Stray dog order decoded and why it misses the root causes

New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has long opposed the idea of “caging”, as in its famous “caged parrot” remark about the CBI, and it has consistently fought to protect fundamental rights. But on Monday, a ‘reckless’ order about stray dogs flew in the face of both principles.

The Supreme Court directed Delhi-NCR authorities to permanently relocate all strays from streets to shelters "at the earliest".

The top court noted that there was an "extremely grim" situation due to stray dog bites resulting in rabies, particularly among children.

The Court claims it wants safer streets. Yet instead of tackling the root causes of fear and disorder, it is targeting the one group that cannot defend itself.

This was a suo motu action by Justices J. B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan, meaning the Bench took it up on its own without any petitioner. In cases like this, the public has a right to know what prompted it, the specific trigger, the data that shaped the decision, and how the proposed remedy addresses those facts. Lay it all out on record.

If the motivation was personal, like a dog bite affecting someone in the judges’ families, they should admit it openly. Otherwise, share the details, including the hotspots, the risk maps, and the breakdowns in waste management, sterilisation programmes and policing that this order is supposed to fix. Without that transparency, people will fill the gaps with suspicion.

Supporters of the order argue that packs of dogs are attacking children, and cities need to be cleared.

Nobody is downplaying real fear or suffering, but blanket punishment is not sound policy. If a handful of men commit rape, would the Court round up every man and push them into shelters? What about all the stray men out there, my Lords?

Then there are those who point out that developed countries have no stray dogs. Will removing them suddenly transform India into a first-world nation, even as humans chew gutkha and spit it everywhere, keeping us stuck in third-world squalor?

A few dogs may be a menace, but a large section of the human population lacks civic sense. Have my Lords considered ordering the government to teach basic civic responsibility, or to impose and enforce a nationwide gutkha ban?

Many point to Swachh Bharat and say its impact is evident, which is fair enough. But if we are serious about civic health, those red spit stains splattered across pavements are not a cultural quirk; they are a daily sign of state failure.

You cannot aspire to “world-class” cities while tolerating that filth, then haul animals into vans and call it progress.

Another defence is, “Do not say ‘fix that first’, just welcome any step toward safety.”

The same people trot out “fix that first” whenever it suits them. Push for consistent waste collection, proper pet registration or effective sterilisation, and they say, “Do not complicate things, just get rid of the dogs.” Demand better policing against stalking and harassment, and priorities shift again.

Then there is the rabies angle. Let us remain objective and therefore not ask my Lords whether they ever thought of taking suo motu cognizance of deaths related to dengue and malaria and of fixing responsibility on the government.

India leads the world in rabies cases, so aggressive measures are warranted. But rabies is not inevitable; it is the result of poor planning. Vaccination efforts are patchy, sterilisation goals are fudged, post-bite treatment is inadequate, reporting is unreliable, and budgets vanish without public tracking through monthly dashboards.

Had the government done its job and properly neutered strays over the years, the population would have naturally declined. Instead, dogs are scapegoated to mask government and Court inefficiency and inaction.

When systems fail like this, the consequences are obvious. You do not solve it by punishing the voiceless; you build accountability, expanding coverage clinic by clinic and ward by ward.

Some people are upset that celebrities or animal activists are criticising the judgment. Dogs cannot argue their case in court. Citizens speak for them, as they do for any marginalised group. You may not agree with a celebrity’s views, but that does not invalidate calls for compassion and fair process. Dismissing the messenger will not make the order smarter.

The strangest pushback is the meat comparison, saying if we slaughter goats and chickens for food, non-vegetarians have no right to object if stray dogs are killed.

That is a false parallel. Farm animals are raised and regulated for consumption. Strays and pets are not part of that system. Does eating goat mean I should kill and eat my own dog?

The Court cracks down on stray dogs but goes easy on illegal infiltrators. It is simple to target something that cannot fight back. It is harder to hold accountable the departments that bungle year after year, or the political leaders who treat civic responsibility like an empty slogan.

Has the Bench ordered mandatory civic education with real penalties for littering and spitting? Has it demanded street-by-street enforcement of a gutkha ban with fines that sting? Has it held a municipal commissioner in contempt for missing sterilisation or waste targets, the way builders are pulled up for ignoring construction rules? If safer cities are the goal, the Court should demand results from the state machinery that is supposed to deliver them.

In a display of insensitivity toward public sentiment, even if it is from less than half the population, the Delhi government will likely fall in line, as it did with the crackdown on overage vehicles.

The officers who could not maintain steady sterilisation programmes, who never released coverage maps, who dragged their feet on tenders and covered up shortcomings, will suddenly mobilise for mass roundups because those make for dramatic television footage.

Complaints of cruelty will surge, shelters will overflow, and soon enough, we will look the other way at the mess we have made.

If true safety is the aim, let us craft a transparent plan that people can scrutinise. Conduct ward-by-ward dog counts and post the figures monthly. Track every animal captured, treated and released, with tags for public verification. Launch live dashboards for sterilisation and vaccination rates. Replace underperforming contractors.

Eliminate open garbage dumps through enforced daily collections and heavy fines on eateries and markets that litter food waste. Train police to handle violent crimes and harassment with the same intensity as they now aim at animals. Create local helplines and response teams to de-escalate conflicts without chaos. Bring in independent audits and set deadlines for reviews.

Defenders insist you cannot equate a child’s life with an animal’s. Nobody is suggesting that. The real issue is that you cannot achieve lasting safety through shortcuts laced with cruelty.