by Bibek Debroy
Tarapura (more popularly Tarapith) is a famous religious site in Birbhum district of West Bengal, identified with the mad saint Bamaksepa or Vamaksepa. Born in 1837, Bamaksepa was a brahmana by birth. In 1864, the sannyasi Brajabasi Kailaspati came to Tarapith and flouted all norms by eating with dogs and jackals. Bamaksepa became his disciple and thus himself became a bit of an outcaste. Although he was a priest at the Tarapith temple, he wandered around in cremation grounds, making friends with dogs and naming them. He shared his food freely with dogs, jackals and crows. There is also a story about the holy man named Pavhari Baba, referred to in Swami Nikhilananda’s biography of Swami Vivekananda. One day, a dog ran away with a piece of bread kept as Pavhari Baba’s food. Pavhari Baba ran after the dog, praying, ‘Please wait, my Lord; let me butter the bread for you.’ There are also stories about Shri Ramakrishna having shared his food with dogs. There is a similar story about Jagannath Das Babaji Maharaj, who was born around 1750. A dog that used to live nearby had puppies and these dogs used to eat the food on Babaji’s plate. When a disciple tried to chase the dogs away, Maharaj objected, pointing out that the dogs had as much of a right to stay there as he did.
Dogs were also associated with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486–1534). When he was young, Gaura-Hari or Visvambhara saw some puppies and adopted one. His friends complained that he had chosen the best of the puppies for himself, but Visvambhara told them that the puppy belonged to all of them and they could all play with it. On reaching home, Visvambhara tied a rope around the puppy’s neck. Some of his disgruntled friends complained to his mother Sachi that Visvambhara now had a puppy. She was very upset that a brahmana’s son was thus consorting with a puppy. When Visvambhara went to have his bath, Sachi let the puppy loose. But everyone was surprised that Visvambhara would touch cats and dogs. In a separate incident, on a trip to Jagannatha Puri, the disciple Sivananda Sena took a dog with him, even though the boatman refused to carry a dog and had to be given a great deal of money to do this. Sivananda Sena instructed his servants that the dog was to be regularly fed. But one day, this was not done and the dog disappeared. Sivananda Sena’s servants could not find it anywhere. They went to Jagannatha Puri, where they met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had lunch with the devotees who were astonished when they found the dog sitting there. By Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s grace, the dog ate the coconut pulp given to gave him and chanted the names of Rama, Krishna and Hari. Sivananda Sena offered his obeisances to the dog. By Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s grace again, the dog attained its spiritual body and went to Vaikuntha.
Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) had a pet dog named Bagha, and dogs figure in many of his writings and lectures. In ‘We Help Ourselves, Not the World’, there occurs a familiar story. ‘There was a poor man who wanted some money; and somehow he had heard that if he could get hold of a ghost, he might command him to bring money or anything else he liked; so he was very anxious to get hold of a ghost. He went about searching for a man who would give him a ghost, and at last he found a sage with great powers, and sought his help. The sage asked him what he would do with a ghost. “I want a ghost to work for me; teach me how to get hold of one, sir; I desire it very much,” replied the man. But the sage said, “Don’t disturb yourself, go home.” The next day the man went again to the sage and began to weep and pray, “Give me a ghost; I must have a ghost, sir, to help me.” At last the sage was disgusted, and said, “Take this charm, repeat this magic word, and a ghost will come, and whatever you say to him he will do. But beware; they are terrible beings, and must be kept continually busy. If you fail to give him work, he will take your life.” The man replied, “That is easy; I can give him work for all his life.” Then he went to a forest, and after long repetition of the magic word, a huge ghost appeared before him, and said, “I am a ghost. I have been conquered by your magic; but you must keep me constantly employed. The moment you fail to give me work I will kill you.” The man said, “Build me a palace,” and the ghost said, “It is done; the palace is built.” “Bring me money,” said the man. “Here is your money,” said the ghost. “Cut this forest down, and build a city in its place.” “That is done,” said the ghost, “anything more?” Now the man began to be frightened and thought he could give him nothing more to do; he did everything in a trice. The ghost said, “Give me something to do or I will eat you up.” The poor man could find no further occupation for him, and was frightened. So he ran and ran and at last reached the sage, and said, “Oh, sir, protect my life!” The sage asked him what the matter was, and the man replied, “I have nothing to give the ghost to do. Everything I tell him to do he does in a moment, and he threatens to eat me up if I do not give him work.” Just then the ghost arrived, saying, “I’ll eat you up,” and he would have swallowed the man. The man began to shake, and begged the sage to save his life. The sage said, “I will find you a way out. Look at that dog with a curly tail. Draw your sword quickly and cut the tail off and give it to the ghost to straighten out.” The man cut off the dog’s tail and gave it to the ghost, saying, “Straighten that out for me.” The ghost took it and slowly and carefully straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it instantly curled up again. Once more he laboriously straightened it out, only to find it again curled up as soon as he attempted to let go of it. Again he patiently straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it curled up again. So he went on for days and days, until he was exhausted and said, “I was never in such trouble before in my life. I am an old veteran ghost, but never before was I in such trouble.” “I will make a compromise with you,” he said to the man, “you let me off and I will let you keep all I have given you and will promise not to harm you.” The man was much pleased, and accepted the offer gladly. This world is like a dog’s curly tail, and people have been striving to straighten it out for hundreds of years; but when they let it go, it has curled up again. How could it be otherwise? One must first know how to work without attachment, then one will not be a fanatic. When we know that this world is like a dog’s curly tail and will never get straightened, we shall not become fanatics.’
In “The East and the West”, Swami Vivekananda wrote, ‘Taming wild animals, he (man) made them work for him or reared them for his own eating when necessary; the cow, horse, hog, elephant, camel, goat, sheep, fowl, birds, and other animals became domesticated; of all these, the dog is the first friend of man.’ Given the taboo on dogs, a section from a lecture delivered in New York in 1896 and titled “The Free Soul” also deserves a quote. ‘The fox is considered very unholy by the Mohammedans and by the Hindus. Also, if a dog touches any bit of food, it has to be thrown out, it cannot be eaten by any man. In a certain Mohammedan house a fox entered and took a little bit of food from the table, ate it up, and fled. The man was a poor man, and had prepared a very nice feast for himself, and that feast was made unholy, and he could not eat it. So he went to a Mulla, a priest, and said, “This has happened to me; a fox came and took a mouthful out of my meal. What can be done? I had prepared a feast and wanted so much to eat it, and now comes this fox and destroys the whole affair.” The Mulla thought for a minute and then found only one solution and said, “The only way for you is to get a dog and make him eat a bit out of the same plate, because dogs and foxes are eternally quarrelling. The food that was left by the fox will go into your stomach, and that left by the dog will go there too, and both will be purified.” We are very much in the same predicament. This is a hallucination that we are imperfect; and we take up another, that we have to practise to become perfect. Then one will chase the other, as we can use one thorn to extract another and then throw both away.’ In “Work is Worship”, Swami Vivekananda wrote, ‘When you give a morsel of food to the dog, you worship the dog as God. God is in that dog. He is the dog. He is all and in all.’
From Kabir (1440–1518) we have, ‘Kabir, even the dog of a devotee is good, while the mother of the faithless cynic is bad. The dog hears the Praises of the Lord’s Name, while the other is engaged in sin.’ Or,
‘Kabir, I am the Lord’s dog; Moti is my name. There is a chain around my neck; wherever I am pulled, I go.’ And ‘Kabir, the mortal is a barking dog, chasing after a carcass. By the Grace of good karma, I have found the True Guru, who has saved me.’
That the beliefs of such holy men should buck the brahmana tradition on dogs is but natural. The movements started by them also bucked the brahmana tradition of rituals and practices, and consequently, some of these preachers also became outcastes and heretics, as dogs were. After all, even now, there is a taboo on keeping dogs in brahmana households. Had Buddhism not been virtually wiped out and had that not been succeeded by Islam, the status of the dog in India today might well have been different.
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Dogs in Contemporary India
How many dogs are there in India? A livestock census is conducted in India once every five years. The last livestock census was in 2003. Dogs have only been counted in the livestock census since 1982. And we know there were 18.54 million dogs in 1982, 17.95 million in 1987, 21.77 million in 1992, 25.48 million in 1997 and 28.03 million in 2003. Because of possible under-reporting, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that the number of dogs may well be 50 million now, giving us a dog/human ratio of approximately 1:20. In most developed countries, this ratio is between 1:6 and 1:10. Between 1987 and 1992, the dog population increased at an annual average rate of 3.93%, dropping to 3.2% between 1992 and 1997 and declining even more to 1.6% between 1997 and 2003. This is on the assumption that we are counting dogs correctly.
We have a breakup for the 1997 data. And that tells us that of the 25.48 million dogs in 1997, 14.85 million were licensed and 10.63 million were unlicensed. With 5.79 million males and 4.83 million females, the sex ratio is almost even for unlicensed dogs. But with 9.69 million males and 5.16 million females, there is a pronounced bias in favour of the male of the species for licensed dogs. Rural India contributes 23.19 million to the dog population, while urban India contributes 2.29 million. The state with the most dogs is Uttar Pradesh, contributing 5.07 million. Karnataka has 2.14 million, Maharashtra 2.33 million, Andhra Pradesh 1.65 million, Gujarat 1.03 million, Kerala 1.40 million, Madhya Pradesh 1.12 million, Rajasthan 1.67 million, Tamil Nadu 1.80 million and West Bengal 1.53 million. In 2002, the police forces had 373 tracker dogs and 373 sniffer dogs, mostly in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. In 1999, there were 3085 cases of dog bites or rabies and 224 people died from dog bites or rabies. WHO estimates that 80% of the world’s rabies fatalities originate in India. However, one must remember that not all deaths from dog bites or dog attacks are rabies related.
The instructions for the 2003 Census state, ‘For dogs the two categories are domestic and others. It is very difficult to enumerate the stray dogs in a locality. For the purpose of definition domestic dogs are defined as the dogs owned by the household. All other dogs are to be categorized under other dogs. There may be dogs that stay nearby any household and the household generally feeds the dog though it does not stay inside the house, these are to be categorized as other dogs. The data on dogs are to be collected on males and females separately in each of the two categories.’ The domestic dogs are the licensed ones and the others are the unlicensed ones. But one must remember that there are many different types of dogs.
Ignoring the working dogs, there are first domestic dogs or licensed dogs that have breeds and even pedigrees. These are restricted or supervised dogs, whose movements are restricted by the owners, and these are therefore strict pets. Breeds generally mean foreign breeds. There are indeed Indian breeds—Rampur hound, Caravan hound (Shanekota), Pashmi, Santhal hound, Mudhole hound, Maharashtrian Dhangari kutra, Bordel terrier, Sonkutta, Naga chow, Rajapalayam, Banjara, Gaddi, Chippiparai, Kombai and Kaikadi, of which the Rampur hound is probably the most famous, having been the hunting dog of the maharajas. The famous James Prinsep’s nephew was the artist and painter Val Prinsep. He travelled throughout India and published his diary. About the maharajah of ‘Jeypore’ Prinsep wrote, ‘The garden has also a green and pleasant-looking croquet and Badminton lawn; and the whole thing is kept in a way very creditable to His Highness, and would be worthy of a Scotch gardener, were it not for the Maharajah’s dogs, which every afternoon are let loose here, and career over beds and flowers after the manner of dogs all the world over. They are a motley pack—English spaniels and greyhounds, mixed with Rampore and other native breeds noted for their excellence. With these the Maharajah tells me he hunts boar, and deer, and leopards, and even tigers, as they fear nothing. It is amusing to see His Highness—who, notwithstanding his prayings, is a keen sportsman—standing on his balcony and calling each dog by name.’1
To get back to breeds, the Tibetan mastiff or the Lhasa Apso belongs to a slightly different category. There are odd references to some of these dogs having been used in war. For instance, the Rajapalayam was used during the Carnatic war to attack British cavalry in their stables and Kombai dogs were used to defend the fort of the Marudhu brothers (in Kalayarkovil) against the East India Company. From the time of the War of Independence of 1857, there are several references to pariah dogs, often eating up dead bodies.2 Simultaneously, there are paintings and sketches that show British officers accompanied by dogs.
However, Indian breeds are rarely meant when people talk of dogs with breeds. Imported breeds are meant, as pets, and as dogs in advertisements. For example, the celebrated Vodafone/Hutch advertisement has a pug, now known as a Hutchwala kutta. Ditto for the Raymond’s advertisement or where Salman Khan rescues a dog. Second, there are family dogs that are completely dependent on their owners, but their movements are only partly restricted. This is particularly true of rural areas and these dogs are semi-pets. Third, there are neighbourhood or community dogs that are partly dependent on humans, but their movements are completely unrestricted. Fourth, there are strays that have become feral. Not only are their movements unrestricted, they do not directly depend on humans, although they do feed off human waste and garbage. Ideally, a dog census should have a breakup across these categories. But this is practically impossible to do. With economic development and urbanization, dogs belonging to the last three categories tend to disappear and only pet dogs and working dogs remain. Indeed, the number of stray dogs on the streets is a pretty good indicator of a country’s level of economic development. But India has not graduated to that stage yet. Once that happens, it is easier to think of a sytem of licensing, leashing, muzzling and mandatory inoculation, since all dogs can then be directly linked to their owners, and liability vests with the owner in dog-bite cases.
The issue of stray dogs has always been a problem. It was an issue that Mahatma Gandhi confronted, especially in the ‘Is this Humanity?’ series.3 The background was a letter addressed to him by the Ahmedabad Humanitarian League. In the city of Ahmedabad, Seth … had ordered the destruction of 60 dogs found on his mill premises. To quote from Gandhi, ‘I must say that my relations with the mill-owner, have been sweet, and, if I may say so, friendly. He came to me and expressed his distress in having had to order destruction of the dogs, and asked my opinion about it. He also said: “When the Government, the Municipality and the Mahajan all alike failed to guide me, I was driven to this course.” … Imperfect, erring mortals as we are, there is no course open to us but the destruction of rabid dogs …. If we persist in keeping stray dogs undisturbed, we shall soon be faced with the duty of either castrating them or killing them. A third alternative is that of having a special pinjrapole for dogs. But it is out of the question. When we cannot cope with all the stray cattle in the city, the very proposal of having a pinjrapole for dogs seems to me to be chimerical … To destroy a rabid dog is to commit the minimum amount of violence. A recluse, who is living in a forest and is compassion incarnate, may not destroy a rabid dog. For in his compassion he has the virtue of making it whole. But a city-dweller who is responsible for the protection of lives under his care and who does not pos
sess the virtues of the recluse, but is capable of destroying a rabid dog, is faced with a conflict of duties. If he kills the dog, he commits a sin. If he does not kill it, he commits a graver sin … It is a sin, it should be a sin, to feed stray dogs, and we should save numerous dogs if we had legislation making every stray dog liable to be shot. Even if those who feed stray dogs consented to pay a penalty for their misdirected compassion we should be free from the curse of stray dogs.’4
There were rabid dogs and there were strays that were not rabid and the debate continued.5 ‘The multiplication of dogs is unnecessary. A roving dog without an owner is a danger to society and a swarm of them is a menace to its very existence. If we want to keep dogs in towns or villages in a decent manner, no dog should be suffered to wander. There should be no stray dogs even as we have no stray cattle … Dogs will be killed whenever they are a menace to society. I regard this as unavoidable in the life of a householder. To wait until they get rabid is not to be merciful to them … I am, therefore, strongly of opinion that, if we would practise the religion of humanity, we should have a law making it obligatory on those who would have dogs to keep them under guard, and not allow them to stray, and making all the stray dogs liable to be destroyed after a certain date.’6 And also, ‘The dog is a faithful companion. There are numerous instances of the faithfulness of dogs and horses. But that means that we should keep them and treat them with respect as we do our companions and not allow them to roam about. By aggravating the evil of stray dogs we shall not be acquitting ourselves of our duty to them. But if we regard the existence of stray dogs as a shame to us and, therefore, refuse to feed them, we shall be doing the dogs as a class a real service and make them happy. What, then, can a humane man do for stray dogs? He should set apart a portion of his income and send it on to a society for the protection of those animals if there be one. If such a society is impossible—and I know it is very difficult even if it is not impossible—he should try to own one or more dogs. If he cannot do so, he should give up worrying about the question of dogs and direct his humanity towards the service of other animals … Cows we cannot protect, dogs we kick about and belabour with sticks, their ribs are seen sticking out, and yet we are not ashamed of ourselves and raise a hue and cry when a stray dog is killed. Which of the two is better—that five thousand dogs should wander about in semi-starvation living on dirt and excreta and drag on a miserable existence, or that fifty should die and keep the rest in a decent condition?’7 Finally, ‘I would not suggest even the destruction of rabid dogs for the sake of it, much less that of innocent, roving dogs. Nor have I said that these latter should be killed wherever they are found. I have only suggested legislation to that effect, so that as soon as the law is made, humane people might wake up in the matter and devise measures for the better management of stray dogs. Some of these might be owned, some might be put in quarantine. The remedy, when it is taken, will be once for all. Stray dogs do not drop down from heaven. They are a sign of the idleness, indifference and ignorance of society. When they grow into a nuisance, it is due to our ignorance and want of compassion. A stray dog is bound to take to his heels if you do not feed him … I must explain what I mean when you say that you cannot wait on until the dog gets rabid. Every stray dog is harmful … The rabies of the dog is concealed in its capacity to bite. A friend has sent me figures of cases of hydrophobia treated in the Civil hospital, Ahmedabad … These figures must alarm everyone who is interested in the welfare of the community, especially if he is a humanitarian … But it is difficult to say whether a dog is or is not rabid, and many run in fear to the hospital, because most dogs are found to be rabid afterwards. There is only one remedy to relieve them of this fear and it is not to allow dogs to roam about.’8 In a separate piece, ‘Every dog should be owned and a collar attached to it. I should suggest a dog licence. Every unlicensed dog should be caught by the police and immediately handed to the Mahajan if they have adequate provision for the maintenance of these dogs and would submit to municipal supervision as to the adequacy of such provision. Failing such provision, all stray dogs should be shot. This in my opinion is the most humanitarian method of dealing with the dog nuisance which everybody feels but nobody cares or dares to tackle.’9