DOG’S LIFE: Madras High Court Petition

January 1, 2010

DOG’S LIFE

Petitions can be stranger than fiction. When D. Vikram of Coimbatore petitioned

the Madras High Court because his neighbours were trying to deprive him of his

pet dogs, he was evidently convinced that it was his fundamental right to keep a

dog. Getting down to the fundaments is always a risky business, as he seems to

have found to his cost. Generating sound and air pollution, that is, sheltering

sources of “barking and howling” and of “stench”, cannot be anybody’s

fundamental right, the court has ruled. There was also a small discrepancy in Mr

Vikram’s petition. He claimed to possess a dozen dogs as pets, while inspection

by authorities has reportedly revealed about 30 dogs, or at least far more than

a dozen, for which Mr Vikram appears not to have a licence and which, according

to irate neighbours, are bred for sale. But delving into the slightly murky

doggy background would distract attention from the deep philosophical issues the

case has thrown up. Animal-lovers are repo

rtedly disturbed by the sentence; they are naturally far more exercised over the

dogs’ fundamental rights than the man’s. And the dog has a right to bark, just

as a baby has the right to cry. However, they seem to be less agitated by the

court’s reference to stench.

Conflicting rights — the neighbours’ right to quiet against the

far-more-than-a-dozen dogs’ right to bark in a residential locality in

Coimbatore — are just the tiny symptoms of a vast, historical, perhaps

pre-historic, problem, about who owns the earth. Dogs are man’s best friend:

humankind has carefully bred them to be so. To fight for the right of

domesticated dogs to bark uncovers an interesting philosophical paradox — wild

dogs, tragically dwindled in numbers in Africa, would perhaps not wait for human

beings to fight for their rights. They are famous for getting what they want,

swiftly and dangerously. The Animal Welfare Board of India, however, has decided

to “go through the court order” and “take suitable legal action to establish the

rights of dogs”. Do the dogs have a choice?

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Thank you for your compassion !

With best regards,

Debasis Chakrabarti

Compassionate Crusaders Trust

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