Three things have survived in India through the ages: poverty, gold, and dogs. Through the ravages and miseries that this country specialises in and perpetuates, the triad has stood its ground.
Poverty remains reassuringly present from the Vedic age to now. The value of gold endures as well. And without dogs, even the Mahabharata is incomplete. From this list of Indian eternals, dogs will soon be removed—for ill-thought-out reasons.
The Supreme Court ’s order on November 7 directing the removal and indefinite sequestration of stray dogs from institutional areas—schools, hospitals, stations, and government buildings—is a counterproductive attempt to prioritise human safety. Indefinite, for example, means what? A lifetime? For all time to come if their offspring are taken into account? The order will not deliver what it aims for.
By commanding that dogs not be released back to their original territories after sterilisation and vaccination, the ruling overrides the scientifically validated principle of territorial return mandated by the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023.
Street dogs are integral to India’s urban ecosystem. They act as essential, unbudgeted pest controllers, scavenging organic waste and managing rodent populations—a service that mitigates the risk of diseases like leptospirosis. They provide security and companionship. To forcibly uproot them is to betray the evolutionary trust of these sentient beings.
The true cruelty of the order lies in the long-term effects of sequestration. Relocating dogs to overcrowded, underfunded shelters disrupts their territorial stability, inducing extreme stress and behavioural changes. Experts warn that isolation in such facilities, often characterised by excessive noise and limited exercise, elevates cortisol levels and fosters aggression.
Critically, if dogs breed in these confined environments—which is inevitable given the scale of the operation—the resulting generation will grow up learning fear, rather than familiarity, toward humans. The adoption of the new policy will create a new generation of feral underclass dogs. This defeats the purpose of the SC order, which is to resolve the human-dog conflict.
The World Health Organization and the World Organisation for Animal Health advocate the catch-neuter-return model precisely because releasing stable, vaccinated dogs back into their territories is the most effective way to stabilise populations, eliminate rabies, and prevent aggressive, unsterilised packs from migrating.
The order's quixotic nature is exposed by the sheer numbers of India’s stray population, estimated at 5-6 crore. Even if the target is limited to institutional areas, it means displacing hundreds of thousands of animals in major cities. Delhi alone has an estimated 8 lakh strays.
Housing these animals would require massive new construction. The estimated cost for establishing the requisite infrastructure across India reaches as high as ₹15,000 crore, coupled with an unsustainable recurring operational cost annually for feeding and care.
Typically for India, what this means is that the money or food will never reach the dogs. They will end up eating each other. New York and London operate highly centralised, mechanised, and enclosed waste systems—using sealed containers, strict collection schedules, and penalties for improper disposal. This infrastructure effectively cuts off dogs’ primary food source, ensuring that the stray population remains naturally minimal. Without this level of sanitation reform in India, the opposite of what the SC order intended is guaranteed.
The second critical difference is the infrastructure of ownership and enforcement. NYC and London primarily deal with lost pets, not a large, co-existing stray population. The UK mandates microchipping for all dogs, and NYC enforces strict licensing and penalties. This means almost every captured animal can be returned to its owner or quickly rehomed through a well-funded animal welfare network.
In India, pet ownership registration is weak, and the vast majority of street dogs have no single owner. Therefore, every captured animal instantly becomes a permanent, costly liability for the state—a burden that Delhi’s or Lucknow’s municipal corporations simply cannot absorb. The Western model of impoundment is only feasible when the population is low, traceable, and primarily lost pets; applying it to India’s crores of community dogs without the underlying civic foundation is a dangerous fantasy.
India has proven alternative models—relatively successful ABC programmes. Jaipur is a globally-recognised success story. A sustained effort between 1994 and 2002 saw the city achieve a sterilisation and vaccination rate of 65 percent of female dogs in the targeted areas. This resulted in a documented 28 percent reduction in dog population. Similarly, Chennai and Bengaluru have seen successes when their ABC programmes were implemented with commitment.
The SC order, while attempting to address a public health emergency, fundamentally ignores scientific consensus and the lessons of both failed culling policies in India’s past and the functioning models of the West.
India must invest heavily in fully funding the humane ABC rules, drawing lessons from Jaipur, and undertaking the essential task of modernising its municipal waste infrastructure. Only then can human safety and animal welfare be sustainably reconciled, honouring the constitutional duty of compassion that coexistence demands. Failing which, prepare for a future where we will see canine Auschwitzes. This SC order turns friends into enemies on an industrial scale.
C P Surendran | The author’s latest volume of poetry is Window with a Train Attached
(Views are personal)
(cpsurendran@gmail.com)
