Compassion as Policy, Rethinking Our Coexistence with Community Dogs in Urban India

Compassion as Policy, Rethinking Our Coexistence with Community Dogs in Urban India

Introduction: A Shared World, A Betrayed Trust

In the hushed, majestic expanse of the Himalayas, where the natural world operates on an ancient covenant of coexistence, a young Mohit Chauhan learned a fundamental truth: “the world is not owned — it is shared.” This foundational ethos, imbibed from mountain streams, industrious ants, and silent, steadfast canine companions, now collides violently with the reality of modern Indian cities. Chauhan’s poignant narrative, bridging his life as a celebrated musician and a caregiver to over 400 community dogs, is not merely a personal testament; it is a powerful manifesto. It challenges the very core of how urban India perceives and legislates its relationship with dogs who live alongside us, yet are not “owned” by us. In an era marked by escalating human-animal conflict, knee-jerk eradication policies, and deepening societal intolerance, his call for compassion to guide policy is a urgent and necessary intervention in the discourse on urban living, civic responsibility, and ecological ethics.

The Philosophical Foundation: From Himalayan Instinct to Urban Imperative

Chauhan’s childhood frames the ideal: a seamless, unspoken partnership. The mountain dog, a “quiet guardian of travellers,” existed in a symbiotic relationship defined by mutual presence, not possession. Compassion was “instinct,” not an “instruction.” This model reflects a pre-modern understanding of community dogs—animals integrated into the human social fabric without the formal labels of “pet” or “stray.” They were participants in a shared landscape.

This philosophy finds echoes in Indian tradition. Scriptures from various faiths preach karuna (compassion) and ahimsa (non-violence) towards all living beings. The Constitution of India, under Article 51A(g), mandates it as a fundamental duty of every citizen to “have compassion for living creatures.” Yet, as Chauhan’s urban experience reveals, this constitutional and cultural memory has been eroded. The city, with its concretized boundaries, privatized spaces, and culture of individual ownership, has pathologized the free-roaming dog. The instinctive compassion of the mountains is replaced by fear, annoyance, and a rhetoric of “nuisance” and “danger.”

The Urban Reality: Love, Cruelty, and the Loneliness of Care

Chauhan’s migration to the city mirrors the journey of the community dog itself—from integrated existence to marginalized outsider. His description of caring for hundreds of dogs across colonies and parks unveils a stark urban dichotomy.

The Reality of Caregiving: It is a life of profound commitment and profound isolation. Caregivers—often ordinary citizens, predominantly women—spend their own resources on food, sterilization drives, and medical treatment. They choose “funding vaccines for animals over luxuries for self.” Their reward is not social acclaim but the unconditional trust in a dog’s eyes. Yet, this altruism is met with hostility: “Neighbours shout. Stones are thrown. Cold water is poured on winter mornings. Crackers explode at tails.” The caregiver becomes a social outlier, defending the indefensible in the eyes of a hostile community.

The Dog’s Perspective: A Litany of Uncomprehending Suffering: Chauhan masterfully gives voice to the canine experience. The dogs “do not understand laws.” They only understand the betrayal of sudden violence in spaces they considered home. “What did I do wrong?” their silent gaze asks after being doused with hot water or seeing their sleeping spots demolished. Their crime, as Chauhan answers, is nothing. They simply “slept where [they] felt safe.” This anthropomorphic empathy is crucial—it forces us to see them not as statistical problems but as sentient beings with needs for security, companionship, and freedom from pain.

The Architecture of Hatred: Opposition to community dogs is no longer just spontaneous anger; it is organized. Hatred “travels through forwarded messages, through fear dressed as concern.” WhatsApp groups buzz with edited videos and misinformation painting all street dogs as rabid man-eaters. Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) pass bylaws demanding their removal, treating their “presence as an offence.” This creates a permission structure for cruelty, allowing people in “warm rooms” to decree that beings “trembling outside in rain and cold” have no right to exist.

The Policy Failure: Abandoning Responsibility, Punishing the Consequences

The state’s response has been historically inconsistent and often brutal, oscillating between neglect and violent eradication drives. Chauhan identifies the root cause: a catastrophic failure of human responsibility. “If there are too many dogs today, it is our failure,” he states unequivocally.

The Cycle of Irresponsibility:

1. Encroachment: Humans “took the commons, we narrowed their world.” Urban sprawl destroys natural habitats, forcing animals into closer, more fraught contact with human settlements.

2. Resource Provision and Abandonment: Humans provide unreliable food sources (garbage, sporadic feeding) but reject the responsibility for managing the population this sustains.

3. Scapegoating: We then “call their presence a problem,” blaming the dogs for the ecological and social mess we created. Mass culling or illegal relocations become the preferred “solution,” a cycle of violence that is both ethically bankrupt and scientifically ineffective, as it disrupts territorial stability and can actually increase aggression and disease spread.

The Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2001, which advocate for sterilization and vaccination as the humane, scientific method for population and rabies control, remain poorly implemented and underfunded across most municipalities. The policy vacuum is filled by prejudice.

Towards a Compassionate Policy Framework: Principles and Practices

Chauhan’s appeal for compassion to be policy is not a vague sentimental plea. It is a demand for a systemic overhaul based on ethics, science, and community partnership. A compassionate policy would be built on several pillars:

1. Redefining Ownership and Belonging: Policy must legally recognize and protect “community dogs” as rightful inhabitants of urban ecosystems, not as interlopers. This shifts the paradigm from “stray control” to “community animal management.” Laws must penalize cruelty and harassment severely, protecting both dogs and their caregivers.

2. Robustly Funding and Implementing ABC Programs: Compassion is pragmatic. Mass, systematic sterilization and vaccination are the only proven ways to create a stable, healthy, and non-breeding street dog population over time. Municipal corporations must be mandated and funded to run continuous, professional ABC programs in partnership with registered animal welfare organizations (AWOs) and citizen volunteers.

3. Legitimizing and Supporting Caregivers: Caregivers are the frontline of humane urban animal management. Policy must recognize them as partners, not pests. This could involve:

• Issuing official caregiver identity cards to prevent harassment.

• Establishing designated, maintained feeding stations to prevent conflict over mess.

• Providing subsidized veterinary care and food supplies through municipal-AWO networks.

4. Mandatory Community Education and Mediation: The “fear dressed as concern” must be addressed at its root. Public awareness campaigns, helmed by credible experts, should disseminate facts about dog behavior, rabies prevention (focusing on vaccination, not killing), and humane coexistence. RWAs should be encouraged to form mediation committees including caregivers, veterinarians, and fearful residents to find localized, compassionate solutions.

5. Integrating Animal Welfare into Urban Planning: New urban developments should be required to include designated green corridors and shelters for community animals. Garbage management systems must be animal-proof to eliminate conflict over waste. This is the proactive “making space” Chauhan advocates for.

The Deeper Healing: Dogs as Mirrors of Our Humanity

Beyond policy, Chauhan touches on a deeper, spiritual truth: our relationship with community dogs is a mirror reflecting our own humanity. In a world “growing increasingly cruel and lonely,” these animals offer lessons we are in desperate need of relearning.

• They teach trust: After millennia of domestication, they still choose to trust us, despite ample evidence of our betrayal.

• They model love without guarantee: Their affection is not transactional; it is offered freely, asking only for kindness in return.

• They are healers and guardians: For the lonely, the elderly, the marginalized, a community dog can be a vital source of emotional support and a sense of security.

To erase them is to erase a part of our own capacity for empathy and connection. As Chauhan poignantly concludes, “They cannot be punished for choosing us.” Their presence is a living reminder of a covenant we made when they first stepped out of the wild. The question is whether a modern, urbanizing India will honor that ancient trust or sever it in the name of a sterile, exclusive, and ultimately impoverished idea of what a city should be.

Conclusion: Becoming Worthy of an Ancient Love

Mohit Chauhan’s essay is a clarion call from the intersection of art, activism, and deep ecological consciousness. It argues that the measure of a truly advanced, civilized society is not how it treats its most powerful, but how it accommodates its most vulnerable co-inhabitants. The “community dog issue” is, in reality, a human issue—a test of our wisdom, our compassion, and our ability to share space.

Building cities where compassion is policy requires a collective awakening. It needs citizens to move beyond forwarded fears, municipalities to prioritize humane science over brutal shortcuts, and lawmakers to frame legislation that reflects the constitutional duty of compassion. It demands that we see the dog sleeping on the street not as a problem to be removed, but as a neighbor with whom we must negotiate a peaceful, respectful coexistence.

The dogs, as Chauhan reminds us, have been waiting for centuries for us to deserve their trust. The mountains, the scriptures, and the better angels of our nature all whisper the same lesson. It is time for our policies, our cities, and our hearts to finally listen, and to make space. The future we share depends on it.

Q&A on Community Dogs and Compassionate Policy

Q1: What is the core philosophical shift that Mohit Chauhan advocates for in how we perceive community dogs?
A1: Chauhan advocates for a shift from a framework of ownership and nuisance to one of shared belonging and coexistence. He contrasts the urban label of “stray” with his Himalayan childhood understanding where “a dog was a dog. It belonged where we belonged.” This philosophy views community dogs not as out-of-place problems, but as rightful participants in the urban ecosystem, deserving of compassion and space as part of a shared world we have built atop their former habitats.

Q2: According to the narrative, what are the primary challenges faced by caregivers who look after community dogs?
A2: Caregivers face a brutal dichotomy of deep commitment and severe social hostility. Their challenges include:

• Financial and Personal Sacrifice: Spending personal income on food, sterilization, and medical care, often sacrificing personal luxuries and time.

• Social Ostracization and Harassment: Facing shouts, thrown stones, cold water, and physical threats from hostile neighbors.

• Psychological Burden: Bearing witness to constant cruelty against the animals they love and navigating a lonely, thankless role.

• Systemic Neglect: Operating in a policy void where the state fails in its duty, leaving them to manage a community responsibility with minimal support.

Q3: Why does Chauhan argue that the current overpopulation of dogs is a “human failure,” and what is the flawed cycle he describes?
A3: Chauhan argues it is a human failure because we created the conditions. He describes a vicious cycle:

1. Encroachment: Humans destroyed natural habitats (“took the commons, narrowed their world”).

2. Irresponsible Provision: We provide unmanaged food sources (garbage, sporadic feeding) without taking responsibility for the population it sustains.

3. Scapegoating and Violence: We then blame the dogs for existing and respond with cruel, ineffective eradication drives (“punish the consequences”). We abandon responsibility and then attack the beings affected by that abandonment.

Q4: What would a “compassionate policy” framework entail, based on the principles outlined in the article?
A4: A compassionate policy framework would be multi-pronged:

• Humane Population Management: Large-scale, properly funded implementation of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) program—sterilization and vaccination—as the scientific and ethical cornerstone.

• Legal Protection and Recognition: Strong laws against cruelty, legal recognition for “community dogs,” and protection for registered caregivers from harassment.

• Community Partnership: Integrating and supporting caregivers as official partners, providing resources and legitimacy.

• Public Education: Combating misinformation with facts about dog behavior and rabies prevention (through vaccination, not culling).

• Inclusive Urban Planning: Designing cities with animal welfare in mind—animal-proof waste management, designated feeding areas, and green corridors.

Q5: Beyond practical policy, what is the deeper, symbolic significance of our relationship with community dogs that Chauhan highlights?
A5: Chauhan posits that community dogs are mirrors of our own humanity and teachers of vital virtues. In an increasingly isolated and cruel world, they model unconditional trust and love without transaction. They serve as healers and companions for the marginalized. Our treatment of them reflects our collective capacity for empathy, compassion, and honoring ancient bonds. Erasing them signifies a loss of our own spiritual and ethical grounding. Ultimately, coexisting with them is about becoming “worthy… of the love that has waited for us for centuries,” fulfilling a covenant of trust initiated when dogs first chose to live beside humans.