WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

 I don't fly much these days, mainly because I never know whether my plane is being flown by a pilot, co-pilot or auto-pilot. That's a problem for me because these days the pilot is usually busy having photo ops with his proud mom and dad in the cabin, the co-pilot is busy bashing down the washroom door with a lady passenger inside, and the auto-pilot is probably a bunch of algorithms coded by a young nerd in Gurgaon who's mad about getting only a 2% annual increment and has a grudge against everyone. Now, which sane person would get on to a plane in the hands of these three entities? So I prefer to be highway robbed by Mr. Gadkari and his toll plazas.

But on the occasional flight I am forced to take I always encounter an unusual form of discrimination which no one appears to have noticed. Now, I weigh 60 kgs on a good day, which can go down to 59 kgs on days when I do not get my favourite repast, the Delhi Gymkhana mutton cutlets. However, such days are rare since my sister-in-law, Anjali, makes sure that this supply chain works seamlessly. To get back to the point, however, my weight makes me a lightweight in a country where  40% of the population will be obese by 2030. And this is no country for lightweights.

You are not considered successful in life if you don't have a cantilevered pot-belly. On buses or metros you are invariably compressed into a corner and denied your fair share of space. One invariably gets shoved to the back of any queue Ms Sitharaman decides to put one in. Ladies think you lack in testosterone and therefore not worth their time. Insurers consider you a bad risk and double the premium. But it's the airlines with whom I have my major grouse because their baggage rules discriminate against lightweights like me.

Most airlines allow about 20 kg of checked-in baggage on economy class; anything more and you pay through your e-nose for the extra baggage, an average of Rs. 600 per kg. So if  I'm carrying 5 kg extra, I have to shell out Rs. 3000. Fair enough, you might say? But hold on. What is my total WTA (Weight To Airline)? 85 kg. (My weight 60 kg+free baggage 20 kg+ extra baggage 5 kg.) Compare this with the the Great Khali like hulk behind me in the queue: he weighs 120 kg and his luggage weighs 20 kg. His WTA is 140 kg, compared to my 85 kg, 55 kgs more- but here's the catch- he walks aboard without having to pay a paisa, while I paid 3000 bucks even though my WTA was 55kgs less than his ! There has to be something wrong here, right? Isn't this institutionalising and rewarding obsesity at the cost of those who labour to remain trim and supple?

Weight plays an important role in the flying cost of a plane, and airlines are constantly devising ways to cut down on the weight. According to one leading European Aviation magazine an aircraft which performs five flights a day, each round-flight of 1140 kms, would save 6240 kgs of fuel every year costing US$ 4200 for every kilogramme of weight reduction! Why do you thinks the cabin crew (airhostesses in the days when we called a gal a gal) are usually girls? Why do you think one now gets fewer magazines on flights? Why do you think the cutlery is plastic and not metal? It's the weight, stupid: a girl weighs 20 kgs less than a man on average, so just this gender preference can shave about 200-250 kgs off the weight of an aircraft. The same logic drives the cutlery and the magazines.                                                                                                              Therefore the question: why should airlines not apply the same principle and logic to passengers' body weight? Why should they not move to a "Pay as you Weigh" policy? Airlines should calculate the TOTAL weight associated with a passenger- what I have termed WTA- and not segregate the body weight and the luggage weight, charging only for the latter and not the former. Fix a consolidated permissible weight, say a reasonable 90 kgs for both flyer and his luggage, and charge for anything in excess of that. Why give the fat cats a free pass at the cost of the slender, Mr. Bean types like me?

This would revolutionize air travel and be a win-win for all concerned. The airlines would make oodles of money and would not have to convert their washrooms into paid Sulabh Sauchalayas, or introduce standing-only flights; the horizontally challenged would now have an incentive to move towards the vertical plane; those who cavil at this or refuse to change can travel by Royal Caribbean or Norwegian, which may be a good thing after all: we may see a return to the good old days of the ocean liners, which would be a boon for the environment. 

My suggestion is not as far-fetched as it sounds, you know. Airlines are beginning to see the light and count the millions they are losing by carrying excess lard free of cost. US airlines have now started requesting XXL passengers, who are likely to overflow into the next seat, if not the next plane, to buy a second ticket or deboard. The day is not far off when the XL types too shall be charged by weight, and we scrawny types shall finally get our day in the sun, if not the metro.

THE SOVEREIGN RIGHT TO PRIVACY-- OR SECRECY ?

We live in strange times indeed where the rules of logic are turned on their head everyday with every new executive diktat or court ruling. The latest is this new epidemic of "privacy"- one sided, of course. On the one hand the government is doing everything to prise loose every shred of personal information from its citizens, through Aadhaar, PAN, voter registration, face recognition, DigiYatra, authorising the tax sleuths to mine even one's social media chats and emails, snooping on their phone conversations through imported malware. On the other, it refuses to share with the same citizens information they are entitled to in order to meaningfully exercise their democratic rights. In other words, the citizen has no right to privacy, but the government has a sovereign right to it ! 

When you buy a packet of noodles you are entitled by law to know what it contains. But when you choose your Prime Minister- a more consequential decision, you will agree- you are not entitled to know whether he has a valid educational qualification or not. Even though he has declared it in his electoral nomination form, it has been displayed in a press conference by his Sancho Panza and published in many papers! For the Delhi High Court has ruled that this is private information and no public interest is served by revealing it.

There are so many threads of logical incoherence and fallacy in this ruling that it is difficult to separate them. For one, a person in public life cannot claim privacy in matters that may have a bearing on his character or functioning, such as educational qualification, income and its sources, marital status, material disposition of his family members, whether he has a criminal past: these details are necessary for the public to decide whether or not confidence can be reposed on him/her. Second, he has already disclosed this information on oath to the government (in this case the ECI) and it is no longer private. Third, such disclosure has to be properly verified to the satisfaction of not only the election authority but also that of the voter. Fourth, by this same misconstrued logic of the court, all other information provided by a candidate also cannot be verified or made public! Then why ask for this information in the first place, if the purpose is to put it  under lock and key? The logic of this ruling makes a mockery of the election laws and the voter's rights. In effect the court is telling us that we have no right to any information about a candidate and we might as well elect a pig in a poke! 

Actually, this ruling is an inevitable consequence of a disturbing judicial pattern which began with the jurisprudence of the sealed cover, a hideous anomaly in any rule-based form of governance. It started with the Rafale case, was further refined in the Pegasus case and has now become institutionalised with this judgment. 

The recent elevation of some High Court judges to the Supreme Court further establishes how entrenched the element of secrecy (under the garb of privacy) has become. It has been reported that one judge has been elevated after superseding 40 judges senior to him, and inspite of a dissenting note of a member of the Collegium (which is not being made public). Now, in the executive, even an Upper Division clerk cannot be superseded without recording detailed reasons for doing so, in the DPC proceedings. It's the courts which have themselves reiterated time and again this principle of natural justice. But, strangely, they are loath to practice what they preach when it come to themselves, on the grounds that it would infringe on the "privacy" of the superseded judges by besmirching their reputation. Which begs the question: are only judges entitled to have a reputation? It would appear that what is good for the clerk is not good enough for the judge!

This perverted interpretation of "privacy" has now become a weapon to deny legitimate information to the public, whether it be in Parliament, the Information Commissions, statutory or constitutional bodies, the courts, the media. Even the press is being restrained from doing its duty on the grounds of privacy or reputation of individuals. Just last week a Delhi  court has injucted some reputed investigative journalists (including Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Ravi Nair) from publishing "defamatory" and "misleading" articles on the Adani group, and has asked them to take down some articles. Pardon me, but how can the court be so sure that the articles are not based on facts, or that they are defamatory? Has it examined any evidence to this effect before issuing the restraining order? If any defamation is involved then shouldn't the Adani group be filing defamation cases against the authors, instead of the court doing a preemptive job on behalf of the company? Legitimate questions all, since more and more politicians and "celebrities" are now taking this easy route of claiming "privacy" to avoid any public scrutiny of their deeds.

The dubiously constituted Election Commission of India has set new standards in opacity and secrecy, refusing to share any worthwhile or timely information with the voters, whether it be number of votes cast, VVPAT counts, machine readable voter rolls, reasons that prompted a hasty SIR in Bihar, the names of the 65 lakh excluded voters in the SIR and the reasons for their deletions, the number of "Bangladeshis" detected (a stated reason for the SIR). Whenever it has divulged some information it has done so reluctantly and under the nudging of the courts.

It has, however, reached the height of nebulosity and obtuseness with its refusal to make public the video recordings of the polling process on the grounds of "protecting" the privacy of our mothers, sisters and daughters! This is a formulation worthy of a Uriah Heep or a Goebbles, given that these same ladies are videographed every day in airports, hotels, shops, road crossings, usually without their permission or even knowledge (unlike the polling booths where it is part of publicly proclaimed SOPs). Surely the Chief Deletion Commissioner cannot be unaware of the fact that polling booths are public spaces and not private places? That CCTVs are set up in polling booths precisely to keep an eye on the polling process, including the polling staff and the voters? That this makes for greater transparency, and that no voter has ever objected to it?

How can justice be "seen to be done" when the process is shrouded under a cloak of secrecy disguised as privacy? Justice can be served, and the law upheld, only in the full glare of the public gaze, not in the dark shadows of legally doubtful subterfuge.

BOOK REVIEW : THE KARGIL WAR SURGEON'S TESTIMONY

 The Kargil War Surgeon's Testimony by Col (R) Arup Ratan Basu                                             Published by Bloomsbury India. 2025

                                 

All wars are invariably followed by books, but these are usually about the blood and glory,  strategy and logistics, victories and failures. Colonel Basu's book is delightfully different: while being both humble and unassuming, it is also humane and compassionate, shedding light on the usually ignored "backroom boys" who provide the spine to the arms that fight on the frontlines. Basu is a general surgeon, and this book is a personal account of the two months he spent in the army field hospital at Kargil. It is special and refreshingly different in that it looks at war, not through the eyes of one trained to take lives but one trained to save them.

Freshly commissioned as a surgeon in the Army Medical Corps in December 1998, he was dispatched to Kargil on his first posting where war had just broken out between India and Pakistan. He is candid enough to admit that he was not prepared to be thrust into the jaws of war, ministering to casualties with the most basic of facilities, A field hospital is only the first responder, its job being to stabilise the wounded before shifting them to base hospitals for more advanced care, but that is in theory only, as Col Basu soon found out. Severely wounded soldiers have to be saved during the proverbial "golden hour", sometimes with complicated operations field hospitals are ill-equipped to handle. But this reasoning cannot be an alibi, it has to be confronted as a challenge.

The wounded came every night for two months from sectors which are now household names- Batalik, Dras, Kargil ; Basu and his team worked and operated at night and rested during the day. He gives us the reason for this peculiar time schedule: Indian soldiers, attempting to climb up the lofty mountains on which the Pakistanis were perched, could only do so at night. Casualties therefore occurred at night, but could be evacuated out of the battle zones only the same night (if lucky) but usually on the next night since during the day they would be sitting ducks for the enemy soldiers. So they arrived at the field hospital at night, were attended to and, if required, referred to Srinagar by chopper the next day. Interestingly, the author soon discovered that number of casualties arriving every day was a fairly accurate barometer of how the war was progressing !

Doctors are the unsung heroes of any war, and the figures of the Kargil field hospital prove it: during his short two month tenure there Col. Basu surgically treated 350 casualties and operated on 250- that's a mind boggling 4 operations a day! He lost only two of his patients. It says something about the grit and commitment of army doctors that he had to perform complex surgical procedures which even a state of the art corporate hospital in a metro would find a challenge- splenectomy, thoracotomy, intestine resection and anastomosis; each of these would have ordinarily required a team of specialists. Basu counts as one of his triumphs his success in saving a havildar's gangrenous, splinter-shattered arm from amputation by adopting some dexterous surgical procedures. His peers at the base hospitals, where his patients were forwarded for advanced care, soon conferred on him the well deserved title of the Surgeon of Kargil!

Basu's job afforded him many opportunities to interact with his patients and he learnt a lot about the war from them, details which have to be believed because they came from people who have lived them: how the "disconnect" of our army field commanders led to the intelligence failure to anticipate that Pakistan was upto something on the commanding heights of the border, in spite of being informed by the shepherds and the bakerwals that something was amiss; the complete initial unpreparedness of our soldiers to fight in these heights, without adequate clothing, footwear, snow tents, acclimatisation, even food, a prime reason for the high rate of casualties-527 dead and 1363 wounded; how the tide of war turned with the introduction of the Bofors guns; the deceitful nature of the Pakistan army which planted mines even as they vacated the occupied areas when cease fire was declared.

There are moments of great poignancy too. As when news filters down to the field hospital of the handing over of the bodies of the gallant Capt. Saurav Kalia and his six-man patrol; the anger and sorrow at learning of the horrible mutilation and tortures inflicted on them before their murder in cold blood. Or when Basu is informed to be ready to receive a special casualty; it turned out to be that of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, whose MIG was shot down as he was trying to rescue Flt. Lt. Nachiketa whose plane had also been shot down. Nachiketa was lucky- he was released after a week or so in captivity when India took up his case at international fora. Ahuja was not so lucky: when Col. Basu examined his dead body he found clear signs of torture and cold blooded murder of a POW. What happened to the Geneva Convention?, he asks. Did the government fail in mounting pressure for his release, as it did for Nichiketa? he wonders. But he realises that though wars throw up many questions they provide few answers.

It was not all shelling and surgery at the hospital, though. Soon enough, it was swarmed by journalists ( Barkha Dutt, CNN, Reuters) and celebrities, for as news of the remarkable work being done here got around Col. Basu himself became a celebrity of sorts! The glamorous visitors included Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi, Suneil Shetty, Salman Khan, Raveena Tandon, Vinod Khanna, Javed Jaffrey, Bachendri Pal the Everester. . They were a bit of a nuisance at times with their airs, but they were wonderful as morale boosters for the wounded jawans. The author recounts how one patient, bed-ridden with intense back pain and sciatica, jumped out of his bed to get himself happily photographed with the stars, hopping from frame to frame, his pain dissipated! This was noticed by the Commandant who promptly had the chap discharged and sent off to the front lines.

Kargil is located on the banks of the river Suru, originating from the snowfields and glaciers of Trishul. The last chapter is devoted to this river, which had seen so much bloodshed and disruption in these few months, and longed to return to the peace and tranquility its vales once enjoyed. The book ends with a number of poignant questions asked by the river: Why did our neighbours [Pakistan] have to tread into our territory, the territory that never belonged to them? Why did they cause so much destruction? Was it all worth it? There are also questions asked of the river by the gallant soldiers who laid down their lives for their country: Did we not do right in defending your vale? Have you forgotten us too, Suru, as all the others have? Why should you remember this tale, when my countrymen have forgotten me? Do you think that I deserved to die this way?

Questions that will haunt the reader for a long time. For they have no answers.

IT'S NOT ABOUT DOGS - IT'S ABOUT US AND A MORALLY DECAYING SOCIETY

 I for one was not surprised-shocked yes, but not surprised- by the 11th August order of the Supreme Court (since partially reviewed by another bench on the 22nd) on incarcerating stray dogs for life in non-existent dog shelters, condemning them to a sure and miserable death. For, given the downward trajectory of our social, legal and ethical path over these last ten years, this was a judgment waiting to happen. The inhumane response of the executive and RWAs in some states subsequent to the order only confirms the inevitability of our deteriorating civilisational values. In fact, both the first order and its aftermath faithfully reflect the components that are the hall mark of governance and society in general in this New India. To explain, let me list out some of them.

Justice today is not based on general and established juridical principles, as it should be (and used to be), but on the proclivities and biases of those who administer it, be it a judge, a District Magistrate, a Minister or a cow vigilante. It is either not applied at all, or applied selectively, or interpreted as per convenience. We witness this daily when a judge affirms that the majority view must prevail, when the police demolish houses of accused (not convicted) persons, when language and religion become the determinant for citizenship, when tribals are forced to make way for corporate cronies - all against the established law of the land. This is the context in which the two-judge bench disregarded a previous ruling of the same court, the ABC (Animal Birth Control) Rules 2023, and Article 51-A (g) of the Constitution when ruling against the stray dogs this month. It is part of a growing trend of bending the law to suit one's personal opinions or agenda.

Secondly, the country is rapidly abandoning the scientific temper, without which we shall descend into the dark ages (a process which has already begun). History is being replaced with mythology, Yuri Gagarin with Hanumanji, medicine with quackery, real data with fudged-up figures, astronomy with astrology, facts with lies, the legal processes with vigilantism, both state and private. The instant SC judgment suffers from the same malady- it is based, not on science and global experiences, but on charged emotions, irrational anger, media driven populism, and perhaps personal proclivities. One finds no science in it, except for the mention of figures of rabies cases, which too can be misleading because they are neither examined for cause, type, geographical spread or historical trends and patterns. There is no regard for the ecology or psychology of these defenceless community dogs, planning preparedness, finances involved, availability of other resources for providing "shelter" to 30 million dogs, good practices internationally. Personal prejudices and instant judgments have replaced science, which too is in complete sync with modern day India.

The judgment rides rough-shod over animal rights too, such as they are: a species which was the first to have been domesticated by man, and which has lived with us for 10000 years ("man's best friend") is suddenly stripped of all rights, evicted from its habitat and condemned to a lingering death. But then this too is part of our new ethos; when basic human rights-to life, food, education, of speech, dissent, religion etc.- no longer matter, what chance does animal rights have of being recognized or enforced? This is the age of "kartavya" and not "adhikar", remember?

There was no worthwhile consultation with any stakeholder- animal welfare activists, NGOs, municipal authorities, veterinarians, communicable disease specialists, RWAs- before announcing the judgment. In fact, it was stated that the first two would not be heard at all! This element of arbitrariness is again a sign of the times and in complete sync with an authoritative government which promulgates new laws every day, issues diktats with confounding regularity without any consultation, not even with Parliament. This is sadly now being reflected even in our courts which appropriate all wisdom to themselves and see no need to confer or obtain the advice of those who may be better informed of the subject being dealt with.

And finally, of course, this order is further evidence of how brutalised we are becoming as a society. Compassion has been one of the first victims of New India, as evidenced daily by draconian laws and rules, the treatment of minorities and the poor, the frequent use of bulldozers and an increasingly brutalised police, the manner in which millions of daily wage labourers were expelled from our towns by heartless RWAs during COVID, the hate which runs like a current on social media. The days following the August 11th order provided clinching evidence of this- the cruel manner in which hundreds of community dogs were picked up (without waiting for the final order of the three judge bench) and incarcerated in hopelessly unprepared or non-existent shelters in Delhi, the treatment meted out to them in areas like Rohini (of which the videos have become viral), the merciless beating to death of a stray by a police constable in  of Delhi. On e MLA from the south even boasted that he had himself killed a thousand dogs and buried them under trees! As expected, this barbarism was amplified and justified by ill-educated anchors on TV channels who started a "dog jihad" of their own, literally baying for blood.

I would not blame the government and its institutions alone for our civilisational decay- they tend to have their moral ups and downs, and a compassionate and humane leadership can retrieve them from complete perversity. But a society which loses its sense of empathy for other living beings, which fails to realise the imperative of co-existence, which sees only its own selfish desires as the focus of the universe- such a society cannot last long as a civilisation, and does not deserve to. We are a far cry from becoming the Homo Deus envisioned by Yuval Noah Harari.

THE ABIDING MYSTERY OF INDIAN CITIZENSHIP-- IS IT ANOTHER LEGAL FICTION ?

So you think that the issues uppermost in the minds of those who rule us, or those who tell us what the rules are, would be the landslides in the Himalayas or Trump's tariffs or our global isolation? Well, you would be wrong, but you can be forgiven for thinking so, for that is how a rational, logic-driven nation should think. But we have lost that status for a decade now and have become a Blunderland of nonsense. We are now firmly in the position of Lewis Carrol's Alice:                                                                                                                            " If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it is. You see?"

You probably don't, so let me explain. The flavour of the season is none of the issues mentioned above: it is Citizenship, something we thought had been decided 75 years ago by a liberal Constitution which allowed citizenship on grounds of Birth (Jus Soli), Descent (Jus Sanguinis), Naturalization and Registration. But, as Ambedkar said, any Constitution is only as good as those who are charged with implementing it- and that is why we are a Blunderland.

For the Constitution, though unamended in this respect, is being spray-painted in many parts of the country to ensure that certain sections of our vast population are denied citizenship. An attempt to do so through legislation some years back (the Citizenship Amendment Act) hangs in limbo, or the deep freeze which is the Registry of the Supreme Court, where inconvenient carcasses are kept for revival at a more appropriate time. So now it is being done through a game of smoke and mirrors- a Bangladeshi here, a Rohingya there, an encroacher here, a Bengali speaking person there. But the message is loud and clear- we are the new India, we no longer brush a problem under a carpet (which sometimes is the more prudent course)- we now push it into Bangladesh in the dead of night, or into a detention center under the gavel of a Foreigner's Tribunal.

But there's a problem: the Constitution has been shoved into the background, and a new set of (con)founding fathers have replaced it with their version of what constitutes citizenship. The ball was set rolling in 2019 by the Home Minister himself who, through the CAA, implicitly propounded the theory that only a Hindu was entitled to citizenship of India. This doctrine has come in handy in Assam to include the few lakh Hindus excluded from the NRC there.

The RSS, not one to be left behind in the Hindutva sweepstakes, proclaimed that Hindustan was for Hindus alone, that an Indian citizen should possess both "Bharatiyata" and Bharati "swabhav" ( no prizes for guessing who would define these terms!). The BJP's eminence grise, Ram Madhav, went a step further and demanded that India should have, not a democracy, but a "dharmacrocy". That would in effect transform us to a twin of a country like Iran, presumably with a different religion at the helm, of course. Believers of other religions could lump it, as second class citizens. In short, as Seema Chisti opines in an article in THE WIRE ( 30.07.25), Indianness would be defined by faith and belief, notwithstanding the Constitution.

Enter the Deletion Commission of India (formerly the Election Commission of India), which finds conducting elections a boring job and so has now decided to identify citizens instead, something it is neither qualified nor mandated to do. Not knowing which document to rely on for proving citizenship, it has prescribed an a-la-carte menu of 11 documents to choose from. It is another matter that 90% of Indians do not possess these certificates, including (by his own admission in open court) a sitting Supreme Court judge! Many experts estimate that this could result in the disenfranchisement of as many 20% of voters in Bihar. This shortfall will, presumably, be made up by importing voters from U.P and Madhya Pradesh, as a recent report by the Reporters Collective seems to indicate. 

As if these versions of citizenship were not enough, the Supreme Court too has entered the fray by prescribing the test for a "true citizen" or "Indian"- not questioning the government on any matter relating to defence. This novel definition has been provided in a defamation case against Rahul Gandhi. The Mumbai High Court has also pitched in by declaring that Aadhaar and EPIC do not confirm sitizenship, adding for good measure that any protest relating to matters of any other country-such as the genocide in Gaza by Israel- does not behove any patriotic Indian citizen, who should be protesting on domestic shortcomings such as pot-holes and piling up of garbage etc. In other words, any protest which does not toe the official line is not the hallmark of citizen. 

So here's what all this pontificating boils down to: although there appears to be no dearth of definitions as to what constitutes citizenship, there is no official single document which can prove one's citizenship! (The govt. conceded as much last week in Parliament when, in response to a question as to which document establishes citizenship the MOS (Home) evaded any answer on this specific point). We now need a bouquet of documents, with the lotus being the center-piece.

And so, while you and I shuttle between the RSS, judiciary, Election Commission and Ram Madhav, it is no wonder that, in the last 13 years, more than 18 lakh Indians have decided that they have had enough and have surrendered their notional citizenship and migrated to other countries, more than 2 lakh in just 2024. They have obviously decided that a PIO card in the hand is worth two citizenships in the bush. And more will continue to depart our eroding shores, unless the PM's new "Demography Mission" isolates that particular Indian gene which defines Bhartiyata once and for all. Meanwhile, don't give up on your dreams: keep sleeping, for did the Bard not insist that "sleep knits up the rav'lled sleeve of care?"

THE SUPREME COURT ORDER ON STRAY DOGS LACKS BOTH SCIENCE AND COMPASSION

 

[This piece was published in the TRIBUNE on 14.08.25 under the title A RECIPE FOR CRUELTY, NOT COMPASSION]

Today's nations and societies, with their massive challenges- social, political, environmental and technological- have to be governed by a scientific temper and compassion. Unfortunately, the SC order of 11th August on stray dogs in the NCR lacks both. By directing that ALL strays should be rounded up and housed in dog shelters, the Hon'ble judges have mandated a quick-fix not based on science and one that ignores practical realities. It is not in the spirit of Article 51A(G) of the Constitution, which enjoins compassion for all living beings. It contradicts an earlier judgment of a two judge bench of the same court which had asked municipal bodies to follow the ABC (Animal Birth Control) Rules and treat strays with compassion. It is also in conflict with an existing law- the Animal Birth Control (Dogs) Rules of 2023, framed under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act- since these Rules have not specifically been quashed by the ibid order. These Rules lay down in detail how stray dogs are to be vaccinated, sterilised, medically treated and released back into their old localities: the Rules are based on science, experience, compassion and practicality. In contrast, the order of the SC is a quick-fix, perhaps based on personal predictions, and issued without hearing any stake-holder.

Apparently, the impulse behind this order are the incidences of dog bites and rabies: these indeed are important issues, but the solution does not lie in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Firstly, not all rabies cases are caused by dog-bites- other culprits include rodents and monkeys, especially in rural India. Secondly, figures by the NCDC (National Center for Disease Control) indicate that rabies has been showing a declining trend since 2019. Thirdly, the answer to dog-bite induced rabies is vaccination and not culling of dogs, which is what the practical implications of the SC order amount to.

There are an estimated 10 lakh stray dogs in Delhi alone. The MCD has no dog shelters, there are just a few run by under-funded NGOs. Has the SC even considered the impossibility of the MCD creating shelters for a million dogs? According to animal rights activist Ambika Shukla, it will cost a minimum of Rs. 3000 per dog per month to house a dog, including diet, manpower, medicines etc. That means a budget of Rs. 3600 crore would be needed every year to implement the SC order. The capital cost of constructing these shelters would run into another few thousand crores. Is that even within the realm of possibility? Without these funds the dogs would be packed in like sardines in a can, denied food,  become diseased and would eventually kill each other or have to be euthanised. This would be institutionalised and legally mandated cruelty, which should shock anyone's conscience.

All the deficiencies and heartlessness of the SC order stem from a complete lack of consultation with those who are better informed, and work, in this field- animal activists, NGOs, vets, agencies like NCDC, pet owner Associations, RWAs. Had the court not been in such a hurry to pass this order, it would have learnt, or been informed, of other related issues that have a bearing on this matter: how the problem of strays is compounded by many pet-owners simply abandoning their pets on the roads (these, having no fear of us, can be more dangerous than the genuine strays); why it makes more sense for the govt. to assist and fund NGOs working in this field to establish shelters rather than to take on the responsibility itself; that most street dogs are not, in fact, strays, but "community dogs" who are well looked after by communities and animal lovers groups: in my own RWA in Noida at least a dozen such dogs are cared for by the residents- they are wonderful to watch, happily greet our children when they get off the school buses, accompany us elders on our morning walks, and are no threat at all. If only the Hon'ble judges had invited wider inputs, they would perhaps have seen this whole issue other than through the prism of dog-bites and rabies. They would have realised that, in fact, there is no need to imprison all these dogs, that they can be managed with a mix of practices prescribed in the ABC Rules.

Street dogs are the creation of man and have become an issue because of the incompetence, lack of vision and apathy of our municipal administrations. The risks posed by them are highly exaggerated and the judicial solution proposed is unscientific, cruel, impractical and is bound to fail. It is still not too late for the court to hold wider consultations (rather than shut out the animal activists completely) and arrive at a solution that is just, humane and has a chance of succeeding. But most important- remember: a society that can't protect its voiceless is a society that has lost its soul.

HIMACHAL'S ENVIRONMENT DOESN'T NEED MORE STUDIES- IT NEEDS FIRM ACTION- NOW!

 Governments never cease to surprise me, but they occasionally intrigue me, as in the two recent announcements by the Himachal govt. The first, in the middle of the devastating fury of the ongoing rains which has already claimed more than a hundred lives and inflicted damage worth more than 2000 crore rupees, stated that a Central team would be arriving soon to assess the causes for such disasters every year. The second was the revelation that the World Bank has approved a Rs. 2000 crore project to study the environmental impacts of hydel projects, particularly in the Beas river basin, and to suggest mitigating measures.

This is not just an example of shutting the stable doors after the horses have bolted, this amounts to opening the spillway after the dam has burst, to use a phrase appropriate to what is happening to the hydel projects in the state. For the fact is that the devastation, ruin and deaths that are occurring with frightening regularity every year now are something that experts and environmentalists have been warning about for more than a decade, but successive governments have refused to heed.

It is no coincidence that the so-called "cloudbursts" always occur in areas where there is, or has been, extensive and unscientific cutting of hills, deforestation, ramming through of roads, unregulated building activity, and construction of hydel projects. The most egregious and destructive has been the epidemic of four-lane highways- a goldmine, no doubt, for the NHAI, contractors and general officialdom, but highways to hell for the residents of the state. The millions of cubic meters of excavated earth and debris inevitably find their way to the rivers and water courses, constrict their flow and carrying capacity, and result in flooding and the misnomer "cloudburst". Continuous subsidence, erosion, landslides, building collapses follow in its wake. These activities, along with denudation of the green cover, have robbed the mountains of their capacity to absorb and hold the rainfall, which thunders down the slopes as run-off, with horrific consequences.

We don't need expert committees, hosted at the expense of a bankrupt state, to identify what is going wrong with the environment: the reasons are there in plain sight, carved on the denuded, crumbling mountain sides- stop the rape of the rivers, give up this maniacal fascination for more and more roads, cancel all four-lane projects, protect the green belts and forests, regulate construction with an iron hand (and Yogi's bulldozers, where required). Pay attention to the fact that GSI has identified 17000 landslide-prone zones in the state. Recognize that climate change is now a reality which has arrived, it will exacerbate rainfall patterns, there will be more EWEs (Extreme Weather Events). Concentrate on sustainable planning and not reckless development at all costs. Send back the central expert committee, Mr. Chief Minister- the answers don't lie with it, they lie in your office, in your files. Listen to the local citizens- those who have been opposing needless road construction, airports, hydel projects and multi-storeyed commercial projects, denotification of green belts, those whose lands and houses are getting washed away by your obstinacy, those whose family members are entombed in mud in the middle of the night.  Trust them, not your mercantile advisors..

The second announcement about environmental impacts of hydel projects in the Beas basin is even more mystifying. Firstly, such a study should have been carried out BEFORE, and not AFTER, allotting the 359 hydel projects (operational and planned) on the Beas and its tributaries. Secondly, the environmental impacts of such projects are already known, and have been for the last 15 years. In 2010 the then Addl. Chief Secretary(Forests), on the directions of the High Court, had submitted a detailed report, listing out the deleterious and damaging impacts being witnessed today: muck dumping, unscientific cutting and blasting, weakening of the mountain strata, deforestation, reduction in carrying capacity of rivers, the need to restrict the number of hydel projects on a particular river, the necessity of cumulative impact assessments for the whole river basins instead of for just individual projects, declaration of no-go areas for hydel projects. The report was accepted by the High Court but was fiercely opposed by the state govt. and was quietly buried. Thirdly, no further study is required to identify these environmental impacts- they have been happening with frightening regularity every year- the whole stretch of the river from Manali to Mandi has been  devastated and looks like Gaza- and are self evident. There is little point reinventing the wheel at a cost of Rs.2000 crore- exhume the 2010 report, get additional inputs from geologists and hydrologists, and implement the recommendations. The World Bank study appears to me to be just a smokescreen for avoiding any substantive action, and is simply kicking the can further down the river.

Neither of the two studies or inquiries is needed, and the state govt. certainly doesn't have the money to pay for them. Instead, the govt. should commission studies on factors which have grave portents for the future of the state: the changing precipitation patterns, changed hydrology of the rivers, melting of glaciers, formation of glacial lakes which pose a danger to downstream areas, carrying capacity of major tourist destinations, a Cumulative  EIA of the Chandrabhaga basin before proceeding to sanction another 4000 MW worth of projects on it. These studies will reveal  how our geology and environment are being altered, and are necessary for all future planning. It should also heed the dire warning issued by the Supreme Court last week on a PIL, having ignored everyone, including its own citizens for decades: "Entire Himachal Pradesh may vanish soon; Revenue Earning can't be at the cost of the Environment." 

Translated into simple English, that means that the time for post mortems is over, what is needed now is immediate and decisive action.