Whose rights are a priority?
Kashmir is faced with a severe crisis of rising number of canines. Not only is the huge rise in the number of dogs proving to be a health hazard for the common citizens but at times their presence on the streets and internal roads is proving to be a major risk as well.
The count of stray dogs is estimated at more than 1.5 Lakh with the number rising to 65 thousand in Srinagar city alone. Though no specific survey has been conducted to know their exact numbers, but given the free hand these canines have been provided it seems the numbers can be higher.
However, the concern is more than mere numbers. The canine attacks are increasing in numbers as the SMHS Hospital’s Anti-Rabies Clinic recorded 6,844 dog-bite cases in 2024. This year, doctors are logging 30 to 40 cases every day.
The casualty list surprisingly, is also increasing with small kids, elders and even fully grown adults being targeted by the stray canines. The list is endless, from school going children to tourists alike.
One question that keeps on being asked after every such attack is that whose rights do matter when the rights collide. Whose life is worth more, the human’s or the animal’s?
The human claim is anchored in survival. Article 21 guarantees the right to life and personal safety. That right turns abstract when a child needs a stick to reach school, when municipal sweepers work in pairs for protection, when elders skip morning prayers because dawn belongs to packs.
Rabies kills 99.9% of its symptomatic victims, and Kashmir has already lost children to it this decade. The cost is paid in money too – five doses of vaccine, loss of wages, and the ₹2,000 immunoglobulin shot that many families cannot afford.
For them, the phrase “animal rights” feels like a seminar term imported from cities that don’t sleep with growls outside the window. The animal case rests on law and ecology.
The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, the Animal Birth Control Rules 2023, and multiple Supreme Court orders forbid culling. The science is blunt: remove one pack and another fills the territory within weeks, often more aggressive and unvaccinated.
Ironically, stray dogs exist because we created the conditions – open dumpsters, slaughterhouse waste, unplanned urban sprawl, and the missing civic sense among the people.
It won’t be an exaggeration if we say that to shoot them now is to punish animals for human neglect. However, the grave situation that has risen also demands strict and effective action.
Right now the Kashmir Valley is locked between two non-negotiable’s: a citizen’s right not to be bitten, and a dog’s right not to be killed. The debate has calcified into caricature. Municipal trucks conduct midnight raids and dump dogs in forests, again violating rules. And this measure has proved least effective so it needs to be stalled.
Besides, activist groups file injunctions that freeze any capture, even of rabid animals. In the middle, rabies vaccines run short and parents teach stone-throwing before the alphabet.
The way out is not louder argument but administrative responsibility. The municipal bodies need to be fully equipped to start sterilization on a war footing. Targets need to be fixed monthly and any shortfall should be treated as a sever lapse.
Secondly, the citizens too need to act. They should cut the food supply. Studies across India show 80% of a stray’s diet comes from accessible garbage. Night-time closure of dumpsters, penalties for hotels and wedding halls that dump waste and segregated collection must precede every other measure. No city has beaten the street-dog crisis without beating its garbage crisis.
