Loyal companions, ferocious canines, loved by few and mistreated by most, Delhi’s stray dogs are a neglected lot. Whether it be people mercilessly hurting strays, unethical use of animals by breeders, or abuse in the name of festivals, animal cruelty makes headlines around the world on a daily basis. Moreover, a wave of apathy and disdain has engulfed the public regarding the canine population as scores of videos of agitated street dogs mauling people make the rounds on social media. Street dogs are increasingly being exterminated or shipped out by civic authorities and citizens alike.
In a dedicated move to curb such acts of violence and abuse meted out to stray dogs, the Parliament of India passed the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act in the year 1960, which renders acts of animal torture and cruelty punishable, warranting imprisonment and fines on offenders. The act enshrined the formation of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), a statutory advisory body responsible for advising the Government on animal welfare issues, ensuring grants and forming laws.
Subsequently, The union government promulgated the 2001 Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme that mandated the sterilisation and immunisation of stray dogs to regulate their surging population. The rules were revised and notified in the year 2023 owing to its inefficacy and piecemeal implementation since 2001. ABC rules have now issued guidelines for local bodies, municipalities, municipal corporations, panchayats and Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) for conducting anti-rabies and controlled breeding programmes in ABC centres in a bid to reduce unnatural deaths and the spread of disease among dogs. The rules unambiguously declare ‘street dogs’ as ‘community dogs’, having inalienable rights to being fed in private and public areas.
The Reality Rankles
Canines are voiceless. Their needs are unheard of, conveniently reduced to lengthy court judgments, never transpiring to reality. Even though the MCD is legally bound to shelter strays, the civic body holds no accurate record of the number of street dogs in Delhi, rendering any action-oriented to maintain their population ineffective. While India’s livestock census pegged the number of street dogs in Delhi at 60,000 in 2012, no recent estimates are available to map the number of dogs in the national capital. In March 2023, it was reported that MCD is set to conduct Delhi’s first community dog census in 14 years (the last being in 2009). The results are yet to be released.
Time and again, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been lackadaisical in its approach to sheltering, sterilising and safeguarding the animal rights of the massive stray population in Delhi. Ayesha Christina, the CEO of Neighbourhood Woof, an ABC centre in Delhi, shared, “Our ABC centre is drained of resources. We rely on donations for our LED OT lights, medical equipment and supplies. Our dues have not been cleared by the municipality. We get very little funds to perform sterilisation. In some centres, the dogs are denied proper medical care and left out in the open with unhealed wounds. Some places surpass the accommodation limits with many dogs bundled together in overcrowded spaces. ABC centres urgently need to be evaluated and refurbished with better infrastructural facilities and funds.”
A Saga of Brutalities and Neglect
As the Covid 19 pandemic exerted its relentless toll on the globe, stray animals suffered from extreme starvation with no feeders and leftover food from restaurants to sustain them. Pet owners abandoned their animals for fear of contracting the virus; while some strays succumbed to summer heat, others were run over by overspeeding vehicles on near-empty roads.
The neglect borne by strays was only further exacerbated with the recent Yamuna floods in Delhi when thousands of street animals drowned and were stranded in the swollen waters of the river. While the MCD failed to rescue strays, volunteers across NCR joined hands with NGOs like Life for Strays and braved the waters to evacuate animals to safety.
“Different teams had been deployed at the affected areas to evacuate dogs, cats and cows and take them to either shelters or dry land,” Anjana Passi from Friendicoes, an Animal Welfare Organization based in Delhi, told me. Due to the abysmally low number of animal shelters, volunteers contacted trusted families and their network of friends to identify people who could foster dogs.
Yet again, with the G20 summit in September 2023, the state machinery of Delhi went into a frenzy of rounding up hundreds of strays and erasing their existence from plain sight. It has been alleged that multiple provisions of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, have been flouted in a desperate attempt to clean the city of strays.
Mansi Rautela, Cofounder of Wagging Tales Foundation, a charitable trust for animal welfare, shared, “As the G20 summit approached, we learnt that the MCD officials have picked up blind and elderly dogs and kept them in shelters that lack sufficient watering bowls, food and ventilation. The dogs were picked up ruthlessly with nooses around their necks, manhandled and badly injured. They were removed in a clandestine manner, in the dead of the night and dropped off to a different locality, leading to conflict over territoriality and aggression among resident dogs.”
“So we started rescuing as many strays as possible, kept them in our own self-funded shelters as a precautionary measure, and later released them. Had the MCD wanted to sterilise the dogs, they would have done it much sooner, abiding by rightful procedure. Why did they haphazardly capture the dogs right before the summit?” Mansi asks.
While the MCD has denied these allegations, branding them as “highly exaggerated”, what has been made remorsefully clear is that there exists a yawning gap, a lacuna, between the formulation of policy and its subsequent implementation. With only a mere proportion of funds trickling down to the grassroot level, effective maintenance and protection of stray animals remains a pipedream.
Menace Vs. Management – The Way Forward
Today, India’s long-standing canine reverence has been questioned as we deal with a longstanding issue that has run rampant unabated. Where should the street dogs go? Mass cullings that have become a much sought-after retaliatory action against dogs are inhumane and violate their rights. Haphazard removal of dogs from their habitat during the public events of Independence Day or, be it, Republic Day, to ostensibly clear the roads are counterproductive. We need to understand the caveats and the complexities of India’s dog problem.
Ayesha Christina shares what she feels must be done to control the stray population in Delhi without hurting animals, “The MCD must provide sufficient isolation vans and kennels for carrying rabid dogs to contain the further spread of the infection. Repeated complaints of dog bite cases in a locality must be plotted on a map so that sterilisation efforts can be targeted in the entire region, not just a particular street. We must extensively use the Smart City 311 app, which can follow the movement of a stray dog from the time of its pickup to its release post sterilisation. It will help us ensure that dogs are relocated to the same region from where they were taken. ABC rules are well formulated. If they are implemented in robust partnership with dog caretakers, and not in opposition, I think that would yield remarkable results “
Today, as our country takes unparalleled steps towards progress and glory, it is crucial we remember the endeavours our forefathers made to ensure India’s inclusive and participatory growth. The spirit of coexistence between all living beings is effectively codified in India’s constitution, which implores compassion for animals. Article 48A of the Directive Principle of State Policy lays down –
“The State shall endeavor to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country.”
It is about time we build a uniform redressal mechanism in close cooperation with welfare-oriented bodies to attenuate the human-canine conflict. Stray animals are a social responsibility. Little can be done unless we join hands as a community that protects the spirit of animal care and embraces the stray population as living beings entitled to protection and rights.
Featured image is for representational purposes only.
This story has been written as part of the My City Writers’ Training Program.