On Dogs Lovers and Power Illiteracy

Stray dogs protecting their turf (Pic source: DNA 14Dec17)

I have always found it difficult to understand the dynamics and the power of "Noble Intentions". How is it that when two sets of well meaning people, both trying in their own way to create a better society, end up making it more dysfunctonal?

Let me illustrate this with an example: stray dogs in our cities. 

Most people are wary of stray dogs, and see them as a threat, and a health hazard, while there is another set of folks, the 'Dog Lovers' who see nothing wrong in having stray dogs share our roads, parks and public spaces. If anybody gets bitten it is because they 'provoked' the dog, and therefore deserved what they got. 

Does their love for dogs extend to other animals as well? Not quite. Nobody would raise a finger, let alone filing a police case, if a harmless rat snake was beaten to pulp, or if pigs drowned in the sewers. But dogs? They are a 'man's best friend', and therefore, special.

Quite unlike the folks who get bitten on the streets, the Dog Lovers are superbly networked, and well organised. They are loud and vocal; they have the ready attention of not only the local newsreporters but also the sympathies of the Supreme Court. So when they take up cudgels on behalf of the strays, filing police reports against those who are violent towards stray dogs, naming and shaming people, all that the opposition can do is to roll over, and play dead.

How did the Dog Lovers come to weild so much power and influence? Why does our overstretched police force take on the unikely role of protecting stray dogs? The answer is simple: the law requires them to do so. 

As per Indian law, street dogs cannot be beaten, killed or driven away or displaced or dislocated. Under the Animal Birth Control (ABC Dogs) Rules, 2001  enacted under Section 38 of the Indian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 (A Central Act), stray dogs can only be sterilized, vaccinated, and then returned back to their original locations. 

What happens when the state ABC department does not have the capacity (funds, personnel, infrastructure) to deal with an explosion in the population of stray dogs? Nobody seems to know, or care.

In NOIDA along there are an estimated 13,600 stray dogs. A few months ago, a child got severely mauled by a pack of stray dogs . When alarmed citizens got together to drive away strays and ended by beating a stray dog to death, police cases were promptly filed against them. So, at present, the very thought of messing with the Indian legal system, with its backlog of cases, is enough to deter any sensible citizen from messing with stray dogs. It is better to get bitten than to get stuck in the Indian courts.

How did a small band of Dog Lovers manage have such a disproportionate influence on the law of the land? A part of the answer lies in what has been articulated so well in Eric Liu's TED Talk - "Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power". 

Liu rightly points out that power illiteracy all pervasive and that citizens have depressingly low levels of civic knowledge, civic engagement, participation, and awareness. They are naive about all the forms of power that are at play: money, people, ideas, information, misinformation, the threat of force, the force of norms.

Those few who do understand how power operates in civic life, those who understand how a bill becomes a law, how a friendship becomes a subsidy, or how a bias becomes a policy, or how a slogan becomes a movement, the people who understand those things wield disproportionate influence.

Clearly, Dog Lovers in India belong to the power literate elite who weild a disproportionate influence in our cities. In many ways they themselves are like the proverbial dog in the manger - they will not ease the burden on state ABC departments, nor will they stop barking at those who act against stray dogs.

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BTW

Kerala, seems to be among the few states where stray dogs do not enjoy a special status. It has citizens groups that actively participate in anti-stray dog campaigns and support the culling of strays. Across India, only the High Courts of Kerala and Karnataka have taken the position that local municipal laws prevail over the PCA Act. It is not a state of affairs that pleases the stray-dog lovers.

Thanks to this awkward state of semi-rebellion the state sees a lot of parodies centered around the helplessness of the civil society. In this one, a local alpha stray-dog, "Tiger Sabu" is being interviewed by a nervous TV news anchor, a few days after demonetization: 



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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Jaagruti - Indian street dogs and their rights - https://jaagruti.org/information-to-empower-you/indian-street-dogs-and-their-rights/
* Noida - child mauled by stray dogs - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/child-mauled-by-stray-dogs-in-greater-noida/articleshow/59198467.cms
* Animal Welfare Board of India - https://awbi.org/
* (4 Jan 2018) Hindu: Stray dog victim still in ICU - http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/stray-dog-attack-victim-still-in-icu/article22362867.ece
* (1 Apr 2018) ToI: Noida: Residents, security guards booked for thrashing stray dog to death- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/noida-residents-guards-booked-for-thrashing-stray-dog-to-death/articleshow/63565399.cms
* http://www.dnaindia.com/delhi/report-plaints-on-noida-s-stray-dog-menace-fall-on-deaf-ears-2567534
* Eric Liu's TED Talk - "Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power" -  https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_liu_why_ordinary_people_need_to_understand_power

A Stake in Beef

India is a predominantly vegetarian country, right? A place where the cow is worshiped as a holy animal?

Wrong!

Take a closer look at this graphic:

Amongst all the states in India, meat is consumed by more than 60% of the population in just four Westerns states - Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat. In all the remaining 24 states, a vast majority of the population is non-vegetarian.

Dig a little deeper and you find that the meaning of "non-vegetarian" changes from state to state. While you can have eggs, chicken, fish and mutton anywhere, if you are inclined towards beef, legal slaughter of bovines is permitted only in nine states: One in South India (Kerala), and all the remaining ones in East India. In some states you could be jailed for up to 10 years for cow slaughter (!!).

This touchiness with cows is a fairly recent phenomenon. According to historians, "Brahmins who once had no compunctions against slaughter of animals, including cows, and were the greatest beef-eaters themselves". The elevation of the cow as a "holy animal" came as a political strategy to counter Buddhism which was predominant across India, until a 1000 years ago. It was the means of stealing the thunder from the non-violent Buddhists, and it worked like a charm.

Cut back to India today, and you find the government trying to push through a new policy that places severe restrictions on the use of agricultural markets for the sale of animals for slaughter. Over the past two weeks there has been an uproar in many states - protests by the meat and leather industries, political protests ending with the killing of a cow in a public square, and #beefcurryfestivals in South India - culminating in a High Court judgement yesterday, staying the latest government order for a few weeks.

Now that we have a breather, it may be worthwhile to examine both sides of the raging debate, which can be divided into two categories - emotional and rational.

The emotional argument is simple. It just states that "Cow is a holy animal for Hindus from time immemorial"; Cows are referred to as "Gau-Mata" (cow-mother), equated with human beings, and implies that harming the cows would hurt the religious sentiments of the Hindu community. There is little you can do to counter an emotional arguments hinged on hysterics, so let us move over to the next category.

The rational arguments come in different categories:

* Constitution, Law and Public Policy:

In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled that a ban on cow slaughter violated of the fundamental right of butchers to carry on their business under Article 19(1)(g). Then in 2005, a bench of seven judges upheld the total ban on slaughter of cow and cow-progeny and stated that cattle never became “useless”, at the most, they became “less useful” (!).  The latest rules to regulate the cattle market - framed under section 38 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.

By bringing in all farm animals under the new rules, the stage has been set for challenging the SC ruling that was aimed only at protecting cows. Should some animals be more equal than the others?

* Public Health:

Excess of protein consumption - especially red meats - has been proven to have bad effect on health. Also, according to WRI, reduction in meat consumption can lead to lead to a per capita food and land use-related greenhouse gas emissions reduction of by 15 and 35 percent, by 2050.

* Animal Rights:

Clearly, there is a case for humane treatment of animals. As of now, cumbersome rules and regulations make cattle trade a surreptitious activity. This only worsens the condions in which the animals are transported, stocked, slaughtered and traded in different states.

* Economic Value:

Farmers invest in animals after considering life-cycle costs. Once cows stop giving milk, the farmers see no point in spending scarce resources for feeding the animals, so they are sold to the local butcher. In India the going rate is between INR 15,000 and 40,000, depending on the age and weight of the animals. If the animals cannot be sold they would be just abandoned on our roads and highways, resulting in traffic accidents. 

Ultimately, rational arguments seem to matter only if they can provoke a powerful emotional counter-argument that makes people vote in a certain way. As of now the argument on religious sentiments seems to have the upper hand.

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LINKS

WRI on red meat and climate change - http://www.climatecentral.org/news/studies-link-red-meat-and-climate-change-20264

Datar, Arvind (2017): Illegal and Senseless - http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/illegal-and-senseless-supreme-court-cattle-ban-slaughter-4681651/

Jaggi - https://swarajyamag.com/politics/cow-politics-if-bjp-wants-to-lose-2019-this-is-the-right-way-to-go-about-it

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/dadri-murder-beef-ban-cow-slaughter-hinduism-islam-muslims-brahmans-british-rule-mauryan-empire/story/1/6665.html

Ambedkar on Cow Slaughter - https://scroll.in/article/812645/read-what-ambedkar-wrote-on-why-brahmins-started-worshipping-the-cow-and-gave-up-eating-bee