Leela Diwadkar stayed in the Rajawadi locality of Mumbai’s Ghatkopar. Back then, the Vidyavihar railway station did not exist. So to get to her college, she had to walk to the Ghatkopar station to board a train. Accompanying her all the way on the 16-minute walk each morning was a canine friend, one of the many ‘indies’ that were part of her family. The indie would even try to jump into the train to go with her.
These were the stories her son Abodh Aras grew up hearing. His childhood home near Bhatia Hospital in Tardeo, was a building that bore the year ‘1921’ on it. His paternal grandfather moved into the premises in the 1930s. It housed 15 to 20 cats, recalls Aras.
“I had a neighbour next door who loved animals. Whenever he spotted an ill animal, he used to take it to the vet and he also took me along. That was also a time when dogs on the streets used to be killed by the Municipal Corporation. They would be caught and kept for three days. If there was no one who went to claim the dog, they would be electrocuted on the fourth day. I went with my neighbour once to rescue a dog from our area that had been caught. Once we claimed it, they gave the dog a tag with a number on it,” recalls Aras.
It comes as no surprise then that the graduate in hotel management, after working in the hospitality sector, volunteered for The Welfare of Stray Dogs (WSD) while doing his MBA in 1996. He has been CEO of the not-for-profit trust since 2000.
Then and Now
In a telephonic chat with Stimulus Unplugged, Aras explained the origins of WSD in 1985. It all started when a group of people from the Jain community got together to stop the killing of street dogs in Mumbai. It was a milder reincarnation of the ‘Parsi Riots’ of 1932, when another community went up in arms against the British to stop the killing of street dogs.
They went to the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) and tried to convince them with numbers. Their contention was – and is – that removal doesn’t help as other dogs replace the dogs that have been removed. After all, killing was just one form of removal. There are some statistics now to show that two dogs can multiply to 300 in a few years, says WSD. The solution they proposed was that they be allowed to sterilise the dogs instead of killing them. The killing pound in Mahalaxmi became the sterilisation centre WSD started operating in 1994.
Abodh Aras
Now, the Tata group is building an animal hospital, in which WSD will be given space to continue its sterilisation programme and other activities. And WSD does a lot more than just sterilisation of street dogs before returning them to where they were picked up from.
Why On-site Care Matters
While pursuing his MBA in 1996, Aras recalls going to the kennel as a volunteer and taking dogs for sterilisation. He fondly remembers taking eight of them in a Maruti 800. A call about a puppy in distress at Oval Maidan led him to the location. He admitted the pup with a little wound to an animal hospital. About 20 days later, he was working late at B-school, when his mother informed him that the hospital had sent the pup home.
“It was in a terrible state – almost comatose, with a bloated tummy. The pup was dead by morning. If I had a wound, I would visit a doctor, not get admitted to a hospital. Why couldn’t basic treatment for dogs be on-site?” pondered Aras then.
“One can’t blame the hospital. The immunity of puppies isn’t great. Bundled with other sick animals, they are bound to catch something,” he reasons now.
He trained under a veterinarian for two to three months. A volunteer-driven on-site first aid programme was initiated. Every Sunday, they used to meet outside Eros cinema in South Mumbai at 9.30 am until before the lockdown, as he says, ‘Come rain, shine or earthquake.’
Cases to be treated were distributed among volunteers with new volunteers assigned to those more experienced, to be trained. Over time, WSD started adding on full-time animal nurses. Now the on-site treatment team comprises 10 such nurses besides a veterinarian. Every month, until before the lockdown, 1,000 animals on average were treated. This number has come down to 700 in the lockdown.
“This has helped. The animals are less traumatised because you are treating them in their own space. There is no chance of catching another animal’s infection. Further, it elevates the status of a street animal,” explains Aras.
He cites the case of ‘Saint’ Suresh, who happens to volunteer in the Dharavi area of Mumbai. Aras notes that when a dog with a maggot wound is trying to fend itself from flies attacking the wound, it tends to run into homes for protection. People do not know what to do and they end up getting scared of it. In trying to keep it away, they sometimes hurt the animal, even.
“When they saw others like Suresh treating it, they knew it wasn’t a pagal kutta (mad dog). Some people started calling us for help when they saw such animals. It stemmed cruelty,” says the WSD CEO.
In the time of the lockdown, this set of people who had turned empathetic to the animals thanks to seeing them being treated, was a blessing. WSD knew who could be contacted in the area for distribution of food to the animals. These people also helped catch the dogs, which were more comfortable and trusting of the locals, for sterilisation. WSD also carries out on-site vaccination every Sunday against rabies, an annual ritual for every dog.
Having pioneered on-site first aid in Mumbai and encouraged by the recognition for it from the likes of politician and animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi, WSD also got involved in training others. Through the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisations (FIAPO), of which WSD is one of the founding members and a trustee, NGOs in Kolkata, Kerala, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and even smaller cities like Hubli and Varanasi have been engaged.
WSD continues to provide on-site first aid in the Island city, stretching from Cuffe Parade to Mahim and Sion. All NGOs in the city work together without conflict born of competitive spirit and that is how it should be, says Aras.
Human Rabies Deaths Decrease
The vaccination drive has significantly reduced the human deaths due to dog bites. When killing street dogs to prevent them from biting humans and hence rabies deaths, was the norm, before 1994, there were 50 to 60 deaths a year, states the MBA-turned-animal welfare activist. This number is down to single digits now, with no deaths or a lone death in the last two to three years, he adds.
“There are a few reasons for this. One is the street dog vaccination. Equally important, is the education and awareness on the issue of dogs. WSD started these programmes in schools – especially municipal schools – 15 to 20 years ago. Things like, ‘What to do when a dog bites?’ The third thing is the realisation of the importance of the post bite vaccination to humans, given free in municipal hospitals,” explains Aras.
The focus was on municipal schools because a huge percentage of dog bites was amongst underprivileged kids. The education programme in schools employs two full-timers from WSD now. They engage kids in Marathi and Hindi in partnership with NGOs dealing with children, and in English medium schools, they also encourage adoption of indies. The programme is now held online thanks to Covid19.
WSD has been doing its bit for increasing public awareness on the issue and busting myths. On occasions like World Rabies Day, there have been workshops in schools that impart a skill, but through the lens of street dogs. Like one on ‘How to photograph a street dog.’
Adopt An Indie
According to the WSD website, Daisy Sidhwa has a career in commercial floral designing and in-store advertising. She is also Manager – Projects at WSD and heads the street dog adoption programmes of the trust. She has been with the organisation since 1993. “Daisy has been around even before me. Back then, no one wanted to adopt an indie,” reflects the CEO.
Efforts in the direction of encouraging adoption of indies started a while ago. Aras recalls a campaign featuring former Miss India, (late) Nafisa Joseph. It showed street dogs as glamorous. The CEO still uses the copy from the campaign to urge people to adopt an indie: ‘Adopt A Street Dog, They’re A Breed Ahead.’ Other campaigns followed. Its most recent campaign was launched in August 2020 led by a web film (right), which urges #ProudIndieans to get ‘Vocal For Locals’ and ‘Adopt an Indie’.
In 2011, WSD started what is now called ‘Adoptathon’. Back then, it was called an ‘Adoption Mela’. It went on to host three ot four adoption melas in a couple of years, recalls Aras.
He adds, “It was a huge success. But we realised that adopting a dog is not like going to a store. It needs to have some amount of thought-through decision making.”
Around the same time, canine behaviourist and trainer Shirin Merchant offered help in training about adoption, through behavioural assessment. The process has helped in fitting the dog to the family adopting it, vouches Aras, as evidenced in the success rate (of adopted dogs not being returned).
When a dog comes into the shelter, besides health checks, it is also assessed on behavior – how it relates to kids, to food, and so on. Corrections are carried out where needed. A description based on the assessment and treatment is made out.
WSD requests those coming to adopt a dog to visit two or three times. After all, as they say, “The dog also needs to get to know you.”
The Next Chapter
A year ago, WSD started a chapter for rescue and sterilisation in Alibaug, a coastal tourist town South of Mumbai. It also runs a smaller centre in Navy Nagar now. Including the Mahalaxmi facility that it will shortly vacate, it has around 40 staffers and is helped by 150 volunteers.
WSD has come a long way in its mission to save the street dogs of Mumbai, as have several other animal activists and organisations. But their job is far from over. There has been a lot of push and pull on the fight to stop the killing of street dogs, and the truce seems temporary. The WSD CEO informs is that in 2001, a court ruled that dogs straying around can be caught and put down after three days, ‘if they are a nuisance.’ “But there is no definition of nuisance,” he observes.
“Luckily, one had the presence of mind to ask for a stay. But what if they had said, ‘No’? That was a scary, stressful moment in my life, and that of every animal lover,” reminisces Aras. The case is still being heard, in 2020.
So what’s next for WSD, we ask the activist-CEO. “I really need to look at someone to take over so that one can focus on expanding. We don’t want to go to some place if another NGO is already operating there. There are other places with little or no infrastructure or NGOs,” he explains.
On his immediate to-do list is setting up a hospital in Alibaug. Even in the lockdown, animals that needed hospitalisation had to be brought down to Mumbai. With active and targeted sterilisation, Aras estimates that in the areas covered by WSD, 90 percent of street dogs have been sterilised, a figure he pegs at 70 percent for all of Mumbai. The focus on quality of treatment is unwavering. “Not one dog needs to die because of sterilisation,” he underlines.
With the dog population coming down, cats have become more visible, notes the CEO. The next challenge will be sterilisation of cats, he says. In the new hospital, there will be a separate cat sterilisation programme, heralding a new chapter in the history of WSD.
“WSD will go on. The plan is to expand it to areas which need help,” signs off Aras.