In the Face of Such Hate

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

The moment I decided to put up my article on stray dogs, I knew dissenters would follow. I was expecting it. And of course, they did come — one in particular on Instagram telling me that I speak only on “neutral” issues, that I avoid the present government, that I don’t comment on the geopolitical world.

I told him what I’ve come to understand in my 40s: I must focus on the things that matter to me most. I cannot scatter my energy across every possible cause. My agenda is clear — to fight for the rights of the gay community in India, to speak against animal abuse, and to lend my voice to those who have none. These are not “neutral” issues to me; they are deeply personal.

I have heard the inane arguments before — If animals matter so much to you, why don’t you take them into your home?

The same logic could be applied to humans: just because I offer food and clothing to a homeless man does not mean I am obligated to house him and pay for his living expenses. Life has afforded me only so much to give. If I were a man of immense wealth, I would do more — perhaps build shelters for the stray dogs, fund hospitals for them, as Ratan Tata has done. But I work with what I have: my voice, my words, my compassion.

As for politics, I have my beliefs. I have been a liberal, a leftist, a pacifist — but these are not labels I wear on my shoulder. I do not need to shout my political alignment to validate my morality. I know where I stand. But political debate rarely brings me peace. It is not that I shy away from confrontation — I have had plenty of heated political arguments — it is simply that I choose to focus on what affects me directly, where my voice can matter most. Whether that is for children in war zones, women, for queer youth, or for an abused animal, I want my words to be intentional, not scattered.

Right now, it is the Supreme Court ruling on stray dogs in Delhi that consumes me. The idea that during two months, these dogs will be rounded up from the streets they know, stripped from the people they trust, and thrown into overcrowded, cruel make-shift shelters — it shakes me to my core.

Scrolling through Instagram, I see protests, petitions, and beautiful stories of street dogs and the humans who care for them. One reel broke me: a dog runs happily to greet a man with food, tail wagging, free and trusting. Then, the voiceover reveals that someone poisoned the dog. I thought of my own fur-kid. I thought of the grief that sits like an old scar in my body, sometimes quiet, sometimes throbbing. This day, it surges. I can not breathe.

And yet — I still speak.

I speak because silence is complicity.

I speak because what is real to me matters, even if it is not “real” to someone else.

To those who say I avoid “real” issues: my reality is different from yours. I wish we lived in a world where we could respect that — where our differing realities could exist without hate. But hate is precisely what I am seeing now. People openly say they would kill dogs; some claim they already have.

Where does this hate come from? It feels pathological. Learning Psychology in College, I was fascinated by serial killers — I wanted to understand the machinery of cruelty. Now, I see similar patterns in the way people, from behind anonymous screens, unleash venom on the defenceless.

There are facts and figures that prove how non-dangerous street dogs really are. But when hate takes root in the human mind, facts become irrelevant.

And so here I stand, like King Théoden at Helm’s Deep, looking out at the darkness and wondering — what can you do in the face of such hate?

I don’t know if the courts will be swayed by protests, petitions, or the quiet persistence of Satyagraha. But I do know this: I will keep speaking. I will not let fear or hate dictate the worth of a life.

Because the moment we abandon compassion, we abandon the very thing that makes us human.

Fear Is Not Justice

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Monday, 11 August 2025 — the Supreme Court of India has ordered that all stray dogs in the Delhi–NCR region be rounded up within eight weeks and placed into shelters.

Eight weeks. Two months.

Anyone who loves or works with street dogs knows what this means. It means these fur-kids will be ripped away from the only streets, corners, and human connections they know. It means they will be shoved into overcrowded, filthy shelters run by corporations and municipalities that see them as a burden, not a life. It means fear, disease, abuse, and death.

I have seen how dogs are kept in Mumbai’s pounds. The conditions are appalling. They are treated like refuse, not sentient beings. And now, the same fate awaits thousands in Delhi.

I’ve seen this cruelty before

I can’t read this ruling without my mind racing back to the first dog I ever rescued.

I was seven or eight when a young white pup with brown markings wandered into my compound. She was small, shy, and beautiful. I gave her shelter in an abandoned car, fed her, and let her roam free when I was inside my house. She became part of the little group of dogs that hung around the building corner.

One afternoon, I heard her yelping. I ran to my bedroom window and saw the municipal van. Men had caged her and were lifting her into the back. I was eight years old — I didn’t know how to fight them. And then she was gone. I never saw her again. That helplessness burned itself into me. I still feel it. 

I had named her Diana.

Years later, I rescued another — a fawn-coloured pup with a stubby tail and the gentlest green eyes. He had wandered into my housing compound, where the security guard was beating him with a stick. I scooped him up and took him home. He was affectionate, trusting, full of fleas and love. I named him Bilbo. I already had two dogs then and my home was small, so I found a friend to adopt him. Giving him away was like tearing a piece of my heart out.

We have to remember:

Rabies doesn’t just happen.

Dog bites don’t just happen.

They happen because we — humans, governments, societies — have failed.

Because vaccination drives are abandoned halfway.

Because sterilisation projects are underfunded and poorly executed.

Because the budgets meant for animal welfare disappear into corrupt pockets.

We create the problem, and then we punish the victims of our neglect. And now, an entire population of innocent dogs is about to pay the price for decades of human carelessness.

When one dog attacks, the response shouldn’t be to round up every dog. That’s the same flawed thinking as branding all men violent because some commit rape, or branding an entire religion dangerous because of one extremist.

It is bigotry applied to animals. It is fear driving policy. And fear rarely chooses the right path.

The easy way is always the cruel way. There are other solutions. There always are.

• Mass sterilisation drives done properly and consistently.

• Continuous vaccination programmes.

• Feeding zones where dogs and people can safely co-exist.

• Shelters that are humane, healing spaces — not prisons of neglect.

But these require work. These require compassion. These require the slow, difficult path that governments rarely take because cruelty is easier. Cruelty can be done quickly, with a press release and a photo op.

I’m not even from Delhi, but this ruling has left me shaken and deeply sad. I’ve seen what happens when bureaucracy decides that an animal’s life has no worth.

I’ve lost hope for the system. I’ve lost hope in leaders. I’ve even lost hope in many people I once loved. I know there are protests, petitions, people fighting — and I am signing them, I am adding my name — but inside me, hope feels like a very faint and dying ember.

The truth is, the world has taught me that humans can live through genocides, the slaughter of innocents, and barely blink. If that is true for human lives, how much hope can I have for animals?

If this ruling were truly about public safety, it would start with fixing the systems that failed. It would start with funding sterilisation and vaccination programmes properly. It would start with auditing the budgets already spent — and stolen.

Instead, this ruling chooses the laziest path: punish the innocent because the guilty are untouchable.

We do not cull all men when women are raped. We do not round up all children when one commits a crime. But we are willing — in the blink of an eye — to round up all dogs when a few incidents occur. That is not justice. That is cowardice disguised as governance.

And let us be clear: fear is not a reason to abandon compassion. Fear is not an excuse to brutalise the defenceless. Fear should never be the guiding principle of a civilised society.

If you have power, you have a choice:

You can use it to protect the voiceless, or you can use it to destroy them. History will remember which you chose.

So, I will speak. I will speak for Diana. I will speak for Bilbo. I will speak for every street dog in Delhi and beyond who will be torn away from their familiar lives, confused, terrified, and caged.

It was never their fault. It was ours. And no court order will change that truth.

If I cannot stop this, I can at least refuse to be silent. Because silence, too, is a cruelty.

Bitter Old Man

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

This evening, something happened that got under my skin more than I care to admit. I was down in the compound with the kids — by which I mean my dogs — playing a relaxed game of fetch like we’ve done since 2019. These are kids I’ve raised with care, consistency, and love. They don’t bark at passers-by. They don’t jump on people. They’ve never soiled the compound. We play in our little side of the compound, stick to ourselves, and co-exist.

It was a typical Mumbai evening — humid, a little breeze, people walking their toddlers and taking their usual rounds around the building. No one had a problem. Not one. In fact, a little girl toddled around us, giggling as she watched the dogs run. Her father smiled, unbothered. That’s how it usually is. That’s how it’s always been.

Until one man decided to ruin it.

He marched up to me — no greeting, no civility — and barked, “According to the law, you need to leash them.”

I looked him square in the face and said, “Don’t talk to me about the law. If you have a problem, then tell me you have a problem. Don’t hide behind rules no one else is quoting.”

This wasn’t about the law. This was about control. About bitterness. About some misguided belief that age entitles you to command people in their own homes. He claimed to be a dog lover too. I told him not to lie to himself and certainly not to me. I directly told him, if you have a problem be honest and tell me and when you are here, I shall keep them on a leash. I did so. Until he left the compound, after bitching to everyone around who would offer an ear. 

You cannot call yourself a dog lover and come up to someone who has raised these animals with care and discipline — someone who’s down with them every single day — and throw regulations in their face without context or conversation. I don’t owe you silence when you cloak your prejudice in legalese.

Let me say it plainly: I live in a city that is barely functioning. The road outside our gate is covered in garbage, broken tiles, and makeshift construction. Pedestrians walk in traffic because footpaths are non-existent. When the street lights didn’t work for months, nobody cared — until I personally called the BMC to get it fixed. That’s the real danger in this city. Not my leashed or unleashed, happy, well-socialised dogs.

But somehow, people like him don’t raise a voice when civic authorities fail us. They stay quiet when the street floods or the drain overflows. But the moment a dog runs free and joyful — my dog, with me right there supervising — they come out of their holes, quoting imaginary laws and feigning concern.

Let’s get something straight:

I have lived through years of irresponsible pet ownership around me — people who abandon their dogs when they move, people who beat them, chain them for hours, or never walk them at all. My dogs are family. I treat them like children. I clean up after them. I invest time and affection into their wellbeing and how they interact with the world. There is no “law” in this city that does more for these animals than a single responsible human does — and I am that human.

And yet, the one thing that triggered this man? Seeing joy. Seeing love. Seeing a safe, beautiful moment that had nothing to do with him.

I will not allow the fearmongering around rabies to be weaponised against every pet parent who’s doing their best. Yes, we need safety. Yes, we need awareness. But let’s not pretend that the hysteria online about dogs is based in facts or care. It’s based in fear. And fear is a poor excuse for cruelty.

I’m not here to be lectured by people who don’t pick up after themselves but have the audacity to pick bones with me.

So to the people like him: No, I won’t apologise for raising loving dogs in a city that desperately needs more kindness. I won’t apologise for giving them space to run, to play, to live.

And I certainly won’t take lectures from a man who’s blind to the real chaos around him, but sees a problem in a moment of joy.

If you’ve got something to say — say it with honesty. Don’t hide behind laws you don’t understand.

And don’t you dare call yourself a dog lover.