Coomi Kapoor: A bizarre and unscientific policy is behind the menace of stray dogs all over India

By Dilip -
Experts estimate that barely 10 per cent of India’s dogs have been sterilised and immunised out of a possible 60 million....Being locked in during a pandemic has made me more conscious of the hazards of my environment, most notably the menacing stray dogs. A month back, I was mauled by a rabid dog in a park. The canine also bit a three-year-old child, two pet dogs and three security guards. On my neighbourhood WhatsApp group, there are several horror stories of elderly persons and children being bitten by stray dogs, apparently unusually frisky because their usual biscuit feeders were absent during the lockdown.

But in the eyes of the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), the victims are really the dogs. An AWBI circular actually comments that a person getting in the way of a dog “can be perceived as an example of provocation”. A dog which bites human beings repeatedly cannot necessarily be termed a nuisance and a vet is liable to be sued if he puts the biting dog to sleep at his master’s request. The consequence of such a perverse law is that some time back, the owner of a rabid Great Dane simply threw his dog over the Sunder Nagar nursery wall, where it bit and infected many other canines and humans. 

Citing AWBI rules, stray dog feeders frequently threaten residents who object to dog bowls at their doorsteps with an FIR charging “criminal intimidation’’. Small wonder that most Resident Welfare Associations are reluctant to tangle with the vocal and aggressive dog minders in their neighbourhood. Maneka Gandhi, the formidable animal rights activist, has almost single-handedly framed and still oversees the country’s bizarre policy for dogs for some two decades. Officialdom and her political superiors have discreetly distanced themselves, despite the impracticality and unscientific nature of programmes with a cavalier disregard for health issues and human suffering....
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/stray-dogs-india-coronavirus-pandemic-6524760/

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