E-Paper
Hoping Your Lordships will listen to us
This article is authored by Rukmini Sekhar, writer and activist who has written extensively on animal rights.
The community dogs of Delhi and the rest of India are going through the hardest time of their lives. After years of living peacefully on the streets, tended to by caregivers and feeders, sterilised and vaccinated, they are literally facing the wrong end of the stick for no fault of theirs.
On August 22, 2025, there was a hard-won victory that gave compassionate society some relief. A bench of three judges of the Supreme Court ruled that all community dogs would not be rounded up en masse and put into pounds. To call these pounds a place where dogs would be fed, cared for and treated humanely would be a lie. On the contrary, lakhs of healthy and happy dogs would be shoved into black holes of neglect and hopelessness that they can never come out of. The unscientific suo moto order of August 11, 2025 delivered by a Supreme Court judge, prompted by inaccurate media reporting raised an enormous public outrage and was thankfully overturned.
The community dogs of India thank you, Your Lordships, for saving them from a fate worse than death. But unfortunately, the victory is perceived to be only partial because of the ambiguities in the same order. These are regarding the feeding of community dogs on the street and the removal of so called ‘aggressive’ dogs. The anti-dog squad consisting mainly of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and individuals are jumping on these ambiguities and illegally beating up feeders and relocating and killing community dogs. If street dogs cannot be fed on the streets, then where else? Waiting for the Municipal Corporation to visit lakhs of feeders in the NCR to put up feeding boards is a lost cause. Starving and dislocated dogs become biting dogs. Common sense? Yes.
Repeated visuals of violent manhandling of caregivers in the NCR are surfacing as do the arbitrary picking up of sterilised dogs, contrary to earlier laws, with no signs of the administration stepping in to stop this. This is totally counter-productive to the ABC (Animal Birth Control) and rabies eradication programme which the Court itself wants escalated. We hope Your Lordships will make a note of this.
Though there was always a subterranean tension between pro and anti-community dog factions, the situation was largely under control because of earlier laws which were in favour of science and compassion. But in March 2025, all hell broke loose when the Delhi administration declared that the streets of Delhi were to be cleared of all community dogs, calling them a 'menace,' a word which has now swelled into a chorus. This is a proven unscientific step and bound to ricochet and affect humans and animals alike.
The media jumped into the act and ought to shoulder a fair portion of the blame for this current impasse caused by irresponsible reporting, fudged data on dog bites and rabies, and horrific AI generated visuals of dog attacks which plays in continuous loops on TV and social media channels.
The behemoth called the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) should be investigated for dereliction of duty. Whose head is it that should roll for the abject failure of ABC rules in Delhi for which innocent community dogs are now facing the guillotine? Municipal corporations all over India should come under stringent public accountability and ABC centres must be reviewed closely for any kind of malfeasance.
There is certainly the reality of some dogs that bite and of rabies cases occurring. Human safety must be accorded importance and the public must feel secure. However, the figures and data are wrongly inflated and flung about, causing fear and panic amongst the public. The problem of bites can be scientifically managed and rabies eradicated with sustained political will. Examples of successful urban community dog management are aplenty if only there was a will to study and implement it. Antagonising feeders, who are at the core of community dog management is not the solution.
Dogs do not bite in a planned and premeditated way. When it is complete insanity and near-sightedness to remove all dogs from the streets, when uneducated mobs prevent feeding and dislocate dogs, humans are myopically extending invitations to a range of consequences which will ultimately harm not just dogs but humans themselves. Then you will remember our hardy, loving and loyal Indie dogs.
The Court has issued an interim order. There will be another hearing after seven weeks. We implore Your Lordships to factor in all the available scientific expertise to implement a clearly worded and permanent and feasible community dog management programme that controls numbers and rabies and allows urban animals and their caregivers to live peacefully. Clearly worded so that this unnecessary upheaval, highly stressed and anxious state of affairs can be put to rest.
Let sleeping dogs lie is not a hollow dictum. All they are asking for is mere survival and two feet of earth to rest their weary heads.
This article is authored by Rukmini Sekhar, writer and activist who has written extensively on animal rights.
