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Profusely quoting what the Mahatma had said on the stray dog menace, 88-year-old Mammen wants the rights panel to direct the City Corporation to take urgent and effective steps to put stray dogs to silence.
"Duty demands shooting dead stray dogs, whether rabid or not," was what the apostle of non-violence said on the ethical aspect of the issue, Mammen said.
Based on his complaint, the Ombudsman for local bodies had asked the Corporation to furnish the statistics regarding capture and disposal of stray dogs in the last six months.
He recalled that in 1926, a public controversy arose when Gandhi permitted a wealthy industrialist of Ahmedabad to destroy about 60 dogs roaming around his mill premises.
The issue then triggered a raging debate and Gandhi's journal 'Young India' was flooded with letters questioning the ethics of killing a living being.
Gandhi defended what he had done by writing in Young India that "perfect, erring mortals as we are, there is no course open to us but the destruction of rabid dogs. At times, we may be faced with the unavoidable duty of killing even a man who is found in the act of killing people." Gandhi firmly believed that numerous dogs would be saved if there was a legislation making every stray dog liable to be shot, Mammen said.
"Gandhi considered a roving dog without an owner as a danger to society and a swarm of them, a menace to its very existence," he said.
Mammen also had a dig at the animal rights campaigner Maneka Gandhi, saying it was difficult for high flying people to understand the threat posed by stray dogs to pedestrians like him.
He said as many as 2,000 stray dogs are roaming around the city and he would be forced to always carry a stick with him to protect himself from the danger.
A public interest campaigner, Mammen said frequent hartals and road rokos also constricted his freedom of movement as walking was the secret of his health, despite his age.
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If you have an irrational fear of dogs, there are counsellors. if you want to know about canine behavior there are books, vets, professionals who can help you understand dog psychology and how to behave when faced with a dog. But if men like Mr. Mammen who have read but just one book on one topic in his entire life, if people like him don't have the intelligence to learn a new science then they are as bad as any animal. shouldn't animals then have the right to retaliate accordingly then? if a roving dog is a danger what about homeless beggars? the simplest solution instead of walking with a stick is either be still or carry a bottle of water to put on the dog. it'll scare him and not hurt him.
I'm currently online researching the plight of stray and feral dogs. We began this search with a well know Ghandi paraphrase, "you can tell a society by how its animals." This site was an interesting find (-I will research this more before automatically assuming it is true.) It is, of course, shocking when any person who has achieved favor based on their respect for life, is revealed as respecting only the lives of those in their immediate circle (be it political, social, economic or in this case, to the exclusion of all non-human creatures.) Domesticated animals are unable to survive on their own due to their domestication at our hands. Dogs have he mental capacity of roughly a 2 to 3 year old child. Simply put, we created their suffering, to then exterminate them when they become a nuisance is a reflection that they, perhaps even more than we, deserve a chance at life.
Hard to believe, but so much for Gandhi, then. Didn't he preach Ahimsa? As a pedestrian, I have found stray dogs to be affectionate creatures over my lifetime. They are the pets of the poor, who can't afford licenses or collars and are superior to pedigreed dogs because only the strongest and bravest survive their harsh lives. There are private organizations which sterilize them. These should be funded by government. Though he made a show of poverty, Gandhi was financially obliged to the wealthy. Dog-haters may hail Gandhi's position, even though no one practices his philosophy today.