Enough's enough
And for the 2nd time in a short time, another innocent little kid has been mauled to death by stray dogs in Bangalore. I find it unbelievable that this happens within Bangalore city limits. I have personally also experienced the dog menace first hand - on my nightly jogs, very often I am faced with a pack of 3 -4 hungry or just plain mad strays who charge at me only to be warded of because I pick up the nearest thing in sight and really try to hurt the damn mongrels. And believe you me, if I didnt do that I would get bitten.
My solution for this has been consistent with logic and inconsistent with karmic laws, religion and all those poor, bloody misguided animal rights activists and so called ''dog lovers''. Either have enough pounds for the dogs to live out the remainder of their lives in peace, ensure they get adopted by these activist types or exterminate them. If you see a rat in your home, would you (even if you were a crazed animal rights activist) sympathize with the fact and spout slogans saying they have a right to co exist? What rot. You would set a trap or just try to swat the damn rat right there.
I cannot imagine if my little niece or the child of a close friend was to be mauled by a bloody stray animal that was left on the streets because some animal rights activist didn't allow it to be exterminated. I am all for animal rights, I love dogs too but this is pushing it way too far. If animal rights activists still continue to oppose more (drastic?) action such as extermination, then they stand to lose all credibility even amongst libertarians & sympathizers. And what's more they stand to be further marginalized by society as a group of crazed idiots...unless that's what they already are.
My solution for this has been consistent with logic and inconsistent with karmic laws, religion and all those poor, bloody misguided animal rights activists and so called ''dog lovers''. Either have enough pounds for the dogs to live out the remainder of their lives in peace, ensure they get adopted by these activist types or exterminate them. If you see a rat in your home, would you (even if you were a crazed animal rights activist) sympathize with the fact and spout slogans saying they have a right to co exist? What rot. You would set a trap or just try to swat the damn rat right there.
I cannot imagine if my little niece or the child of a close friend was to be mauled by a bloody stray animal that was left on the streets because some animal rights activist didn't allow it to be exterminated. I am all for animal rights, I love dogs too but this is pushing it way too far. If animal rights activists still continue to oppose more (drastic?) action such as extermination, then they stand to lose all credibility even amongst libertarians & sympathizers. And what's more they stand to be further marginalized by society as a group of crazed idiots...unless that's what they already are.
Labels: society
posted by Abs @ 3/01/2007 05:59:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
56000 street dogs. Thats an insane number.
Yeah...solutions aren't easy to come by when we're talking this scale...
Hi Abhi..
YES. It was someone's child that died, and yes those dogs were the reason for it. If Bangalore has lived quite peacefully with 56,000 dogs for years, then surely we need to be asking 'what changed' rather than labelling every single dog ont he street as rabid or worse?
We cull birds, cows, dogs, rats - anything that could potentially spread diseases to humans that we don't have cures for. Stop the epidemic - that's our motto. India alone is killing half a million birds as a preventative measure to ensure that bird flu doesn't spread.
I'm not saying these things are inhuman - in fact, they are very humane. Only, if that's humane then what I'd like us to strive to be is something better than that.
When a man lifts his child out of a tour bus, dangling her in front of a tiger in the Bannerghatta reserve, at which point the tiger presumes she is food (like they are provided with every day) and then mauls her, we lock up the tiger, never letting it roam wild again. We are horrified at the fact that the tiger mauled the little child. In passing we acknowledge the supreme idiocy of the father, but really, 'how could it DO that!!?!'
Because, it IS wild, and to a tiger WE are no different. There IS something to be said for man's utter stupidity and conviction of invincibility when it comes to other animals. .
I bring this up because I think that we are not being ethical in thinking about our safety. Naturally, we are judging ourselves and that is hard. I think we do it especially badly. And particularly badly in this case.
Can we never acknowledge that freak accidents happen? Must 56,000 lives be taken just so we can be at peace? In a land where the cow is sacred yet treated like crap (forced to feed out of dustbins, allowed to roam the roads likely to be hit by vehicles), I don't think we, as a city, really are qualified to make an ethical decision.
I have friends who have had corporation guys climb INTO their compounds to remove dogs that they adopted years ago. Puppies are being killed because they 'might' become ferocious and the 'Malabar killers' are going to eliminate any dog that 'is a nuisance to the public'. If you chase ANY animal with the intention of harming it, they are going to be aggressive in return. Even humans will do that, don't you think?
I'm just airing some views and wondering if I have it all wrong. I'd love to hear what you think about it...thanks for reading this:)
Hi Mini,
Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your willingness to discuss this:
I have several very close friends who are all dog lovers and share similar opinions to the one you have voiced here. I would like to first of all respond to two points you made - a)your analogy of a tiger and man's "invincibility" as a species and b) the issue of "ethics". Your words remind me of existential thinking. I dont intend getting into a debate on what existentialism means (as there could be several interpretations) but I'd like to mention a common understanding of the same here using a definition:
"Existentialists argue against definitions of human beings as primarily rational. Rather, existentialists look at where people find meaning. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them rather than what is rational."
I think the above statement succinctly summarizes your point of view where your opinions and decisions are based on reasons not necessarily rational.
I would like to now go back to the first point in your post - "If Bangalore has lived quite peacefully with 56,000 dogs for years, then surely we need to be asking 'what changed' rather than labelling every single dog ont he street as rabid or worse?" Here again I think you suffer from a strong confirmation bias. Basically, you interpret a situation in a way that confirms your already formed preconceptions. I have lived in 2 cities outside India (Shanghai & Rotterdam) and have traveled to at least another 30 cities in Asia, Europe & North America. Many of these cities are considered models of urban planning & developed, one of them has been war torn and recovering and many of them have been in an advanced development stage but still nowhere near models of urban governance. Not in ANY SINGLE ONE of these cities or countries did I see dogs that weren't on a leash or dogs which did not have a human companion - NO STRAYS. So I can safely and rationally reach the assumption that stray dogs roaming city streets are in fact NOT ACCEPTABLE. So your point of ''if they have been living for so long why not longer'' does not wash. Fact is, any well developed urban area around the world will not have stray dogs. There should not be ANY stray dogs on the street, regardless of whether they are docile, rabid, ferocious or not.
You next go on to narrate incidents of people climbing into your friends' houses and remove dogs. Yes I admit this is wrong but more along the premise that they're trespassing! I am a staunch libertarian and infringing on another person's life or property so long as that person is not causing any conceivable inconvenience or harm to anyone else is wrong. So yes this must be stopped.
There are several other parts of your post which I dont fully understand and I attribute this to the limits in my own understanding & also probably a lack of empathy on this issue from my side. As I have mentioned in my main post, I have personally myself been attacked by packs of stray dogs and hence, despite having had dogs of my own in the past, lean away from any "activist" on this issue. Allow me to explain why - I believe that activists in general and on this issue they have been no different, tend to adopt an extremely polarising stance in addition to belief overkill. What this does (as again I have mentioned in my main post) is it FURTHER polarizes them and worse, it drives away people such as myself who want to engage in debate and find a sustainable, humane solution. So instead of trying to reason with the unreasonable, I would much rather cast my vote in favor of inhuman options such as mass culling. Thankfully, organizations like Janaagraha are trying to mediate and find middle ground but it seems to me that activists don't want that! The zealots want their way or the high way. Sadly, they are doing more to drive the dogs toward immediate death than anything else.
Lastly, you say that "freak accidents happen'' - to me, this statement smacks of a cold blooded, distant attitude which on which I shall not elaborate further, because you refer to the mauling of 2 innocent children as "freak accidents". I'll end with this - if you were to ask me today, I would go out on a limb and ask for the lives of those 2 children back in exchange for 56,000 dogs. Is it possible? Of course not. Nothing can bring those kids back right? So lets not be completely irrational by saying these things happen ( an acutely Indian bias I must say) and instead work toward sustainable solutions. Your entire post has been about JUSTIFYING the presence of mongrels. Nowhere have you even hinted at possible solutions. This to me summarizes the activist sentiment and the consequent polarizing effect it has.
Cheers
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