Being Human – Too Much to Ask For?

Filth.

Uncivilized, diseased scum.

They sit where they like and they shit where they like. They carry illness and get in the way. Look at them! Sleeping on the pavement like it was made only for them. Spitting where they see fit and spraying surfaces with their muck.

Homeless, jobless morons! Why do they not work? Do they not have two legs and two hands?

Up until the last lines, I could have been talking about either street dogs or beggars on the streets. Both are common sights on the streets of India. The difference in my opinion, is that despite the hindrance the beggars might cause an action where they should be wound up, beaten or just put to sleep for it, would not find many takers. Why? Are human beings the only species that have the right to live, no matter how “undignified” their standard of living may be?

This is not to put all people into one, ignorant category. This is just to say that there are many individuals who regard strays to be beneath themselves as living creatures simply because they belong to a species that cannot mobilize itself into NGOs and awareness drives. Apparently, the fact that these are living, breathing, feeling creatures with fully equipped nervous systems that feel pain, hunger and joy are not enough to make the worth of their lives equal to ours.

I am not going to quote statistics about how many animals on the streets of India are abused annually or how many shelters for strays are actually up and functional or how much budget the state municipality allocates for them. My argument against cruelty towards animals is something very basic, something very intrinsically human; which is ironical because as human beings, it is humanity department where we seem to lacking most.

Taking the specific case of stray dogs in India, the basis for my appeal against cruelty towards them is not based on the fact that everyone must love dogs. We are all human and we have our own whims, fancies and fears. However, as the species whose claim to fame on the planet is the ability to feel pity and compassion and rise above the necessities of food, security and desire, is it not natural for us to have a basic respect for life?

Do we quarantine all the poor and homeless because they are less privileged and have to sleep on the streets? They make homes where they can and with what they can find. They eat what they find and by whatever means they find it. Is that not what these animals do as well? They do what they have to in order to survive. Is that not what we all basically do all of our lives? Why the discrimination, then?

The solution is not to beat and harass these animals and drive them away. The solution is also not to drag them up into a cramped trailer to be transported into a suffocating cage where it is not only freedom to move and fend for themselves that they lose, but it is the will to live that gets lost. Yes, a caged animal behaves the same way that a chained human would.

There is an acute need to create sensitization towards unclaimed and stray animals. An ideal situation would be no animals on the streets but in homes where they are well loved and cared for or in their natural habitat. However, that is NOT the current situation. Studies have found that merciless killing and hounding of strays only encourages unruly, dangerous and defensive behavior from them; and does NOT, in fact, result in reduction of their population on the streets. Sterilization and vaccination, meanwhile, DO result in the same.

Loud voices are raised when there are scams of dislocation and hazard to lives of people. Not to say that there are no voices against inconsiderate rounding up and dumping of strays, but these voices remain marginalized, not the front page news material – not for long anyway. A very simple gesture of consideration would go a long way. Proper shelters with the optimized use of resources allocated for the same, and adoption drives would go a long way. Respect for all things living and breathing would go a long way. You need look nowhere but inside – because being a little more human would go a long way.