Death of two children after attack by street dogs in Bangalore over last two months, have sparked a public anger against "menace" of street dogs in Bangalore. It is totally understandable. What is not is the knee jerk reaction of Bangalore Municipal Corporation by launching mass killing and culling of the street dogs. Knowing how considerate our municipal corporations are towards human life, it leaves one in no doubt about how "mercifully" these dogs will be eliminated. So thousands of street dogs in Bangalore and Mysore will be killed for avenging two freakish and unfortunate incidents. I have absolutely no contention in my mind that human life is precious and definitely more precious than animal life if we have to make such a choice. But I have a strong suspicion that the move by the Bangalore Municipal corporation and supported by State health ministry has anything to do with real concern about human life. Call me a cynic.
Last year in month of July, one 5 yrs old boy, Prince, fell into a bore well which was unused and left open in a village in Harayana. The kid was saved after grueling 52 hours of rescue operation by Military which was broadcasted live on TV channels, and had the entire country hooked to the TV. People throughout the country prayed for Prince, some fasted and visited temples. Even Prime Minister was alarmed enough to speak about his concern about prince's safety and rescue. Unsurprisingly some even hailed prince as reincarnation of Krishna seeing his unusual survival instincts in a hole which would have left even a grown up man terrified. Last week a 4 year old girl Arti Koli in Bhavnagar fell into 60 feet unused pit for bore well and died within few hours before she could be rescued. She died when she fell while collecting guavas from a guava tree, into an unused and uncovered bore well pit. Her story ran just as a peripheral incident in TV news. Between these two incidents, there have been at least 6 such incidents across the country where little kids have fell into unused bore-well holes and pits and have either died or somehow rescued. I totally fail to understand why these bore-well holes are not covered since they are in middle of human settlements and are clearly dangerous to safety of children. Is this not a criminal negligence on Authority's part? Why haven't these incidents sparked a major systematic operation leading to covering up such potential man made death traps? Forget about operation, these incidents now hardly make any news.
In our cities and towns, walking on pavements where they are still un-encroached can be potentially dangerous as one might walk straight into an open manhole. Manholes left uncovered on our roads and pavements is a usual sight and it would be interesting to know how many people actually fall into them or even lose their lives every year. In cities like Mumbai, during rains it is not unusual to read stories of people falling into manholes while wading through flooded roads. People fall into uncovered manholes, uncovered pits and pavement gaps every year and some of them loose limbs and even life but we have hardly seen any action where people in charge of covering such unholy holes have been reprimanded and punished for such criminal negligence.
The fact is that we have low regard for human life. Why target only street dogs on this pretext!! Just becuase they are esy target! The real culprit is Municipal Corporation itself which is so ineffective with its garbage disposal duties. Street dogs subsist on those heaps of garbage dumps which litter our cities. With Bangalore growing by leaps and bounds, Municipal Corporation has all but collapsed in Bangalore just like most of other civic infrastructure. Killing on dogs is no long term solution and reeks only of revenge in short term. Population of street dogs can only be controlled through Animal Birth Control (ABC) schemes which are used across the world and were even being implemented in Bangalore before Government resorted to drastic action of killing the dogs.
May 2006 in kolkata, three street dogs watched over and protected a human baby dumped into a garbage bin. They surrounded the baby and protected her and left only after baby was rescued and taken home. I wonder who acted like animal here. The dogs that protected the baby or its own human parents who dumped her. I am hardly an animal rights activist but I just can’t understand how mass killings of dogs would get over the problem of street dogs that are known to breed faster than rate of killings. I also wonder if we would resort to mass cow killings if thousands of abandoned cows on our roads lead to fatal road accidents!! Now only if dogs were holy.
Last year in month of July, one 5 yrs old boy, Prince, fell into a bore well which was unused and left open in a village in Harayana. The kid was saved after grueling 52 hours of rescue operation by Military which was broadcasted live on TV channels, and had the entire country hooked to the TV. People throughout the country prayed for Prince, some fasted and visited temples. Even Prime Minister was alarmed enough to speak about his concern about prince's safety and rescue. Unsurprisingly some even hailed prince as reincarnation of Krishna seeing his unusual survival instincts in a hole which would have left even a grown up man terrified. Last week a 4 year old girl Arti Koli in Bhavnagar fell into 60 feet unused pit for bore well and died within few hours before she could be rescued. She died when she fell while collecting guavas from a guava tree, into an unused and uncovered bore well pit. Her story ran just as a peripheral incident in TV news. Between these two incidents, there have been at least 6 such incidents across the country where little kids have fell into unused bore-well holes and pits and have either died or somehow rescued. I totally fail to understand why these bore-well holes are not covered since they are in middle of human settlements and are clearly dangerous to safety of children. Is this not a criminal negligence on Authority's part? Why haven't these incidents sparked a major systematic operation leading to covering up such potential man made death traps? Forget about operation, these incidents now hardly make any news.
In our cities and towns, walking on pavements where they are still un-encroached can be potentially dangerous as one might walk straight into an open manhole. Manholes left uncovered on our roads and pavements is a usual sight and it would be interesting to know how many people actually fall into them or even lose their lives every year. In cities like Mumbai, during rains it is not unusual to read stories of people falling into manholes while wading through flooded roads. People fall into uncovered manholes, uncovered pits and pavement gaps every year and some of them loose limbs and even life but we have hardly seen any action where people in charge of covering such unholy holes have been reprimanded and punished for such criminal negligence.
The fact is that we have low regard for human life. Why target only street dogs on this pretext!! Just becuase they are esy target! The real culprit is Municipal Corporation itself which is so ineffective with its garbage disposal duties. Street dogs subsist on those heaps of garbage dumps which litter our cities. With Bangalore growing by leaps and bounds, Municipal Corporation has all but collapsed in Bangalore just like most of other civic infrastructure. Killing on dogs is no long term solution and reeks only of revenge in short term. Population of street dogs can only be controlled through Animal Birth Control (ABC) schemes which are used across the world and were even being implemented in Bangalore before Government resorted to drastic action of killing the dogs.
May 2006 in kolkata, three street dogs watched over and protected a human baby dumped into a garbage bin. They surrounded the baby and protected her and left only after baby was rescued and taken home. I wonder who acted like animal here. The dogs that protected the baby or its own human parents who dumped her. I am hardly an animal rights activist but I just can’t understand how mass killings of dogs would get over the problem of street dogs that are known to breed faster than rate of killings. I also wonder if we would resort to mass cow killings if thousands of abandoned cows on our roads lead to fatal road accidents!! Now only if dogs were holy.
3 comments:
Thanks for blogging about this. See also http://savebangalorestrays.blogspot.com, http://catsofbangalore.blogspot.com and http://savebangaloredogs.wordpress.com.
Thanks Gaurav...do visit http://catsofbangalore.blogspot.com and if you are in bangalore, do join in the effort to stop the culling.
I agree with you ! These people have nothing to do with making life better in the city for everyone. All they can do it find the easy and soft targets and kill them ! Nothing is easier !
I am sorry, but I just finished writing to the those officials in Mysore about this matter.. and I am outraged at this !
Found your post in Google search for the same topic :)
Keep writing !
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