Visitors to India are often shocked by the contrasts they see on our streets. There is extreme wealth visible — even more than before as conspicuous consumption has increased over the last decade of big diamonds and bigger weddings— but there is also extreme poverty.
How, they ask, can we go blithely about our lives, ignoring the people who sleep on our pavements, the small children forced to work to survive, and the physically disabled individuals who thrust the stumps of their arms or legs forward as they beg for a living?
There are answers to these questions and we give them all the time. Yes, India has always been a land of contrasts. And yes, poverty exists in the country, but it’s much less than before and we have the figures to prove it. And so on.
While these responses may make logical sense, they don’t really address the fundamental question many Western visitors have about the Indian middle class: have we been so brutalised by the misery we see every day that we’ve learned to blind ourselves to suffering? Have we become immune to horrifying poverty and deprivation? Why doesn’t the Indian middle class step out and do something about the tragedies unfolding on our streets?
To that, we finally have an answer.
India’s middle class has spent the past few days shedding tears for the suffering of street dwellers. We have demonstrated on the roads of our cities. We have railed against the authorities who have let things get to this stage. We have pledged to help to make things better. It is our duty, we say, to prevent an even greater tragedy by fighting for the rights of those on the streets to live with freedom and dignity.
Brutalised? Immune to the suffering around us? Certainly not. We care and our hearts have been deeply touched.
But here’s the thing. We are not crying for people. We are weeping for dogs.
Also read: How Lucknow, Dehradun, Vadodara are fixing their street dog problem
No one’s denying the problem on streets
Before we go any further, a few clarifications. I do not believe we should mistreat animals — and that extends beyond dogs, though I probably draw the line at street rats. I do not support any measure that would cause pain or suffering to street dogs. I respect the sentiments of those protesting the Supreme Court order on Delhi’s street dogs, and I understand their point that the solutions suggested by the court may be impractical and could cause the animals harm.
I also accept that the time has come for us to do something about street dogs. According to The Times of India, over 10,000 people in the country get bitten by dogs every day. India has among the highest number of rabies deaths (305), nearly double the figure for China, which is number two on the list.
However, the newspaper claims this official figure may be an underestimation. The real number could be close to 18,000. And the problem is increasing. The number of dog bite incidents came down during Covid, but has more than doubled since then.
So, you would have to be nuts to deny that there is a serious problem. Most sensible people who object to the Supreme Court judgment do not dispute that the problem needs to be fixed. They just think that the court has written out the wrong prescription.
For instance, Shekhar Gupta, ThePrint Editor-in-Chief, tweeted: “Societies/cities have tried methods way more brutal than our hon’ble Supreme Court to ‘banish’ stray dogs. They’ve all failed. Here, a picture from Karachi where it’s routinely done. Solutions lie in urban reform, sterilisation and empathy. Not retributive mass brutality.” He included a picture of a row of dead dogs to illustrate his concerns.
I take his point. There may be much better ways of saving people from dog bites and the scourge of rabies and we should explore and examine them.
In my experience, you don’t find as many stray dogs in European and American cities. But Bangkok and some other Asian cities have gone through similar public controversies while trying to cope with street dogs (or Soi Dogs as they call them). I am not sure that the Thais have found the right answer yet, but my own sense (based on anecdotal evidence and personal experience rather than any data) is that it is now less dangerous to walk on Bangkok’s streets than it was a decade ago; and it’s certainly less dangerous than Delhi. And judging by the figures I have seen, Delhi is not even the centre of the problem. Maharashtra has many more dog bite cases than the national capital.
So let’s agree on a minimum agenda. Ignore all those who say that nothing needs to be done and street dogs should roam free even if they bite thousands of people every day. But let’s respect those who argue that we must try and find a solution that is humane but still works.
Also read: Stray dogs have the right to live. SC order can trigger a wave of animal cruelty
Don’t forget who and what we ignore
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go back to where we started. What is it about the Indian middle class that makes us largely immune to human suffering, yet drives us to tears of anger when we hear of the suffering of dogs? And it’s just dogs. If the authorities were to round up the pigs that roam the streets of so many of our cities, I doubt we would hear a peep from the dog protesters. Likewise with buffaloes.
Why does the middle class not feel as deeply about the homeless people who live on the same streets as the dogs? Why do we find it easier to fight for dogs than the humans who exist at the margins of our society?
And that’s before we get into politics. Many of the people assailing the humanity of those who want to act against stray dogs could not even find Manipur on a map, let alone care about the lakhs of people whose lives have been destroyed over the past two years or the thousands who have been killed in the conflict. Are human lives worth less than dogs’ lives simply because they are lost far away from us?
Why do people who complain that our municipalities are incapable of offering proper shelter to dogs not worry about the pathetic shelter offered to refugees and victims of political persecution? Why don’t they worry about the brutal ways in which migrants are rounded up and thrown out of their cities? Why, for so many years, did the middle class turn a blind eye to the suffering of the Kashmiri Pandits who lost their homes to ethnic cleansing? Why do we look away when we hear stories about state governments bulldozing people’s homes on the flimsiest of pretexts? Why have we stopped paying attention to stories about men being lynched on suspicion of transporting beef?
I could go on but I think you get the point.
I am no one to be judgmental about others. I belong to the same middle class and I am also guilty of callous neglect.
But when you see the uproar about dogs, don’t you ever stop to think if our self-obsessed middle class has got to the stage where dogs matter more than people?
Let’s fight to treat dogs humanely. But let’s not forget the humans who are routinely denied their rights and their dignity.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist, and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
Why should the onus of alleviating the sufferings of the homeless, migrants, refugees or the victims of political persecution lie on the middle class only?
Human misery and suffering across the globe has largely been caused by humans themselves. Only a fraction of it could be attributed to animals.
To me, love for animals transcends class and all voices of harmonious coexistence should be encouraged and applauded.
The ” middle class’s “spontaneous outcry in the defence of the voiceless is not a binary either.
Bro, it’s not about dogs please. It’s the power of NGOs over our topmost institutions like Supreme Court, Parliament, media etc. Just imagine the power of NGOs which compelled Supreme Court to review it’s decision about stray dogs within two days on emergency. Remember Tigar Memon, ? Remember how CJI was pulled out of live public event to facilitate bail for Teesta? But question is why ? The short answer may be “To keep Indians and their topmost institutions engaged in trivial issues .
The big difference is that Dogs cant speak for themselves while humans can and Dogs are more faithful than humans
There is a simple reason. Fighting for dogs is easy as they dont place any demands on you or prick your conscience with their humane stories . Fighting for fellow humans needs personal sacrifices that most middle class will not like to take.
No, it doesn’t, Headline should be, it matters most to fake Elite people of Tier-1 cities, with emotional and even psychological problems…
Have you seen any protest outside Metro cities, in tier -2,3 cities? No… because they have balanced views…
You won’t see them crying like child over these reasons, these are all Papa ki Pari type people…Sorry for my rant…but that’s the truth…
These people will not give any solution, they will not help in finding path, they just want a reason to candle march and rasta bandha…
Being dog lover, showing empathy towards them doesn’t mean you show apathy towards little children who lost their lives or gets scars for rest of their lives….
Sane voices should prevail.
Disagreeing with you. I think it is the rich and upper class people like you who have this fantasy of being a dog saviour. Most middle class people bear the brunt of these stray dog attacks resulting in death and more than that it results in the fear of moving on foot around the locality. Blaming everything on middle class is nothing but shifting blame. See the supporters commenting against the stray dogs shelter scheme, you will know whether they are from middle class or any other class. I understand it is easy to blame the middle class as they don’t have a star voice. Or what I understand is that now even the rich in India are called middle class , which means we need to call the current middle class as lower class as per your dictionary
Middle class wants a smaller problem to deal with. Stray dogs are a smaller problem than homeless humans.
It’s interesting how local and regional leadership is unable to solve even basic local problems.
You got your classification wrong. Majority of the ones “weeping” for the stray dogs are not from “middle class”, they are either from the “upper middle class” or rich. And you are not ‘middle class either!
You raised the right question but failed to provide the answer. Here is the answer- ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ is at play here. As per this model of motivation, Indian Middle Class, having all its ‘lower needs’ like Physiological, Safety, Love & Belonging and Esteem (in that order only) taken care of, are using the so called “dog-love” for their ‘Higher Needs” to be satiated. That is why only middle class champion this dubious cause and not poor who are still struck in the mesh of their ‘lower needs’. At best so called Dog love is a Quirk and at worst it is nothing more than Goondagardi. Please check those threatening audio clips on google of a certain female neta, to those who dared to oppose the Stray Dogs. There are Dog Lover gangs in each Delhi tony colony willing to resort to physical violence at the drop of a hat. Here, a more logical question (s) to ask is : Are Dogs in India an endangered species or a food delicacy like chicken or generally hated (like snakes) by people.? Obvious answer is -NO. Hence the conclusion: Dog Love is a quirk and a personal psychological/Social requirement of elites of India. Dogs need protection from Dog lovers and not Dog Victims.
what you have said is absolutely correct.
we are in the practice of oppressing people since the thousands of years. The existence of an oppressive, exploitative, tyrannical and inhuman caste system in the society has trained us to be inhuman towards the downtrodden – they are the downtrodden because of us. The existence of caste system since thousands of years have established beyond any doubt that the Indian society is the most violent society on earth.