Bark, bite, bludgeon

Sixty five-year-old Siluvamma’s house faces the beach. But it’s no beach bungalow. In fact, the entire house is just a few inches wider than its front door, and is in the outermost ring of a cluster of closely-packed houses in the fishing village of Pulluvila, around 25 km from Thiruvananthapuram city.

On the night of August 20, Siluvamma had walked across to the beach for her ablutions, a habit since her house had no washroom. When she didn’t return, son Selvaraj headed out in search and found her on the beach. “She was lying on the ground, bleeding. Several stray dogs were hovering around, some were biting her. I escaped only because I jumped into the sea,” says Selvaraj. Though the neighbours managed to rescue Siluvamma, she died on the way to the hospital.

Street dogs have long ceased to be a civic issue in Kerala, instead it has morphed into an emotive one and the mauling of an old woman by a pack of dogs was merely the last straw. Many stories of brutal dog attacks have been doing the rounds — of children being bitten on their face, of hundreds of fowls killed by stray dogs. But, this was a narrative we hadn’t heard so far.

Predictably, moderate voices were lost in the din of debates that ensued. ‘Kill ‘em all’ became the war cry. And when emotions run high, our basest instincts tumble out, to be performed like a medieval ritual. Late in September, a few workers of the Youth Front (Mani) killed 10 stray dogs, dangled the carcasses on a stick and paraded it through the streets of Kottayam. Part of their anger was directed at Maneka Gandhi, minister for women and child development, who suggested after the mauling incident that the woman must have been carrying meat, even while acknowledging that what happened was distressing. A case was filed against the Youth Front workers at the local police station.

Even if such antics by small organisations could be dismissed as publicity stunts, alarming reports of mass culling by panchayats and municipalities are coming in frequently. The local bodies are carrying out the culling fully aware that they are breaking the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Dog Rules 2001, which states that the civic bodies have only the responsibility to sterilise and immunise stray dogs. Killing clearly is not part of their duty. This was reiterated by the Supreme Court in its November 2015 order, which said that ‘implementation of the ABC rules is the sacrosanct duty of the municipal corporations’.

To be fair, the civic authorities are often not ‘dog haters’. The enormous public pressure after a particularly heinous incident forces their hand. Pushed to act, they realise nothing impacts like mass culling. “Ever since the mauling incident, people want all stray dogs to be culled. We can’t do that by breaking the law. But we hear a few dogs have been killed by residents,” says KP Mary Inigo, secretary, Karumkulam panchayat to which Pulluvila belongs.

Other civic authorities, for instance the Kalady panchayat in Ernakulam district, have not been able to withstand the pressure to act. Last week, 20 stray dogs were culled and the panchayat announced it was ready to face legal repercussions.

Kochouseph Chittilappilly, industrialist and philanthropist, who has become the face of the anti-stray dog brigade in the State, is willing to provide legal aid to those who kill stray dogs. He has floated the ‘Street dog free movement’ and earlier this year sat on a 24-hour-long fast in Thiruvananthapuram demanding action from the government to end the ‘street dog menace’.

“There’s nothing wrong in killing animals for the safety of humans. We kill goats, chicken, buffaloes and other harmless animals for meat, but there is massive opposition only when stray dogs that bite people are killed. Our movement is ready to give legal support to those nabbed for killing dogs. Individuals cannot be punished for killing dogs for their own safety,” says Chittilappilly.

KT Jaleel, the State minister for local self-government, recently said that the government would ask all local bodies to cull feral stray dogs by administering them lethal injection. He however retracted his statement soon, even as Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief Minister, made it clear that government policy is sterilisation and birth control.

The media has played no small role in feeding this frenzy. Alarmist reports regularly make it to the pages of local newspapers giving an impression that just about every stray dog is dangerous. Questions have been raised about the authenticity of these stories, most notably of a photograph that appeared on the front page of a popular Malayalam daily, which showed a woman lying on the ground with a few dogs standing near her. It said the woman has been attacked by stray dogs and was saved by neighbours.

A day later, an audio clip was circulated through WhatsApp in which the priest of the local temple from the area where the incident is supposed to have happened, calls up the regional bureau of the newspaper. He is heard questioning the bureau chief on the authenticity of the photograph. He asserts that no such incident ever happened and that the report had created panic among people. The chief is heard admitting that there’s something amiss and that the picture was sourced from a studio photographer. At the same time, genuinely worrisome reports too are trickling in, like the shocking image of a child’s face mauled by dogs.

“I am not saying that dogs don’t attack or they don’t probably kill. But I don’t believe the rhetoric and mass hysteria associated with this. When there was a swine flu outbreak, every death was related to it. Mass hysteria is whipped up whenever there is a huge or perceived public health issue. Public health professionals play a key role in communicating and controlling this hysteria,” says NG Jayasimha, managing director, Indian chapter of the Humane Society International, which is involved in successful street dog sterilisation and ABC programmes.

The numbers, in the absence of careful sifting, can be alarming too. As per the last livestock survey conducted by the animal husbandry department in 2012, there were 2.68 lakh stray dogs and 9.23 lakh owned dogs in the State.

The 2013 data from the director of health services says 88,172 people in the State were bitten by dogs, out of which 11 died of rabies. In 2014, dog bite statistics in Kerala crossed the one lakh mark for the first time finishing at 1.19 lakhs, and recorded 10 rabies deaths. In 2015, 1.22 lakh dog bites were registered, and 10 rabies deaths.

“These numbers are problematic. When a dog bite case is brought to the hospital, it is not recorded whether it is from a stray or owned dog. Almost 70 per cent of bites are from owned dogs, but this data is not being discussed. People are so scared of dog bites that they go to the hospital and are administered anti-rabies vaccine even for minor bites,” says Jayachandran, assistant director of the animal husbandry department.

Also lost in the din are discussions to tackle the source of the problem — waste management. In rapidly urbanising Kerala, waste management has been a headache even for small civic bodies. Opposition to centralised waste treatment plants have forced many municipalities to adopt decentralised initiatives, but they have only been moderately successful, leaving waste to pile up on the streets. Waste dumped by slaughterhouses in public areas has also given stray dogs ample sources of food.

Dog catchers and stakeholders involved in sterilisation activities say killing of stray dogs will make no difference, instead might aggravate the problem. “Dogs are scavenging animals and very territorial. When you start killing dogs in a particular area, dogs from other areas will fight for that territory and occupy it. Instances of dog bite will increase. People rarely kill the most aggressive dogs because they are hard to catch. The most docile ones gets killed. Culling leaves behind the ferocious ones. They will start breeding and the trait of kindness and docility will disappear,” says Mukesh Kukku of Street Dog Watch, an NGO which has been sterilising stray dogs in Kovalam for the past three years.

Mass culling of stray dogs also disrupts the food chain leading to an increase in the rodent population. Jayasimha points out that there was an unprecedented culling of dogs in Surat before the plague outbreak in 1994.

The municipalities in Kerala have initiated animal birth control programmes, but the slow pace at which it is being executed means change is still a long way off. “At least 25 dogs give birth every day in Thiruvananthapuram. Every delivery produces eight to 12 pups. And, the municipalities vaccinate and sterilise eight to 10 dogs a day. What difference is that going to make? We have to considerably step up the numbers,” says Satheesh Kumar, formerly a dog-catcher with the Thiruvananthapuram corporation, who now gives training in catching dogs.

The lack of trained dog-catchers, veterinarians and facilities to conduct sterilisation has been an impediment in stepping up ABC programmes. With the municipalities, panchayats and even organisations like Kudumbashree starting parallel sterilisation programmes, the shortage is more evident.

Chittilappilly and his ilk, like Biju Prabhakar, former managing director of the Kerala Medical Services Corporation, rubbish sterilisation as a ploy to help the ‘anti-rabies vaccine lobby’. But they have not been able to substantiate how the civic bodies or NGOs have gained by calling for humane treatment of dogs. In 2008, the State government spent ₹1.03 crores to procure anti-rabies vaccine for government hospitals. By 2015, the government was procuring vaccines worth ₹5.32 crores.

In its preliminary report, Justice Sirijagan Committee set up by the Supreme Court in April this year to look into dog-bite compensations and treatment, has said that the anti-rabies vaccine as well as the Human Rabies Immunoglobulin, the procurement of which has been stopped citing exorbitant costs, have to be made available in all the government hospitals. The committee also recommended proper sterilisation of stray dogs as well as better waste management.

However, as the call to kill continues unabated, more culling can be expected in the coming days. But those who see beyond the bites agree on the need for a more humane treatment of stray dogs. As the Supreme Court observed, “Life is the glorious gift of nature and the compassion for animals and human lives should harmoniously co-exist. A balance should be struck between compassion for dogs and human lives.” In Kerala, that balance has so far been elusive.

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