Strays debate: Why the poor remain unseen casualties

Neither side of India's slugfest over dogs has more at stake than those closest to street reality

- MANU JOSEPH

Reformers take too much credit for reform. So often, good happens when upper classes collide in self-interest but ostensibly for a good cause. As we will get to see once again when the Supreme Court decides the fate of stray dogs in the National Capital Region.

Awaiting the order are two warring sides. One group of people believes that stray dogs belong on the streets, with humans, free and fed by their lovers. The other group seems to despise stray dogs but I think their real bone to pick is with dog-lovers. They want the dogs removed from the roads, and for this they have discovered a sudden and uncharacteristic love for India's poor, who are the primary victims of dog bites as they are fully exposed to Indian street life.

Most civilian wars in societies across the world are between these two kinds of people. Those who stand for values, who have moral clarity on the matter because they will face no consequences, and who are thus able to say all the right things, which are easy to defend on camera. And the other side that is practical, and wants to live in a convenient way and for which they know that some values need to be compromised. They cannot easily argue their moral ambiguity in public and have to deploy the plight of the poor. But what they believe in is usually what many people say privately. They want stray dogs gone but do not want to be directly responsible for that because they don't want to pay a price for it in the afterlife. The second group might well be most of India. The first makes most of the noise.