On 11 August 2025, the Supreme Court of India directed the capture and relocation of stray dogs from Delhi-NCR to shelters. The stated goal: address rising cases of dog bites, rabies, and public fear. The order, while seemingly pragmatic, has stirred an intense national debate—not only about the treatment of animals, but about the judiciary’s sense of priorities in a nation facing far greater existential crises.
The follow up directive mandating the disposal of leftover food in covered bins to avert stray dog bites has stirred an uneasy churn in the collective conscience of Indian society. While the intention—to safeguard human life and prevent attacks—is legitimate, the method prescribed cuts across deeply ingrained cultural, humanitarian, and ecological sensibilities that have defined the subcontinent’s relationship with animals for centuries. From childhood, Indian families instil the principle that food is sacred—anna daan (the offering of food) is among the highest virtues. Wasting food is seen as a moral wrong. If surplus food remains, tradition dictates that it should be shared—be it with the needy, with cows, dogs, birds, or other beings. This practice is not merely emotional sentimentality; it is a lived ethic that bridges humans and nature in a shared moral universe.
The move has rekindled an ancient question: can we, in the pursuit of safety, ignore the moral, historical, and cultural obligations born of millennia of coexistence between humans and dogs? And further—what does it say about our guardians of the Constitution when smaller questions of animal control overshadow larger questions of human dignity, liberty, and governance?
I. A Partnership Older than Agriculture
Early Domestication – The First Pact
The dog was humanity’s first domesticated companion, possibly as early as 40,000 years ago, with archaeological evidence like the Bonn–Oberkassel dog—buried alongside humans 14,220 years ago—showing they were not tools but trusted members of the social unit.
Ancient Civilizations – Sacred and Social Roles
Greece & Rome: Guardians, hunting partners, and philosophical symbols. Cynicism’s name comes from kynikos (“dog-like”), a nod to canine frankness and resilience.
Egypt: Dogs linked to Anubis, protector of the dead; elaborate burials for dogs attest to their spiritual status.
India: The Rigveda praises Sarama, divine hound of the gods; the god Bhairava appears with a dog as his mount; the Mahabharata immortalizes Yudhisthira’s loyalty to his dog over the gates of heaven.
Mesoamerica: The Aztec Xoloitzcuintli guided souls through the afterlife.
Dogs hunted, herded, guarded, pulled sleds, and kept vermin away. They were survival partners long before they were mere pets.
II. Dogs in Literature – Loyalty as a Moral Measure
There is no dearth of stories and references of relationship and compassion of man towards dogs in the Indian and global literature. Dog is perceived as most faithful animal to the man.
Mahabharata: Yudhisthira’s refusal to abandon his dog elevates loyalty to a spiritual duty.
Rabindranath Tagore – “This Dog”: A stray’s silent companionship captures the dignity of unspoken bonds.
R.K. Narayan – “A Hero”: A boy’s courage blooms through friendship with a dog named King.
Ruskin Bond – My Dog Called Prince: Simple vignettes celebrate canine constancy in human life.
Homer’s Odyssey: Argos waits decades for Odysseus, greeting him once before dying—a portrait of unwavering love.
Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: Companionship as a lens to see a nation’s soul.
Jack London – The Call of the Wild: The mutual shaping of man and dog in extreme conditions.
These stories do not depict dogs as mere background—they are moral touchstones. To mistreat them is to degrade ourselves.
III. The 2025 Supreme Court Order – Problem or Priority?
The Supreme Court cited public safety—attacks, rabies, fear. The order in itself addresses immediate threats. Responds to rising public complaints. But in absence of a framework and adequate shelters in non-existence—relocation risks mass suffering. Dogs maintain ecological balance and would disturb the natural food chain where on organism is the food for the other. Removal may spike rodent infestations and other organism, which are food of a dog. Violates the spirit of Animal Birth Control (ABC) rules and WHO guidance, which emphasize sterilization and vaccination over culling or mass removal. History warns us: dog roundups in cities from Shanghai to Baghdad often ended in cruelty and public backlash.
IV. The Judiciary’s Constitutional Role – Guardianship Beyond the Kennel
The Indian Constitution envisions the Supreme Court and High Courts as guardians of rights and liberties—bulwarks against executive excess and protectors of public interest. This “sentinel on the qui vive” duty has historically involved:
Protecting the weak from state abuse.
Suo motu interventions in cases of human rights violations, environmental crises, and systemic failures.
Ensuring equality before the law even for unpopular minorities.
Yet today, urgent systemic crises—
Atrocities against women and rising rape statistics.
Witch-hunting in rural India.
Collapse of civic infrastructure in urban slums.
Electoral irregularities, including alleged voter suppression and the opaque “Special Intensive Survey” in Bihar.
Non-responsive Election Commission.
Weaponization of ED/CBI to target political dissent.
Millions of pending court cases choking justice.
Increasing drug cartels, organized crime, and communal polarization.
—receive little to no suo motu judicial intervention, even as the court acts decisively on stray dog control.
The contrast invites the charge of ideocracy—governance driven by ideological posturing over rational prioritization. Where constitutional guardianship should protect fundamental rights and human dignity, it risks narrowing itself to selective action with high visibility but limited systemic impact.
V. The Hypocrisy of Selective Compassion
India’s streets tell the tale:
Cows, sacred in rhetoric, wander traffic lanes, starving, diseased, and injured, posing grave road hazards—yet no parallel nationwide shelter order is issued.
Millions live in poverty and hunger, including beggars at every street corner—yet judicial urgency remains muted.
Environmental degradation and toxic air kill thousands yearly—without proportionate judicial activism.
If compassion is applied unevenly—elevated for one species, bureaucratically managed for another, and absent for humans in need—then our moral compass is broken.
VI. A Humane and Constitutional Path Forward
A judiciary mindful of both constitutional morality and compassionate governance could balance public safety with the humane treatment of strays:
1. Mass Sterilization and Vaccination – The only proven humane population control method (WHO).
2. Enforce Pet Ownership Laws – Prevent abandonment, mandate registration, spay/neuter requirements.
3. Shelter Reform – Build and fund facilities before issuing mass relocation orders.
4. Community Engagement – Local feeding and monitoring programs reduce aggression and rabies risk.
5. Judicial Leadership by Example – Apply the same urgency to systemic human rights crises as to animal management.
VII. The Moral Test
From the prehistoric hearth to the urban street, the dog has been our companion, guardian, and mirror. The August 2025 Supreme Court order is a moment of reckoning—not only for our treatment of animals, but for the priorities of our highest court.
As Yudhisthira knew on the threshold of heaven, to abandon a loyal companion for convenience’s sake is not strength—it is failure. A judiciary true to its constitutional calling must protect both the people and the voiceless creatures who have walked beside us since the dawn of humanity.
To be human is not merely to exercise power—it is to temper it with compassion.
References
1. Clutton-Brock, Juliet. Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and Evolution. Harvard University Press, 1995.
2. Morey, Darcy F. Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond. Cambridge University Press, 2010.
3. World Health Organization. WHO Expert Consultation on Rabies: Third Report, WHO TRS No. 1012, 2018.
4. Utah State University Museum of Anthropology. “Dogs in Ancient Egypt.” 2019.
5. World History Encyclopedia. “Yudhishthira’s Dog.” Accessed August 2025.
6. Tagore, Rabindranath. “This Dog.” Poems, Macmillan, 1931.
7. Narayan, R.K. Malgudi Days. Indian Thought Publications, 1982.
8. Bond, Ruskin. My Dog Called Prince. Rupa, 2015.
9. London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. Macmillan, 1903.
10. Homer. The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles. Penguin Classics, 1996.
11. NDTV. “Supreme Court Orders Relocation of Stray Dogs in Delhi-NCR.” 11 August 2025.
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