By Nabamita Mitra
In October 2016, a Mumbai-based activist associated with Animal Welfare Board of India alerted city police about dog meat trade after local activists made desperate appeals to him . Two dogs were also rescued and one person was arrested.
In November 2016, a woman, Jenny Lushai, was caught carrying a dog in a sack from Lummawbah. Later an FIR was filed at Jhalupara police station and she confessed that she is a dog meat trader. The case is still on.
In September 2016, a six-month-old puppy was clubbed to death by two security guards at Ferndale Apartment Society. Another puppy was grievously injured.
These are only a few examples of human cruelty and blatant violation of animal rights, which are lenient and implemented reluctantly by authorities concerned.
Living a dog’s life, especially a stray’s, is not for the weak-hearted. In most Indian cities, stray dogs, which can easily be domesticated and trained with the least pocket-pinch, are often ill-treated.
In Shillong, the situation is only marginally better with several households adopting strays. But cases of abuse and abandonment are aplenty. With little or no awareness among citizens, government officials and police, the situation only gets worse for the canines as well as animal lovers.
Tashneem Mawlong of Stray Animals Rescue Society (SARS), a city-based NGO, says the canines living on streets are often victims of human brutality and gluttony.
Standing outside the government-run Veterinary Hospital in Garikhana with a mongrel pup, Mawlong points at the bruises on the dog’s body. “We found this dog scourging through the dustbin for food. Her one limb is broken, probably because someone beat her, and she has mange caused by the unhygienic condition that she was in. But the dog’s ordeal does not end there. Someone had chopped off a part of her tail because many people here believe that by doing so they can stave off rabies,” Mawlong explains as she tries to soothe the traumatised dog, whom she named Cham Cham.
SARS deals with several such cases everyday and also coordinates with activists in Guwahati and Jowai for help. This is because the city does not have too many NGOs which work with animals. One organisation, the Meghalaya Stray Dogs Welfare Organisation, started with much fanfare two years ago but is hardly visible now. Attempts to contact the registered organisation on their official phone numbers yielded no result.
“NGOs start and disintegrate because most people are not serious about the issue,” says Mawlong, who is also a teacher in an SSA school near Mawkyrwat.
Stray dogs are often considered menace to the neighbourhood as they “attack” people, create nuisance and their barking “disturbs the peace”, feel many citizens whom Sunday Shillong spoke to. But activists and animal experts say dogs attack only when they feel threatened. About barking, their logic was simple, “If they could talk they would have been called humans.”
Lack of infrastructure
The vet hospital in Garikhana is the only one in East Khasi Hills. The hospital, which provides free treatment,has an outdoor patient department and no in-patient section. There is only one sanctioned post of doctor. Dr S Kynjing, the surgeon, says though interns seldom come but they do not stay for more than three months after which period they are transferred.
“We get hundreds of patients everyday and around 60 surgeries a month. The hospital lacks a laboratory, an emergency section and an in-patient ward. It becomes impossible to manage at times,” says Kynjing.
“Since this hospital has better facilities than those in other districts we even get cases from as far as Tura,” adds the doctor helplessly.
Kynjing informs that it has been more than a year that he submitted a plan for the expansion of the hospital to the government but nothing has moved and everything has come to a standstill thanks to the election.
However, he hopes to set up a laboratory in the hospital soon for better detection and diagnosis of diseases.
Besides the hospital, there are 22 dispensaries in the district each with one veterinary assistant and a doctor, 12 aid centres for first-aid and a mobile dispensary. But there is no dog catcher with the mobile unit that only identifies cases and provides first-aid. For emergency cases, the animal needs to be taken to the hospital.
Mawlong says in absence of an emergency section it often becomes difficult to deal with accident cases.
There is also no shelter house for strays in the city, which is against the Supreme Court order of 2015. The state government and its machineries concerned are shockingly reluctant to take action or help activists. Mawlong informs that SARS has approached the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Department for a plot of land in Upper Shillong for setting up a shelter house but nothing has happened so far. This could not be verified as the department’s commissioner and secretary did not reply to the query.
The Shillong Municipal Board too does not run any shelter house. BS Sohliya, the chief executive officer, says the board has moved the government but the Assembly election has put a brake on everything.
Elections come once in five years and it is not clear what the authorities were doing in all these years.
The municipality has only one dog catcher who is not trained and uses crude method to catch strays.
Sohliya admits that a shelter for strays is necessary but “we need trained people and modern equipment for this”.
“The deputy commissioner is the overriding authority for everything and we will hold meetings in this regard after election. We have to prioritise the issue,” says Sohliya.
While action gets stalled in the maze of government protocols and series of inconclusive meetings, a solution to the problem continues to elude.
Meet Ashar, who works with the central government’s Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) and PETA, says animal activists in the state should come together and take the help of the High Court to make the government work.
“This is contempt of court if the government does not follow the apex court order. It is mandatory to start SPCAs (Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) at district levels,” Ashar informs.
Stray menace
The Supreme Court, in its order, had made it clear in as many words that stray dogs are not menace if they are taken care of by the community. As per the law of the land, strays cannot be beaten or driven away. The only “humane, legal and scientific” way to deal with strays is to get them vaccinated and sterilised under the Animal Birth Control Programme (ABC). Under this, stray dogs are picked up, neutered, vaccinated against rabies and released in the respective areas from where they had been captured, which is in accordance with the Animal Birth Control Rules, 2001, framed under Section 38 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 and as per the orders of the Supreme Court.
However, Mawlong points out that an animal cannot be left on the street immediately after operation as that might be fatal. “The dog needs care for some time before the wound heals. For that again, we need a shelter house or a hospital with in-patient facility.”
Most of the dogs that SARS had taken for the ABC programme were sheltered by the organisation’s volunteers and a few good Samaritans. But many citizens are wary of taking the responsibility of giving shelter though they might feed the animals in their neighbourhood everyday. So the population of strays continues to increase in many localities. “A dog becomes less aggressive if sterilised. Also, rabies vaccine given immediately after the operation wards off the fear of infection. People should understand that instead of killing or beating the dogs and chiding them for producing litters of puppies every mating season, they can just pull in money and get the animals sterilised. The only thing is one of the households has to take care while the animal recuperates. All the collared dogs in Shillong are sterilised and vaccinated,” says Mawlong, adding, “This is the biggest problem that we face and we are trying to address this as early as possible.”
Dog meat market
There is no dearth of dog meat eaters in the city. Though many baulk at such a preposterous diet, one has to admit that for a section of people, it is an age-old habit.
Eating dogs is as much a violation of animal rights as eating pork, beef, mutton, chicken, fish and any animal or bird. But humans being at the top of the food chain, it is only natural for them to have varied food habits. Many argue that there should not be any restriction against eating dogs or cats but the slaughtering needs to be humane.
“One cannot just kidnap a neighbour’s dog or pick up an animal from the street and sell it in the market. That is illegal and also threatens human health because you never know what disease that animal has. The government, instead of ostracising dog eaters, should propagate the idea of hygienic slaughtering like it is done in case of cows, goats, chicken and pigs. The authority cannot invade a community’s platter. That will only beget illegal trading and the poor animals will die a painful death,” says a person who would not mind having the traditional dog meat delicacy on his platter. But AWBI’s Ashar says eating dog meat is illegal because the animal, along with cat and camel, is not in the six categories of animals which are legally allowed to be slaughtered.
While the debate continues, the poor animals suffer and are often trafficked to other northeastern states. Though FIRs are lodged, perpetrators often manage to slither out of the claws of law by paying a paltry amount (sometimes as less as Rs 50, says Mawlong).
Awareness
Awareness on animal rights is lacking among both citizens and police. Activists and dog lovers here often complain that many police officers would laugh if they are asked to take a complaint against animal cruelty. Ashar, who has been closely working with animal rights activists in the state for a few years now and has rescued over 100 dogs, says police here are not at all aware of the laws and the punishment that cruelty towards animals invites.
A woman police officer, who had once helped members of SARS in a sting operation in Demthring, says the police get very less cases related to animal cruelty. “The last case we got was from SARS. Only a handful of individuals come forward to lodge complaint. Lack of awareness may be one reason,” she says on condition of anonymity.
A query about awareness programmes for police sent to a senior officer in the department remains unanswered. But Mawlong says the department, so far, has been “very supportive” in investigating the cases of torture and animal deaths. SARS frequently holds awareness programmes in localities and villages. People are apprised of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and pamphlets are distributed. The NGO is also coordinating with other organisations outside the city as well as the state and looks forward to expanding its awareness programmes but cash crunch always poses a major problem.
“Most of the time we spend from our pockets and depend on donations. We are really grateful to some of our regular donors. Facebook has helped us reach out to people and in case of emergency we do get help. We have a bank account and people transfer money there. The entire process is transparent,” says Mawlong while enumerating the challenges in the field.
SARS have five members, a volunteer coordinator, four advisors, including vets and a lawyer, and 25 volunteers with 10 active ones. Most of the volunteers are students and work without remunerations.
Abandonment & adoption
Cases of abandoned dogs are numerous in the city. People often take in strays as pets “because they look cute when small” but as they grow up and the expenses increase, they drive them out. As dogs are territorial animals, an abandoned stray often finds it difficult to cope with the new neighbourhood and is attacked by local strays.
But strays are not the only victims of human insensitivity. Even breed dogs are abandoned when they are old and sick. Mawlong says SARS has dealt with many such cases. “One such was a St Bernard whom we named Puttar. He was lucky that someone adopted him,” she says.
SARS encourages adoption of stray and abandoned dogs and many of its volunteers also come forward to foster the animals and at times adopt them.
Any person willing to adopt an animal has to go through different stages as per the law. SARS keeps all the records of the person and its volunteers visit the house to check whether the environment is compatible with the dog’s needs. After adoption, they make regular visits to check that the animal is cared for in the adopted family. Though many people have a penchant for breed dogs for various reasons, one being status symbol, Mawlong says every dog is the same and a stray is more efficient than any breed dog because it is more intelligent, intuitive and has a strong immunity system thanks to the harsh environment that it has to endure. Also, the maintenance cost is less.
Rihun Sohkhlet of Mawkhar has three stray dogs, all sterilised and vaccinated. While the oldest is four years the youngest is only six months old. On breed dogs, Sohkhlet says the family never thought of getting one and would continue to give shelter to strays. There are other citizens, including some prominent ones, who are sensitive towards the needs of strays. RG Lyngdoh, former vice-chancellor of Martin Luther Christian University, has three adopted strays, Mawlong says.
Rehabilitating strays
Any animal, like humans, goes by instinct. It attacks only when it feels threatened. But with proper training and care, any stray can be used as a guard dog or a therapy dog. But to achieve this, cooperation from all quarters of society is a must. For example, schools can adopt strays and train them because the animals can be used as a medium of therapy for students. The trend is already in vogue in western countries and it is high time that schools in India give it a try.
The government definitely has a major role in rehabilitating strays but the less we expect from it the better. However, the Police Department can adopt strays and after proper training can use them in the K-9 squads. Traditional heads should come forward and make people aware of animal rights. They should encourage households to take in at least one stray, even if the family owns a breed dog.
One has to remember that every animal, including strays, has equal rights to live. Instead of turning the beautiful earth into a human torture ground, we must behave like a superior race with brains. It is time we realise this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vllC4EDTHzs