No Say In Stray

Sometimes, knee jerk reactions work wonders. With the stray dog issue now getting more prominence (courtesy, a responsible media, sarcasm intended) due to the debacle of the Indian Cricket Team at the Cricket World Cup, the animal right activists have woken up. Woken up, from the deep slumber should we say? How many Bangaloreans knew there were the following Animal Right Activists' Groups - Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA), Animal Rights Fund? Well, if you didn’t, they do exist. If not, they do now. Suddenly, they have started raising a hue and cry over the culling of Stray Dogs, especially in Bangalore.

I love animals, and there is no doubt that I love dogs too! But does that mean, I would follow Gandhigiri and try and love a Dog when it is attacking me? Dogs gone astray are quite an unfortunate thing. Firstly, if the Animal Rights Activists need to have any say at all in their objection to the culling, they should have pre-empted this backlash. They should have been proactive and started doing something to avoid the dogs going astray. Instead, when the menace of the stray dogs has taken alarming proportions, any sort of measure by the Civic Authorities is termed as knee jerk reaction?

Pray, where do these Animal Activists take root from? I would like to know how many of them have vegetarian food? How many of them boycott having food from Non-Vegetarian restaurants. How many of them volunteer to adopt all the strays as their own pets? Can they handle that? Would things have come to this extent, had they done something about it? I hate to stereotype while airing my views, but the media has a hand in this aspect too.

The culling of dogs has apparently been shown in the I-Witness program in NDTV. And it is called as cruel. It maybe and it probably is. But was the media witness to the mauling of four and eight year old children by not one, but by a whole pack of dogs? What does the media want? To rid cities of Stray Dogs or to promote Animal Activists? It won't be funny if the media persons while shooting their coverage on Stray Dogs would be chased away by the very same dogs. That would be some site to watch.

It has become a habit in India, and probably the world over, to accuse and put the blame squarely on the governing bodies. This case is no different. When the Civic Authorities do indeed try and take a step, animal activists start to object, in loud voices. It is ironic, that in a world where we, as humans want the luxuries of life, and are not averse to killing and feeding on animals, killing of dogs is seen as cruel. Butchers serve their customers, by killing Cows. Cows don't even attack humans, and are vegetarian, grass eating mammals. But we still kill them, mercilessly, and even eat them. And we don't call it cow meat, but have it nicely worded as "Beef". But if the killing is that of the Stray Dogs, it is cruel. I would say, maybe NDTV should telecast how Cows are killed. It might put to shame the way dogs are culled. Or maybe, if dog meat was indeed consumed, much the way that beef is, the Animal Activists might most happily have gobbled it all up.

I don't like to be critical. But from the day and age since man has started ruling the planet, animals have had to become the subservient lot. It is more a courtesy that humans have handed to the animals that they can live on, rather than being given the right to live which each animal has by virtue of its birth. Man too is an animal. But man has by his own intelligence become the ruler. It is a fight on how best to live and what luxuries we can get, that now determines the way of life. And if we feel that another animal, such as the dog is a menace, we cull it. But if we voluntarily, for sake of societal status adopt a pet, we love our dog, we call it man's best friend. Man has chosen to choose the way he chooses the other beings to live. But when man himself fights over which way to rule over the other animal, its the animal which always ends up on the losing side.