As a citizenry, how do we decide what and who deserve our attention and what things we can unsee? The recent reaction to the Delhi stray dog issue worked like a touchstone
STRAY DOG ORDER
On August 11, a bench of the Supreme Court orders the removal of stray dogs from the streets of Delhi-NCR to animal shelters within six to eight weeks. More hearings follow and finally on Friday, a new bench says strays that are not proven aggressive will not be permanently confined to shelters
Fallen by the wayside
- India has an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 rabies deaths annually, which constitutes over a third of the global fatalities from the disease, according to WHO estimates
- 37 lakh cases of dog bites in India in 2024
- 4.3 lakh cases since January 2025
The outrage
- Hashtags such as #SaveDelhiNCRDogs, #SaveDelhiDogs, #DogsAreFamily and AI-generated posters flood social media after the court’s August 11 order
- Marches and protest rallies continue — in Delhi, Calcutta, Jaipur, Chennai, Lucknow, Siliguri, Mumbai, Nagpur....
- Bollywood weighs in. Actor John Abraham writes to Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, urging a review of the order. Former cricketer Kapil Dev bats for stray dogs on social media
- Those few voices for the dog-bitten have not been welcomed. Not enough people seem to speak about or grieve or take out candlelight marches for the six-year-old girl in Delhi’s Rohini who succumbed to dog bite on June 30. The death had acted as a trigger for the SC’s suo motu order
AUGUST COMPANY
Around the time of the outrage over the stray dog order, these were some of the fomenting issues in India and abroad. Many of them continue to unravel. In some way or the other, each of these impacts large numbers directly and indirectly in a variety of ways. Here’s a look at them and the reactions they elicited or didn’t:
‘Vote theft’, Bihar SIR
The allegations surrounding the special revision of electoral rolls raise questions about the poll machinery and whether the citizens’ basic rights are being snatched. The draft SIR has removed 65 lakh names from the electoral rolls, raising many suspicions
Persecution of Bengali-speaking people
Migrant workers from Bengal have been facing harassment across India over allegations that they are “Bangladeshi infiltrators". Many have been wrongfully detained, beaten up, thrown into jail without trial
Pet lovers of Gurgaon convened at Galleria Market against the Supreme Court’s order to relocate stray dogs, but no gesture of solidarity reported for the fleeing domestic helps, sanitary workers and odd-job men from Gurgaon or any place outside Bengal
Trump tariffs
Some of the sectors that will take a debilitating blow if the US President persists with his 50% tariff on India are textiles, pharmaceuticals, automobile components, IT services, jewellery exporters, seafood. This will translate into losses running into crores. It is feared that the rupee will weaken further. Since a lot of these are labour-intensive sectors, it will inevitably lead to job losses
Ukraine-Gaza
If you are measuring the kilometres from Connaught Place or Chowringhee to Kyiv or Gaza, you have the issue by the wrong end. Continuing war, unfolding famine, targeted killing of journalists translate into global instability, food insecurity, democracy under threat. Supply chains are disrupted, oil prices go up, demand for exports go down…. Here in India, in the long term, only 1 per cent — controlling 40 per cent of the country’s wealth — can hope to be unimpacted at the personal level
Mahadevi the elephant
A 36-year-old elephant called Mahadevi that had spent 33 years at a mutt in Nandani Village of Kolhapur was ordered to be rehabilitated to the Anant Ambani -owned Vantara’s Radhe Krishna Temple Elephant Welfare Trust in Jamnagar by Bombay High Court. The Supreme Court upheld the decision. Reason cited by the petitioners: Mahadevi’s poor health and psychological suffering
After the shift, however, the outraged people of Kolhapur took out a 45km march demanding her return. Thousands joined. People started to boycott Jio, the Ambani-owned telecom provider, and ported their numbers to other networks in protest. Now the Maharashtra government is playing peacemaker. Moral of the story — we care, only selectively