Cry for justice for our four-legged friends at Sri J’Pura Uni
As Aristotle said, “Education of the mind without education of the heart is no education at all.” And, in our country, hailed as a great Buddhist nation, let’s remind ourselves of the very tenet of Buddhism – ‘universal compassion’where it is wrong to kill or harm any living being.
Let us now recall a recent incident at the University of Sri Jayawardenepura, a premier seat of higher education in Sri Lanka.
On April 8 and 9, as dusk fell on that campus, over 30 dogs, to whom the campus premises was ‘home sweet home’ were brutally seized, needlessly anaesthetised, callously thrown into vehicles and driven away. Among them were lame dogs and puppies. Those caring for the dogs say that the removal was at the behest of that University’s Vice Chancellor (VC) . The VC contends that he did so to rid the University of a nuisance and a dog bite threat. The contract for removal was given to a pest control company registered under the Control of Pesticides Act.
Do dogs come within the definition of “pests” under that law? Though those who seized the dogs said the animals would be vaccinated and returned; that did not happen.
These were not stray dogs (where it is the local authorities that can act according to prevailing policies) - but a group of ‘Man’s Best Friend”, each having a name and an identity and cared for by compassionate students and staff who fed, bathed and found them veterinary care- and most importantly, sterilized and vaccinated them against rabies,to humanely reduce the dog population and avert a rabies risk. This is the WHO acknowledged solution, popularly called CNVR ( Catch-Neuter-VaccinateRelease.) Sterilizations decreased the dog population in the campus and would have reached its target soon.
Animal rights advocates say that this removal violated the country’s animal cruelty law and ignored the 2006 ‘No Kill Policy’ of the then President which directed sterilization and vaccination as the humane option to control the dog population and eradicate rabies, instead of the practice of destruction by gassing.
An employee of the pest control company refused to divulge the fate of the dogs, offering contradictory responses – that those who caught them had taken them home, they were abandoned along the Dehiwala beach or “here and there.” The company’s sub-contractor’s claim that the dogs were given to a certain person added to their fears, when he admitted receiving the dogs but said that they had disappeared. Claims that they were given to shelters were found to be untrue. In a desperate attempt to find the dogs,as abandoned dogs cannot survive in unfamiliar, hostile surroundings, a relentless search operation was launched, combing the Dehiwala beach and questioning many, but without success. Thus, the reasonable suspicion was that the dogs may have been killed. Other options were then pursued. Public assistance was sought through a press conference; Local Government Minister Faiszer Mustapha, (who recently obtained Cabinet approval to criminalize dog abandonment and issued a public statement that dogs will not be killed) was approached since he had appointed an Advisory Committee to recommend humane measures to deal with dogs compelled to be removed from public places; Higher Education Minister Lakshman Kiriella’s intervention was sought, since as an Opposition Parliamentarian, during an Adjournment Debate in 2014, on prevention of cruelty to animals, he had emphasised the need for law reform, commenting also that the practice of rounding up stray dogs should stop.Complaints were lodged with the Mirihana police, both by a student and animal rights activists, alleging animal cruelty and requesting assistance to trace the dogs. Subsequently, at a meeting convened by Minister Mustapha, the VC stated that the entire university community of 20,000 wanted the dogs removed, and that once removed, it was not his concern to find out their fate. We ask, among the 20,000, did not even one have a heart? The VC was however, willing to meet animal rights advocates to discuss humane plans for the remaining dogs.
Animals are no longer chattel. Globally, they are increasingly recognized as “nonhuman persons” with feelings. The Indian Supreme Court, mindful of the necessity to balance compassion for animals and the existence of humans and acknowledging that not killing, but sterilisation is the answer for dog population control, directed Indian States to sterilize every stray dog, allowing only irretrievably ill or rabid dogs to be destroyed. Reporting that directive, “The Hindustan Times” commented that it was one of those rare days in the Supreme Court when the country’s legal luminaries teamed up to defend the right to life of Mumbai’s stray dogs.The Delhi High Court, observing that there is no law prohibiting street dog feeding and stating that those who do so perform a constitutional duty of showing compassion to all living creatures, directed India’s Animal Welfare Board to earmark appropriate sites to establish stray dog feeding stations and ordered the police to protect those feeding street dogs, if they were exposed to the ire of ill-informed, ill-advised administrators and residents.
According to statistics, human rabies deaths, high during killing, decreased with CNVR. When sterilized and vaccinated dogs are removed, others neither steri- lized nor vaccinated take over. Vaccinated dogs living in groups create “herd immunity” preventing other dogs coming into their territory.
Man and dog have co-existed for centuries. The Mahavamsa records that when Prince Vijaya landed in our country in the 5th century BC, on seeing a dog and surmising that “only where there is a village are dogs to be found”, he had followed the dog, a journey leading the Prince to Kuveni.
Empirical research reveals that children and youth who are cruel to animals can become violent and such cruelty can be the first warning sign of future criminal behaviour. Several serial killers, rapists and nephrodites have admitted that being cruel to animals was the first time they realized that they liked to hurt people.
A former VC of J’pura University had himself fed these dogs. Caring for strays is not a strange phenomenon in this country. We have schools where students, with staff support rescue animals. Some public and private sector institutions, led by their CEOs organise sterilisation and feeding for street dogs and cats in the vicinity.
Adults have a fundamental duty to guide the young to grow up as non-violent, responsible citizens. They should thus, by action consistent with education,intelligence, wisdom and enlightened thinking, encourage and inspire children and youth to be compassionate to animals.