints come under the purview of the AWBI, whose mandate is animal welfare only. Human welfare is not their domain. Bodies like human rights commissions, child and women welfare boards, and civic society representatives need to be mandatorily a part of the decisions made by the AWBI, so that the human angle is not ignored. Courts and policy makers need to look at the new-age gated communities when they give policy mandates. Animal birth control measures need to be implemented on a war footing.
Till then, can dogs be removed from residential societies, schools and hospitals for safety and health reasons, and from public offices where a lot of new people visit every day? In the process of being the voice of voiceless, are animal activists choosing to ignore the pained voices of their own species? Have human rights gone to the dogs? Can we claim them back?
First Published in The New Indian Express on 13 April 2025.
