New Delhi– Philosopher and author Acharya Prashant has called for a “humane and holistic” approach to controlling stray dog populations, responding to the Supreme Court’s recent directive to relocate all strays from Delhi-NCR to shelters within eight weeks.
“I understand the problem the Court is addressing, but I don’t agree with the solution,” said Prashant, recipient of PETA’s Most Influential Vegan Award.
While acknowledging the dangers posed by unchecked stray populations — India is home to an estimated 60–70 million street dogs, a number that would make them the world’s 20th most populous “country” if counted separately — he warned that mass relocation is neither practical nor humane. Delhi-NCR alone has nearly one million strays. Rabies claims around 20,000 lives in India annually, and roughly three million people suffer dog bites each year.
Prashant argued that moving every stray into shelters within eight weeks would overwhelm existing facilities, which are already far below the required capacity. He estimated costs could exceed ₹15,000 crore, and overcrowded shelters risk becoming “prisons of disease and neglect.”
Global evidence, he said, shows that mass removal creates a “vacuum effect,” with new unsterilized dogs quickly moving into cleared areas. Without adequate humane infrastructure, shelters risk becoming little more than overcrowded holding pens. “Dogs need space, exercise, and the freedom to move — not just cages,” he stressed.
Instead, Prashant pointed to successful international models such as Trap–Neuter–Return (TNR): capturing, sterilizing, vaccinating, and returning dogs to their home territories. Combined with pet licensing, microchipping, strict anti-abandonment laws, mass rabies vaccination, and responsible feeding policies, TNR programs gradually reduce stray populations and disease risk.
He recommended achieving 70% sterilization coverage in every district to significantly lower rabies cases, alongside shelter reform and community education linking feeding programs with sterilization.
While praising the compassion behind the activism sparked by the court order, Prashant cautioned that focusing too narrowly on a single species can distract from larger ecological emergencies.
“Dogs are not endangered; they number in the crores,” he said. “Meanwhile, more than 1,000 species in India are critically endangered or vulnerable, and hundreds to thousands of species vanish globally each day due to human activity.”
He identified climate change, deforestation, and industrial animal agriculture as the primary drivers of mass extinction, noting that just 8–10 domesticated species now account for 96% of the world’s animal biomass, while millions of wild species make up the remaining 4%.
“If you truly love animals, your first fight must be against climate change — for forests, clean rivers, and the protection of habitats,” Prashant said. “A species can go extinct without being hunted; destroying its home is enough. We must think of the millions of species we may soon never see.”
He concluded that India’s stray dog crisis must be addressed “humanely and holistically,” with compassion for street dogs as long-standing companions to humankind — but without allowing focus on one visible species to overshadow the climate crisis threatening countless others. (Source: IANS)
