Dogs, monkeys and disability rights

Civil Society News, New Delhi

MATTERS pertaining to dangers emanating from snappy street dogs continue to do the rounds of the courts with monkeys now being added to the complaints by citizens.

So, what is happening to Indian cities? Polluted, congested, strewn with garbage and now overrun by animals, it would appear.

A petition before the Delhi High Court has sought protection for the rights of disabled people who have to contend with domestic and stray animals, companion animals and livestock like cows in the streets.

It has been brought to the court’s notice that people with visual impairment who use canes run the risk of upsetting animals such as dogs who attack them. It is ditto with monkeys which have been hanging around in public places, including hospital premises such as the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The petitioners say that the rights of disabled people are being infringed upon because they cannot move around freely and are incapable of defending themselves when attacked. Can the rights of animals to occupy public places supersede those of disabled people is the question being asked.

But the problem of stray animals, particularly stray dogs, flows from the Animal Birth Control Rules or ABC Rules as they are known.

The lawyer appearing for the disabled underlined that the ABC Rules don’t address the rights of the disabled. The lawyer, Rahul Bajaj, is visually impaired himself.

The Delhi High Court’s response has been sympathetic towards the disabled but the judges have gone further to question urban management and the quality of life in Indian cities.

Said the judges: “The city has been taken over; nowhere in the world will you find a whole city taken over by dogs and monkeys. Today it is impossible to walk on the main streets. Try taking your pet out for a walk and the strays will attack you.”

“There is a misplaced public sympathy and a notion of love for these animals. People who claim to be animal lovers are going about it in the wrong manner. Strays have taken over public parks. Can children go to play there? It is a genuine problem, and we cannot have this situation where children are bitten by stray animals and cannot play in parks,” Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela said.

“A person with disability also has a fundamental right to move on the main streets without being attacked by the strays. Let’s not go to the other extreme that only dogs and monkeys will have a right over the city and not citizens,” the judges said.

The judges also called out NGOs who campaign for animal rights, saying they “owe a duty to respect the rights of those with disabilities”.

The court directed the chief secretary of Delhi to convene a meeting of all concerned and seek a solution. The outcome of the meeting was awaited as we went to press.

These ABC Rules make it impossible to remove a stray dog from the streets, even if it bites someone. It also allows public feeding of dogs in public places.

The rules were framed by Maneka Gandhi when she was culture minister in 2001. In a somewhat bizarre turn, the rules violate the very law under which they were framed — the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.

The PCAA specifically penalizes failure to provide an animal with food, water and shelter. It also prohibits the abandoning of dogs and other animals in the streets where they might suffer. Nor can a diseased animal be allowed to roam or die in the streets.

The law says animals should not be out on the streets, and they should be picked up and put in shelters and, further, can be put to sleep if required.  But the Rules say the opposite, that stray dogs cannot be removed from locations they occupy.  

The reason for this contradiction has never been adequately explained. But it has resulted in the Indian capital becoming the rabies capital of the world.

Innumerable children have been killed in stray dog attacks and dog bite numbers keep rising. People feel terrorized by strays and animal activists emboldened by the Rules push ordinary citizens around.

The Supreme Court brought all stray dog matters under itself. But after 14 years, innumerable petitions and more than 100 hearings, all it did was send petitioners back to the high courts.

The disability issue was raised in the Supreme Court itself at the time of the final hearing by Bajaj, which was impactful because of his own impairment. But, instead of taking it up, the apex court offered no response.

It is the ABC Rules that keep the issue in the courts when municipalities should be allowed to deal with stray animals and make public spaces safer for citizens, people who approach the courts say. Municipalities that have wanted to act have been restrained.

While ordinary citizens, particularly the poor families who have lost children, have no recourse to justice, animal rights activists seem to have ample funds to hire lawyers and engage in protracted litigation, raising the question of who benefits from dogs being on the streets.

Many activists are backed by international NGOs in whose countries strays are put in pounds and, if they aren’t adopted within a stipulated time, are euthanized.

The first case was filed around 20 years ago by Dr E. Menezes, a Goan paediatrician who attended a child whose nose had been bitten off by a stray dog. So moved was he by that case that he gathered like-minded Goans who felt the stray dog problem had to be dealt with.

In all these years it hasn’t and is seen to have worsened. The ABC Rules which stipulate birth control have clearly not worked. The number of stray dogs has been rising, as have attacks.