Animal Welfare Board out of control?

SHOULD an advisory board set up under a law be allowed to assume for itself a role bigger than what was envisaged for it and turn the law on its head?

The Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) has, in recent years, assumed greater prominence than the law against cruelty to animals. It is interpreting the law in ways that were never intended. 

It was way back in 1960 that the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, a visionary piece of legislation authored by Rukmini Devi Arundale, made India become one of the first countries to protect domestic animals by law.

The PCA Act does not give ‘rights’ to animals but vests in citizens the duty to protect them from “unnecessary cruelty” and not suffering that may arise out of human necessity or to uphold human rights. Unlike the ‘animal rights’ ideology that is against the usage of animals, the PCA Act is based on animal welfare principles that allow for the humane usage, ownership and even killing/consumption of animals.

Under the PCA Act, the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) is only an advisory body to the government and its functions include:

l Taking steps to ensure that unwanted animals are destroyed by local authorities whenever it is necessary to do so.

l To encourage the setting up of rescue homes, animal centres, sanctuaries and so on for animals and birds that need protection.

However, in the last two decades, AWBI officials seem to have done everything possible to violate and subvert the principles enshrined under the PCA Act under the influence of radical animal rights NGOs.

While the PCA Act recognizes various negative impacts of stray dogs and their own suffering as homeless dogs, the AWBI formulated the regressive and dangerous ABC policy that requires dogs to remain homeless and in perpetual conflict with people. The policy not only legalizes straying, it makes redundant several sections of the PCA Act that allow for the permanent removal, sheltering and/or euthanasia of stray dogs as dogs are domestic, companion animals not meant to live homeless on the streets.

Ironically, the AWBI seeks to ‘save Indian dogs’ by neutering mongrels and leaving them to fend for themselves on the streets, when in fact, indigenous, Indian breeds like the Mudhol Hounds and Rajapalayams need to be bred extensively and protected from crossbreeding with stray dogs if they are to survive in future.

In this manner, the AWBI has defeated the most important objective of the PCA Act — to ensure the welfare of domestic animals and to prevent their ‘unnecessary suffering.’

In 2014, the AWBI went to the Supreme Court and got Jalikattu, the centuries old traditional bull racing, banned — a stated PETA agenda. In 2023, the Nagaraja judgment was overturned by a five-judge constitutional bench which stated that the Indian Constitution does not recognize fundamental rights for animals. A year later, the AWBI officials are still referring to the Board as the “apex body for safeguarding animal rights in India”, openly contradicting the Supreme Court.

In 2015, the AWBI published its ‘Revised ABC Module’, the foundational document for the ABC policy. The Module misrepresents research of global organizations and actively mis-portrays the World Health Organization (WHO) policy to further an ‘activist’ agenda not in keeping with Indian laws or constitutional values, human health issues or animal welfare, leading to the death of thousands of Indian citizens and children, via stray dog attacks and rabies, daily pollution of public places via tonnes of dog faeces, the spread of zoonotic diseases, the slaughter of India’s wildlife due to dogs and the suffering of millions of homeless dogs.

Though the Module states that availability of food waste increases stray dog populations, the AWBI still promotes the feeding of stray dogs in public, causing massive filth and human-dog conflict on the streets.

The AWBI seems to function under the active directions of foreign animal rights NGOs like PETA, that is also well known for its virulent opposition to pet ownership and has globally tried to get various dog breeds banned. In 2013, the AWBI had teamed up with PETA in court to shut down India’s only indigenous dog breeding unit in Karnataka.

This, in fact, violates one of the core objectives of its parent Animal Husbandry Department, that is, the “upgradation and conservation of indigenous breeds.” Clearly furthering PETA’s objectives, and clueless or apathetic regarding its own, the AWBI is currently trying to ban various dog breeds in India.

An Australian Yorkshire Terrier was one of the numerous breeds banned by the AWBI in the interest of “public safety”, while promoting the idea of stray and unowned dogs roaming the streets. The AWBI admitted that it had, in fact, not constituted any expert committee on the matter and the ban has been stayed by several High Courts.