NECESSARY RETREAT

The great man who played a vital role in laying the foundations of this great country, once said: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” It was Mahatma Gandhi, if a guesswork was needed at all! We are living today in an age of rights-based society—human aspirations and actions are driven by (and also bound by) the notion to hold rights as a nonnegotiable tenet of existence, and the level of dignity that defines it.

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Only humans with poor moral compass and narrow intelligence would disagree on extending the rights framework to most of the living beings, including animals. The August 11 order of the Supreme Court to permanently remove stray dogs from Delhi’ streets—in deviation from the Animal Birth Control (ABC) rules— was seemingly making the time needles rotate anticlockwise. Facing due backlash from animal rights activists and other sections of society, the apex court, well in time, has decided to rework its verdict. The decision to modify the August 11 directive acknowledges both the impracticality and inhumanity of that order. By reaffirming the Animal Birth Control (ABC) rules and mandating sterilisation, vaccination, and release of strays back into their localities—except in cases of rabies infection or aggressive behaviour—the Court has rightly sought to correct an overreach that had sparked widespread outrage.