RSS FeedsProving again how savage we are
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11 Mar
2007 |
Update (March 15, 2007): An article in The Pioneer titled Spectators to mass murders narrates some heart warming incidents of dogs saving the new born human babies when the babies were abandoned by their mothers. This article also addresses some issues raised by a few commentators here, for instance,
…the national electronic media began showing clips of the acts of stomach-turning cruelty on cowering dogs. Shockingly, a section of the local media not only made no mention of these, but began reporting cases of people being bitten by dogs and stating how dangerous to humanity the latter had become.
And also
A large number was killed most savagely. The carcasses of some indicated that their throats had been slit and they had been left to bleed to death gasping for breath, or that they had been electrocuted. Every face bore the stamp of unbearable agony. If this was horrifying, infinitely more so was what happened in Mandya where strays were caught, had their heads smashed or were injected with poisons which made them die writhing.
and
As the macabre festival of mass killings raged, I wondered whether any of the perpetrators had heard of such stories or read even a minuscule fraction of the voluminous literature on man-dog relationship that exists. Then I remembered that Bangalore has had, for years, people who had made the mass killing of stray dogs their lives’ mission. They now seemed bent upon capitalising on the widespread shock and anguish caused by two grave tragedies to demand the scrapping of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme that the BBMP had been successfully implementing in collaboration with several non-governmental organisations to reduce the number of stray dogs in the city, and the resumption of mass killing, which had been the practice until 1999.
And this exactly echoes the my view
While I am not surprised to see a sick fringe of society using every opportunity to press its savage agenda, I never expected the Government and municipal authorities of Karnataka leading the killing of stray dogs with such gusto. Nor did I expect people in authority at the Centre and in the States to remain silent spectators to the acts of horrifying cruelty that have taken place.
The previous post follows
Lack of progress often makes our thoughts and actions sub-human. We’re so used to being cruel to others and tolerating daily cruelties upon us that we’re almost numb to things happening around us or in our country. That’s why things like Nithari happen. That’s why inept governments like the present government come to power.
The insane killing of street dogs in Karnataka (especially in Bangalore) is not only appalling, it’s criminal too, and its horrifying to think that some people actually endorse such a barbarity. Despite the fact that our constitution says it’s criminal to be cruel to domestic as well as stray/wild animals, the officials in Karnataka are butchering street dogs like bloody maniacs. Whoever ordered such a campaign should either be arrested or dispatched to some mental asylum.
It all started when a pack of stray dogs killed a 4-year-old boy. Having a child I know this could be the worse nightmare parents could face and no doubt those parents must view all street dogs as demons, and it should come as no surprise if they or their near and dear ones want the dogs mercilessly killed. In their situation even I may react in the similar manner. But as people who are not close to the family we should know dogs didn’t kill the child as an act of mischief or criminal intent — only humans do that. Animals just react on their instinct, and it is really stupid to open Bedlam gates and let the psychos lose upon all dogs. They are being captured in a blood curdling manner and they are killed as if their pain is no pain.
I once had to call an NGO working for the welfare of street dogs (Friendicoes, Delhi) because there was a bitch in our locality who had just given birth to a few puppies and in a nervous state she was attacking all the kids of the locality. Since these people work for dogs so they cause the least trauma to the animal while capturing it. Still, the way that bitch wailed and protested, I kept crying for a long time for making that call. So you can just imagine what happens to a street dog when the municipality guys (who are anyway half-mad even when they are dealing with humans) catch it with their long poles and nooses.
In Karnataka they don’t even care whether they are killing the animals properly or not. Sometimes the throat is slit and the animal is let lose to bleed and die. Sometimes extremely poor quality of poison is given that prolongs the agonizing death for even days. On many occasions they throw many dogs into a deep pit, pour petrol on them and set them ablaze. Can you see any sense? What does it tell about us as a society?
Killing animals for a purpose is one thing and killing them inhumanly just because you can (or for some political reason it seems over there) is another. Whose fault is it that there are so many street dogs around? For years they have been talking about controlling the dog population but haven’t done much. There is so much garbage on our streets that stray dogs are bound to breed. Then, every Tom, Dick and Harry brings home a pet dog on a whim and then upon realizing that it is not that easy to keep a pet they abandon the dogs that eventually contribute to the escalation. Every descendent of a street dog was once a pet dog as street dogs are not natural animals unlike their counterparts in the wild. People should have to obtain a license to keep a pet and it should be criminal offence to abandon your dog just like that.
Neutralizing them is costly but that’s the only option we’ve got. The government wastes so much tax payers’ money on stupid populist schemes, why cannot it allocate a few hundred crores on this campaign? I’m sure it’ll be a one time investment, as once the population is controlled and once the necessary measures are taken to keep the streets free of litter and garbage and small time shops and restaurants are barred from throwing food in the open, the dog population will remain in check automatically. In the meantime, whoever is responsible for the current massacre shouldn’t go unpunished. It’ll be shameful for the country.
There have been at least three instances of children being ripped apart by street dogs in Bangalore alone! This is a very real problem that needs very real solutions.
The article you linked to proposes, as alternatives to culling, the following:
(a) vaccination against rabies; and
(b) neutering.
Firstly, the dogs that killed the children in Bangalore were NOT rabid, so I do not see how rabies vaccinations will help.
Secondly, does neutering a violent dog make it less violent? I don’t know. If it does, then I agree it would be better to neuter than cull.
However, I get the impression that neutering is only being suggested as a population control measure.
If that is the case, I cannot believe the sheer self-indulgence of people who are against the culling of street dogs in Banaglore.
are you a resident of Bangalore ? If so, you would know that venturing outside in the night is extremely dangerous, more due to the stray dogs and not crime. After working late nights, friends of mine have returned to the office from home, because there were too many ferocious dogs standing near the gate.
Once, around 11pm, I was walking with some friends when 2 street dogs lunged towards us, without any provocation. If you are so concerned about these dogs, keep them in your own home. The streets should be a safe place for the citizens of Bangalore and if that calls for removing these dogs, so be it.
Don’t know where you got your facts from or whether you live in Bangalore. It is not a good idea to pass judgements sitting in the comforts of your office or home somewhere far away without knowing what is the real situation.
Bangalore is the only city in India (or perhaps the world) where dogs have literally ripped apart little children. There have been several such attacks and 2 children have died with few more in critical condition.
In our own layout, dog population has suddenly exploded over the past year. There are a set of three dogs (2 puppies and their mother) who have made our front porch their home. Unlike what I knew of dogs earlier, these three are *completely* unafraid of humans. They jump on us when we bring groceries home and attack us when we try to reach for our shoes.
It is almost impossible to ride two wheelers even by 8 in the evening without being attacked by a pack of dogs.
That there is a sudden explosive growth in dog population in Bangalore is beyond doubt. Mind you, rabies is *not* the problem — attacks by dogs are.
I really cannot figure out the premise by which the ABC program is being thrust on us – How does what you do to the rear-end of a dog affect what it does with its front-end? As a sheep farmer in Australia commented, “The dingoes are killing our lambs; not f***ing them!”
Well, neutering does remove the source of testosterone, and therefore tames dogs, not to mention reduced the populaton. However, in this case the problem seems to be a lot bigger than that can be solved by neutering etc.
Too many assumptions – (1) neutering works (2) only male dogs bite. I had 3 neutered male dogs that used to go for each other’s throats (territorial fights) – I had to give them away to separate them.
Well, I guess you guys have no idea of what I’m trying to convey through the post. It’s not about the threat being less or it doesn’t matter if Bangalore dogs are ripping apart small children…I’m talking about the way the animals are being treated. I think it’s exactly this mentality that encourages such acts. Dogs is a people problem, and not dog problem. They shouldn’t have to pay for the stupidities of people. No matter how big the dog problem is, only the insane can justify the way they’re being killed.
And Janaki, when your 3 dogs fought, it was not their problem but yours. You didn’t know how to take proper care of them. Pets often resemble their owners’ behaviour.
That’s why I said I don’t know where you are getting your facts from. I live in Bangalore and watch almost every news channel and read a lot of newspapers in Bangalore. I have never come across any of these splendid details about “how the dogs are being killed.”
In Karnataka they don’t even care whether they are killing the animals properly or not. Sometimes the throat is slit and the animal is let lose to bleed and die. Sometimes extremely poor quality of poison is given that prolongs the agonizing death for even days. On many occasions they throw many dogs into a deep pit, pour petrol on them and set them ablaze. Can you see any sense? What does it tell about us as a society?
Looks like an imagination-gone-awry of jobless freak or a mischief-monger.
Oh yes! That would certainly be me
A jobless freak.
Well I think you would need to experience , how it feels being ripped apart by some ferocious rowdy set of animals. How are you forgiving “your dear Stray Dogs” for doing such menace.
And before making any such claims of barbaric murder to Dogs,” Please point to the actual news links”,so that your article get weight. Its painful to know that your empathy doesnot go with parents of those deceased children. I would say ypur reaction, rather seem sub-human to me.
I wonder if people would get so upset if the creatures being killed were rats. All mammals are evolutionarily quite close (after all, rats are favourite lab animals precisely because they’re so close to humans in things that matter), and unless you’re the sort of person who is vegetarian on principle (not on religious grounds), avoids leather, etc, I think it’s a bit hypocritical to protest the killing of dogs. Other animals are being killed — or brutally mistreated — all the time and nobody particularly cares.
True. Stray dogs on the street is a people-created problem. So what’s wrong when people try to fix it before it gets even worse? Are you saying since it is a people created problem that no one should do anything about it? My sole criticism is the standard answer for everything -
rabies problem – ABC
dogs attacking children – ABC
dog population control – ABC
Why is sterilizing such a silver bullet for every animal problem? Read my article on dogs on my blog so you can understand the nature of the problem and why ABC as a sole method of control will NEVER work. It has never worked anywhere; it has never been proven to work anywhere; nor does the WHO say it shuold be the way to control rabies or stray dogs. If you look at the people behind the whole family planning tamasha of the 70s and the people behind ABC now, you’ll find they are the same people. Have they moved to dogs because it didn’t work with humans???
@Rahul: Interesting point. I wonder why people don’t go on a killing spree when a group of dogs kills a kitten. Or I wonder why we don’t go on a killing spree when a group of protesters sets a bus on fire and kills school children. I wonder why we don’t go on a killing spree when psychopaths kill children. Going by your logic the Nithari guys shouldn’t have been arrested because children are anyway dying everyday and they are being mistreated everyday so why all this hullabaloo? Keep thinking.
@Janaki: I don’t really understand the point of your article. Do you mean to say stray dogs should be mercilessly killed because of all the attributes you’ve mentioned in your article? Where is this zeal when humans commit similar atrocities? You’ve almost humanized dogs with the way you’ve written your article
. The same mentality gave rise to Nazism, or for that matter the Gujarat riots — that’s how brutal killings are justified. Have you written about how we have completely screwed up our environment? Or is it because dogs don’t have words to express themselves so they are an easy target?
Having said that, I know stray dog problem is a drastic situation and needs to be tackled ASAP. It’s just that I don’t agree with the method and the attitude.
Although I’m not advocating killing, there’s something called euthanasia which means putting an animal down humanely. The Humane society of the US has a manual on how to do this. The argument is not whether to kill or not to kill. The argument is whether we all share the same vision for our stray dogs (and cities) – that strays do not belong on the streets. If we agree, then you need a multi-pringed strategy. No. 1 is pet licensing. The main contributors to the street dog population are abandoned dogs, unwanted puppies that are left on the roads, parks, highways, wherever. Healthy pets breed like rabbits; diseased half starved animals don’t, whether there is garbage or not. You cannot control stray dogs by ABC alone or euthanizing/killing alone. You need to do several things ALL AT THE SAME TIME to make it viable.
If my dogs which are well-fed, (I think well-looked after although you obviously would cast aspersions on that) outdoors dogs with ample space to run around are so perverted by me, how do you expect stray dogs, which are half-starved, diseased, abused, in some cases crippled and traumatized, to behave?
PS If you read my article about the gharial you’ll find I have dealt with how we screw our environment and are dooming several riverine species in one shot.
Amrit,
I’m sorry for all the flak you’re receiving.
I agree that the underlying issue and the point you’re trying to make is the way we treat animals. As anybody who’s been around dogs knows, it takes a lot to break a dog’s spirit. As a species, dogs are forgiving, despite the intentional / unintentional abuse heaped on them.
Neutering and spaying would cut down on overpopulation and territorial aggression. I think pet owners should take the first step toward responsibility by spaying / neutering their own pets first.
@Janaki: I’m sorry if I sounded judgemental regarding your dogs. I know it came out wrong. I don’t want to go on and on and to a point I understand your attitude, and I also understand that the problem needs to be solved…but in a more humane way — just as we expect it when we’re in trouble. Imagine how you’ll feel when you’re targeted ruthlessly just because you are you. Unlike humans, whatever animals do — perverted or not perverted — has a reason, whatever it is. Now, I’m not saying don’t kill the dogs even if they are coming at you. I’ve been persistently saying here, the problem is with the attitude, not with the killing of dogs. Street dogs are a human problem.
@Terry: Thanks Terry. The flak is fine. We all have our opinions. I wrote something and some people didn’t agree with it, that’s all. Debate is a sign of vibrant society. Cute dog, by the way
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Wow Amrit. People seems to be just incensed by your post. I completely see your POV. I personally wouldn’t mind culling BUT with minimum possible pain and efficiency AND proactive approach to avoid such things in future. If people need to experience to feel how it feels to be ripped by dog, they also need to experience to feel how it feels to be burned alive. Surely humans are superior, but we cannot show superiority by being barbaric ourselves.
This seems a bit ridiculous (I didn’t intend to sound personal or cause offence; apologies if they were) – Amrit and I aren’t really speaking in 2 voices. We are saying more or less the same thing but from different points of view. We do agree something needs to be but the brutality is sadistic and criminal. The authorities don’t seem to have the ability to euthanize for various political and practical reasons. Both of us are saying that irresponsible dog ownership is to blame so (I’m saying) while ABC may work for pets, it’s totally futile to grab the millions of strays for ABC. ABC is not the panacea for all the problems concerning strays. And as long as we have an ineffective dog control program such as this, you are going to see people’s attitude towards them being hostile. So to change attitudes you need a program that addresses people’s concerns and fears. Back to square one. Am I making sense?
Amrit, I live in Bangalore and can vouch what you say is true. There are enough videos, photographs of inhuman and illegal catching, killing and dumping of dogs in the most barbaric fashion. Don’t bother about the dog haters, people even supported Hitler. Removing/Euthanising diseased/rabid/ferocious dog, controlling dog population by ABC, effective garbage disposal which means NO garbage on street, ARV, adoption, more govt shelters is the way out and not just start killing. WHO has noted that killing does not render results, ABC does though it takes some time to show drastic results as 80% of the dogs would be required to be sterlized.
Let me clarify that last bit – you need to get to 70% of the total population WITHIN 6 MONTHS for ABC to be effective – not a few thousand in one locality this year, a bit more in another locality next year as is happening now. Also please consider we DO NOT know what the mortality rate is after these animals are released. Some NGOs release the females within 48 hours of the operation. When a neutered male in released back into its territory and its neighbour is an intact male, what happens to the status quo? What happens to the dominance hierarchy among sterilized and non-sterilized females? It’s debatable whether it is doing any good to the welfare of the animal when you take it, put it at a disadvantage by neutering it and then return it to fight with its neighbours for its space under the sun. Do you think a recovering female 48 hours after her operation is in a fit condition to keep her territory? There is no post-operation, post-release monitoring taking place anywhere to know what the hell is going on. There are too many unanswered questions and yet this is the National Policy – sole method of controling the stray population in India.
Besides in lots of places, people do not want the sterilized dogs back. So what does the van driver do? Release it elsewhere – where he doesn’t get stoned or lynched. What happens to the basic premise of ABC then – that the animals are returned to their territories to prevent other dogs from taking it over? If you do not release the animal back when it came from or it dies because of post-op compliactions, then it is equal to removing the animal from its territory and this is the reason the animal welfare orgs were criticizing the killing policy (besides the brutality of course). I’m yet to see how these dogs are identified as coming from Sardar Patel Road and not Mahatma Gandhi Road. The only id they have is a punched ear hole that says they have been neutered.
Also please consider this – if someone feeds a stray dog (I know several people who feed up to 40 strays in their locality every day) he/she is teaching the dog to equate humans with food. Let’s say this person goes out of town for a few days and there is no one to feed the animals; a child walks down that road eating biscuits. What do the dogs do? What if the child refuses?
I think the media has to be blamed more and more for the atrocious things they show. Why can’t it see that showing positive things can actually make them more popular? Why not hype up animals saving human lives?
The brutality shown by people on defenseless animals is appalling. Makes me sick. Of course the death of the poor innocent children is also too much to take. Enter our cruel, illogical mentality – can’t punish the ones who did it? Let’s punish everyone. Look at Godhra. Case in point.
Its too depressing.
[...] Right. These days the BMP is klling stray dogs. This has a lot of animal lovers unhappy, leading to many anguished blogposts (two examples here and here). And inevitably these posts attract commentors who shrilly and hysterically go ‘But don’t you know that stray dogs are killing children? Are you more worried about dogs or children?’ Practically the only thing missing is the actual statement ‘Will someone please think of the children?‘ [...]