Topic 1 : The human-dog relationship, conflict and coexistence
Context
Headline grabbing incidents of ‘dog biting, chasing, or mauling’ represent only a fraction of all human-dog interactions.
Reasons behind growing intolerance towards street dogs
- Resident Welfare Associations– They are often the instigators of violence. Power demands that an enemy be identified. So, dogs living there peacefully become the target.
- Animal instincts– Dogs get aggressive when they perceive a threat. They become aggressive if they are forcibly relocated, or have witnessed abuse and neglect.
- Implementation of rules– The 2001 Rules failed as the programme was implemented piecemeal, allowing dog populations to continue to grow. Neutering and vaccination alone are not enough to prevent dogs from forming packs and attacking people.
- The lack of budget and infrastructure, the prevalence of corrupt and inefficient practices, and the absence of transparency and monitoring are the challenges in implementation.
- Fascination for foreign breeds– It is responsible for bad treatment of native breeds. Business of Pet shops thrive due to it.
Animal Birth Control Rules, 2023
- The Animal Birth Control Rules 2023 require stray dogs to be caught, vaccinated, neutered, and released back. This approach aims to control the dog population without cruelty.
- The Rules aim to provide guidelines for the sterilisation and immunisation of stray dogs through Animal Birth Control (ABC) programmes. These programmes should be conducted by the local bodies, municipalities, municipal corporations, and panchayats.
- ABC and the anti-rabies programmes should be carried out jointly by these bodies.
- The Rules provide guidelines on resolving human-dog conflicts without relocation of the animals.
Reducing the conflicts between humans and dogs
- The effective strategy would be the implementation of the ABC(Animal Birth Control) Programme by municipal bodies in accordance with the new ABC Rules of 2023.
- A proactive approach would be to encourage the adoption of Indian dogs. If one person out of every 100 people adopts a dog from the street, there would be no dogs on the roads.
- The native breeds of dogs should be promoted. Native dogs have better immune systems and make great pets.
- The importance of people who look after native dogs on the streets has been recognised by our courts. In the new ABC Rules, community dog caregivers have been granted protection from harassment.
- Culling is rarely an effective or workable solution to reduce conflict, and can be counterproductive, especially in the complex social and ecological conditions found in a place such as India.
- Eradication can exacerbate the situation by triggering unpredictable ecological changes that may be unwelcome.
- Our ongoing research shows that this will have to include measures such as ensuring ready access to post-exposure treatment and anti-rabies vaccination for people; maintenance of neutered, vaccinated and socialised street dog populations in their localities so as to reduce incidents of conflict
Conclusion
In the face of such complexity, our energies must be geared toward improving our understanding of the drivers of different types of conflict to develop suitable interventions, rather than relying on silver bullet solutions that are rarely successful in building healthy societies.
Topic 2 : Bonds, big money and an imperfect democracy
Introduction
The electoral bonds scheme that has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of India, was supposed to end the financing of elections with black money. If this had happened, Indian politics would have been transformed with great benefit to the nation.
Gap between the professed and the actual
- Elected leaders, mainly serving the interests of those who finance their elections, hardly represent the interests of their constituency.
- Vested interests, increasingly, have got themselves elected. What they profess and what they practice are different.
- This gap between the professed and the actual undermines democracy since government is no longer an entity ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’.
- The vast majority of people see that they hardly gain benefit from government policies while vested interests corner most of the gains from development.
- It is in the design of the policies — the packaging is cleverly done to make policies appear to be in the national interest.
- For instance, if poverty, unemployment, ill health and poor educational standards persist, these are said to be natural and are left to market forces.
- Concessions are granted to businesses to provide these services through the market which results in the inability of the poor to afford them while simultaneously leading to growing disparities.
- Concessions also reduce the availability of resources with the public sector so that it is unable to provide these services at the requisite level.
- Inadequate public services hurt the interests of the marginalised sections.
- For instance, the recent Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) shows that 40% of children in the age group of 14 to 18 years are unable to read, write or do the level of math of standard two.
- They cannot acquire higher skills which could enable them to end their poverty. That is because in the top down model of development, resources are preempted by the elite.
- Businesses, not satisfied with the gains that they make legally, resort to making them illegally using undeclared incomes which constitute the black economy.
- It requires weak accountability by government personnel, which is at the root of the weakness of democracy in India and its hollowing out.
- This is reinforced by the broadly feudal mindset that is prevalent in society which leads to the individual’s willingness to bow before authority rather than standing up to it.
Cronyism uncovered
- Even though the electoral bonds formed a fraction of the total funding requirement of political parties, data now made available unravels the character of Indian politics and elections.
- The data show that funds were given to political parties: for favours from policymakers; to escape prosecution for wrong doing, and as investment for the future.
- The first category enables a business to receive favours such as manipulation of policy or preferred treatment in policy implementation as in for example needing environmental clearance or getting a contract.
- The second category is one where there is arm-twisting. Given how complex rules are, some violation of rules can be detected and prosecution initiated by agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate.
Way forward
- In a well-functioning democracy, where the political leadership is accountable, fighting an election would need neither big funding nor electoral bonds to be bought in secrecy.
- The electoral bonds scheme only highlights the growing weakness of Indian democracy. It could have worked in an ideal situation but then it would not have been required.