This is in response to the opinion piece 'Human rights in new era of dog love' by Ms Anuradha Goyal in The New Indian Express on April 13.
The only reason we are now talking about animal rights is because of human wrongs. For millennia, we in India had learnt to live in harmony with nature which included animals and it was India that gave the very concept of Ahimsa to the world. Ahimsa is a word that means non-violence -- in thought, words and action.
For all true animal people, it is never a question of people or animals -- it is always one of people and animals. And the fact that India is the only country in the world that has a statutory body known as the Animal Welfare Board of India which was formed under an Act of Parliament -- the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960 -- is something that we should be proud about.
That the Animal Birth Control programme works is not in question. It does require that at least 70% of the animals in any area are sterilised to ensure that there is zero population growth. And it is the same minimum 70% vaccination coverage that induces the "herd effect" for the anti-rabies vaccination programme.
The official dog killing programme started in Madras (now Chennai) in 1860 and was formalised by 1919 with the City Municipal Act which gave the municipality the powers "to protect the citizens against the problems posed by stray dogs by reducing their numbers and to reduce the incidence of rabies in humans". To achieve this, the Madras Corporation set up a dog pound in Pulianthope where dogs on the street would be picked up, kept for three days, and then killed either by a lethal injection of strychnine or magnesium sulphate or by electrocution. It may be mentioned here that the Corporation of Madras at over 380 years is the second oldest municipality in the world, next only to the city of London.
A detailed study made by the Blue Cross of India (BCI) in 1964 showed that the Corporation had failed spectacularly in achieving both objectives -- to control rabies in humans and to reduce the number of dogs in the streets. Municipal records themselves showed that every year since 1919, the number of dogs being killed by the Corporation had been steadily rising each year and so, too, had the incidence of rabies in humans.
An experiment that had not worked for a hundred years meant something was seriously wrong in the premise itself. In 1964 when the study was made, the number of dogs killed by the Madras Corporation was over 16,000 and the reported number of human deaths from rabies was over 80. The figure of 80 is highly misleading because in most cases where human rabies cases were brought to the government hospitals, relatives were told that there was no treatment possible and to take the patient back home to die.
The WHO and the medical profession are aware that the only way to control and eliminate rabies is by an aggressive anti-rabies vaccination programme. The Blue Cross of India proposed that the numbers of dogs on the streets could be controlled by an aggressive spay-vaccinate-and-release programme. When I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, the most ubiquitous sign in all public places was the inverted red triangle with the slogan "A small family is a happy family" to popularise the government of India's human family planning programme. For us at the Blue Cross, it was no quantum leap in thinking to extend this to the dogs on the streets.
In 1990, the World Health Organisation had also endorsed the BCI's ABC programme and in their "Guidelines to Stray Animal Control" foreword, Dr Bogel, Head Veterinarian at the WHO in Geneva, wrote: "All too often, in response to the problem caused by stray dogs, the authorities have resorted to mass killing, only to discover that the killing had to continue year after year, with no end in sight." Albert Einstein had described insanity as "doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results!"
After thirty years of futile pleading with the Corporation, M Abul Hassan, IAS, was appointed as the Commissioner of the Corporation and soon after became the Special Officer, a post equivalent to Mayor. After giving a patient hearing to the Blue Cross of India and studying the reports of the BCI and the WHO, he agreed to stop the killing and allowed the BCI to replace it with the ABC programme at no cost to the Corporation. Realising that this was too large to handle by the BCI alone, the BCI requested Maneka Gandhi's People for Animals to take up the programme in North Madras while the BCI would handle South Madras. In 1996, when the Corporation of Madras finally stopped the electrocution, it was killing as many as 135 dogs per day or 50,000 per year and the number of reported human deaths from rabies had steadily increased to 120.
Within just one year, the number of rabies deaths began to reduce for the first time since records were kept. From 120 in 1996, there was a dramatic decrease and 2007 saw zero deaths. In 2010, after three consecutive years of zero deaths, Chennai was officially declared rabies free. Similar results were seen in Jaipur and Kalimpong where the ABC programme was launched in 1996. In Jaipur, from an average of 10 reported human rabies deaths per year, the figure dropped to zero in five years. Kalimpong also eradicated human rabies deaths within three years of starting the programme. It was the success of the ABC programme in Madras, Jaipur and Kalimpong that finally convinced the government of India to stop the ineffective killing of street dogs and replace it with the spay-vaccinate-and-release programme in 2001 and led to the passage of the Animal Birth Control Rules of 2001 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960.
In the whole of India, rabies deaths have been reduced from around 30,000 in 1996 as per WHO reports to less than one thousand today. Also please keep in mind that the degree of under reporting today is negligible compared to 1996.
Coming to the fact that there are many people feeding street dogs, it must be mentioned that a street today, with its high speed traffic, is really no place for a dog. Every dog deserves a loving home but as long as there are dogs on the street, we have to ensure that they are fed. Our Constitution in article 51(a)(g) enjoins upon all citizens to have "compassion for all living creatures". It is also the duty of the government to accelerate the ABC programme and recent moves by the governments of most states to set up more ABC centres in various municipalities is a step in the right direction. Once the next incremental step is taken of ensuring at least 80% sterilization, the number of dogs will begin to drop dramatically.
Genuine dog lovers can hardly wait for that day. Till that time, more power to the many good souls that take the trouble and expense to look after the animals in their areas.
(Dr S Chinny Krishna is co-founder, Blue Cross of India, and former Vice Chairman, Animal Welfare Board of India)