A moment of reflection

There’s a strange stillness that follows chaos. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s clarity. Or maybe it’s just the sound of truth finally pushing through the noise. I’ve spent my life being forthright and unafraid. I’ve taken on people, power,s because I’ve believed silence was complicity. I’ve never been one to back down. But today, I’m taking a moment to reflect — not to apologise, not to soften, but to recalibrate.

In all the high drama, the shouting matches, the hashtags, the accusations, and the counter-accusations — what gets lost is something almost embarrassingly simple: 

We may not agree on the problem. We may never agree on who is to blame. But we all agree on the solution — because it’s the only solution. We know what needs to be done. We’ve known it for years. We’ve drafted it, debated it, and weaponised it against each other. But in the endless performance of proving each other wrong, we’ve stopped doing the one thing that matters — executing it.

So here’s my reminder, to myself as much as to everyone else:Passion without direction is chaos.Conviction without compassion is cruelty.And progress without action is fiction.I am deeply disappointed by the SC interim order that essentially condemns all homeless animals to death. 

To order removal to shelters that do not exist is simply window dressing. It means dogs being cruelly caught, tossed arbitrarily into dirty stinking vehicles and flung any which where to die of hunger, thirst, disease, accidents and, mostly heartbreak at being betrayed by the humans whom they blindly loved and trusted.Let us look at what could have and should have happened instead. 

The SC had called all Chief Secretaries and seemed to be leaning towards better compliance by the States — ensuring effective implementation of the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules, 2023, and adherence to the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) guidelines. 

This shift from confrontation to compliance would have given pause and asked us to reflect on how we, as citizens, caregivers, and advocates, can meet the Court halfway in achieving that compliance. 

The Court’s focus on compliance would have acted as a reminder that the framework already exists; what’s missing is faithful execution.The Court’s decision should rightly have rested on three essential pillars — the governing law, the legal precedent, and the constitutional framework. 

The governing law remains the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 (PCA Act). Sections 3, 11(1) and 11(3B) create a clear obligation of humane treatment, forbid torture or killing except under lawful conditions, and prevent arbitrary culling. These provisions form the legal foundation for the Animal Birth Control Rules. 

The PCA Act empowers the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying to frame detailed rules — and it is under this power that the Animal Birth Control(Dogs) Rules, 2023 were notified, replacing the older 2001 Rules. These Rules are binding law, not guidelines open to interpretation.

They mandate the feed-sterilise–vaccinate–release model (ABC method), under which every local body must catch, sterilise, vaccinate, and release dogs back to the same area. They ban mass removal or relocation, define roles for implementing agencies, supervisory bodies, nodal officers and monitoring committees, codify regulated feeding zones within residential or institutional areas in consultation with RWAs and local authorities, and specify that any dog showing aggressive behaviour must be evaluated and isolated only if necessary — not removed en masse. 

Thus, every practical action in the current litigation — sterilisation, vaccination, feeding regulation, or relocation —must be evaluated against these Rules. They are the operational law of the land. The second pillar is binding precedent — the line of cases that have consistently upheld this humane and lawful approach. 

From Animal Welfare Board of India v. A. Nagaraja (2014), which recognised animals’ right to live with intrinsic worth and dignity under Article 21, toAnimal Welfare Board v. People for Elimination of Stray Troubles (P.E.S.T.) (2016), whichupheld the ABC Rules and prohibited indiscriminate killing, to Animal Welfare Board v.Corporation of Coimbatore (2017), which reaffirmed that local authorities must implementABC programmes and cannot hide behind administrative excuses — the courts have spokenclearly and repeatedly. 

Across High Courts — Bombay, Kerala, Delhi — between 2014 and 2022, judges have ruled that feeding and sterilisation must follow the ABC Rules and AWBI guidelines, and that culling violates Article 21. Together, these precedents make the PCA Act and ABC Rules a constitutional and statutory mandate, not merely a policy preference. The third pillar is the constitutional framework itself. Articles 21, 48A and 51A(g) together create a humane compact between humans and animals. 

They recognise coexistence, not dominance, as the principle of life. And yet, after all these years, we are still debating the same fundamentals. How can we still not have reliable data on population, on bites, on sterilisation rates? How can we have an effective policy or measurable outcomes without a data-driven approach? 

After decades of legislation, litigation, and activism, implementation survives only in pockets of enthusiasm — driven by individual compassion rather than institutional will. 

Since the AWBI guidelines neither conflict with the governing law, nor violate constitutional rights, nor lack statutory authority, there is no question of reading them down or quashing them. The purpose is to harmonise them — with the PCA Act, with constitutional principles, and with the realities of administration on the ground. 

And those realities are best known to the people who live them every day: feeders, carers, and welfarists. They understand not just animal welfare, but also the logistical, emotional, and human challenges of the Animal Birth Control (ABC) programme. How do we catch dogs without feeders? How do we maintain vaccination coverage without welfarists? How do we ensure healthy canine populations without carers?

For the government programme to succeed, there is no alternative but a public–private partnership between welfarists and the State. There can be no success without public health and animal welfare aligning — and for that to happen, both sides must make concessions. We’ve already seen pockets of great success where populations have fallen, vaccination rates have reached 100%, and peaceful cohabitation between humans and animals has been achieved.

Those examples are proof of concept. It’s time to learn from them and scale them. Welfarists have learnt through a method of trial and error; they are the army that the government needs to finally execute this policy. It is time to put down our weapons and work together. And this is my pitch to those who may see me as an adversary: our goals are aligned.

The steady reduction of the roaming canine population. The maintenance of a healthy, vaccinated canine population. The total eradication of canine-mediated rabies deaths from this country. A humane, scientific approach to get there. That is the shared mission. 

The SC needs to redirect all to channel our energy towards execution — not opposition. To build, not blame. To collaborate, not combat.Because the only way forward is together. And maybe this — finally — is that moment of reflection. I’ll keep fighting — that’s who I am. But maybe now, I’ll fight a little harder. And make sure the fight actually leads somewhere.

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