By Thulasi Muttulingam “Oh my God, is that a pariah dog inside your house? We’d allow only purebreds in ours,” said one snooty lady to my father one day. The fallout was hilarious. Few people dared brave my father’s sarcastic tongue, but then there are few as foolish as the supercilious aspiring elite. “Yes,” retorted my father. “Pariahs are local dogs native to this land. We are all pariahs in that sense. I do not require foreign breed dogs to upgrade my own claim to supposedly superior breeding.” There it is in a nutshell. The chip on their shoulders that most Sri Lankans suffer from, which makes them think that local and indigenous somehow means inferior, and anything imported from abroad, particularly from the West, must be automatically superior. In the process, they also attach to local dogs the worst slur they can find – the name of the community of indigenous people in this region of the Indian subcontinent – the Pariar community. So prejudicial is the term that revolting casteists amongst our midst invested in the word – that it also made it into the English dictionary as a slur word for people held in contempt – that a young Sri Lankan woman poking fun at local dogs and those who defend them picked it up some months ago and defended her use of the word as acceptable, “because it’s in the English dictionary”. It’s beyond the scope of this column piece to go into all the reasons why using that word in such a prejudicial manner is unacceptable – one would think that knowing a group of long oppressed people still exist with that community name would be enough to deter the so-called elites – but then, the “good breeding” of so-called elites failed to invest in them actual good breeding in terms of manners, just a lot of inbreeding between cousins perpetuating further stupidity in their midst. Insults Being labelled crazy because we pamper our local dogs the same way many people pamper their purebreds is nothing new to our family. But then, we have them in our family because we love the dogs, not their lineage. As such, all our dogs (seven and counting as of now) are the local breeds who were dumped because they were old, sick, or female in the marketplace next to our house. Besides those seven, we also put out food regularly for the strays we are unable to take in, for which we draw many nasty comments. “What a waste of food. Do you know there are people starving in Syria?” “You clearly have too much money on your hands, feeding all the strays that ought to be shot instead. They are a nuisance to people. Do you know how many people die of rabies due to this menace?” “You must be poor or you’d have breeds like we do instead. Fancy pampering the pariahs like they are purebreds. Disgusting. Yuck!” “You are becoming typical spinsters – crazy dog ladies and cat ladies.” “You should be balancing toddlers on your hips instead of coddling dogs. This is why you should have settled down in time. You are asserting your frustrations via treating dogs as family.” “You are neutering them? Oh my god! That’s a grave sin. That’s why you are unmarried. This sin will never allow you to have children. Kill the dogs instead. Don’t neuter them.” I swear I am not making any of this up. I wish I was. As a family of animal lovers, it breaks our hearts every time we hear a frantic puppy yelping at our gate. Despite all these frequent criticisms, people in our neighbourhood have also figured out we are the people to dump their unwanted puppies on. Yet, with all the will in the world, we can’t take them all in. We try so hard. We take the puppies in when there is space and we have money to spare, to groom and vaccinate them, and try to re-home them where possible, yet it’s a near-impossible task. Male puppies usually find homes easily, but the female puppies are much harder to re-home; people don’t want them because they would litter. They also don’t want them neutered because they have been convinced by religious dogma that such neutering is a karmic sin. I really don’t know why they don’t hold as fast to the rule that killing or dumping them is also a karmic sin – perhaps because someone else would do the killing? Again, the so-called “elites” want municipal council workers, almost certainly drawn from the oppressed castes and classes, to do their dirty work for them; kill the dogs. I have grown tired of the number of people who snarl “kill the rabid dogs” at me. I would dearly love to, but killing these people could land me in jail. Monkey dividing the rotti The trend is worrying because yes, even I can see that there is a drastic increase in the number of dogs on the roads in many places across the country – except in Colombo where they seem to have startlingly reduced, which I find equally worrying. Every so often, we hear of the central or provincial governments quietly taking matters into their own hands and killing the dogs secretly despite the official “no kill” policy. However, because it’s so quiet and secretive, no one can prove it’s happening. The authorities keep denying it. In the meantime, they are not doing what they are actually supposed to be doing, which is sterilising the dogs to keep the dog population down. I made a few calls to various government and private sector animal welfare workers to check on what’s happening on that front, and the picture that’s emerging is less than rosy. Apparently, the Central Government keeps vacillating between the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Department of Animal Production and Health (DAPH) on whom to allocate funds for countrywide dog spaying programmes. This has resulted in a competition between the two, leading to undercutting and lack of co-ordination, leading in turn to neither doing their jobs properly due to lack of crucially needed co-operation from the other. Currently, the MOH has the funds but since the DAPH was the one doing the job over the last year, they are the ones with the resources and the capacity – which they refuse to share. Finally, when the MOH re-gear their resources and capacity again, the funds might get re-allocated to DAPH, which would have in the meantime let their staff go and face a capacity lapse. This has been going on apparently in turns for quite some time now. It’s infuriating the level of inefficiency we display in our government sector. This is like that jataka tale of the monkey who divided the rotti between two kittens fighting over it. He apparently came along and said he’d be the adjudicator and divide the rotti equally between them. Then, he tore it down the middle and said: “Oh look, this piece is slightly bigger. I’ll eat the extra bit so as to be completely fair between you. Uh oh, now look, I bit off a bit too much from that piece, so I’ll take a chunk from this piece as well to keep it equal.” And he kept doing that until there was nothing left. That’s our Government in a nutshell, and all they have achieved with such adjudicating on this matter is to make doctors and veterinary doctors nationwide go at each other’s throats. Then when the problem gets out of hand, their solution is to quietly cull. A lot of money has gone into the upkeep of many of these community dogs that people love – many of us animal lovers spend out of our own pockets for their food, vaccines, and sterilisations. Down South, unlike we poor ones in the North, have several animal charities operating and do much more, yet Colombo’s dogs have disappeared like this over the years too. And due to the secretive nature of the operation, none can ask for, or get them back. Killing is not the answer. If only there was better co-ordination between government bodies, and better decision-making at policy level, we could easily control this problem. According to the veterinary doctors I spoke to, Sri Lanka, being a small island nation, should find it very easy to eradicate rabies – yet, we still haven’t. It’s just a matter of compassion, humanity, and simple efficiency. Yet, from irresponsible individuals to an irresponsible government, we keep letting the animals down. Every time I see unloved dogs on the street, I see untapped powerhouses of love. We don’t deserve them, many of us humans, these beings so pure and full of light and joy, of unquestioning love and loyalty. They are not contemptible. They are not “pariahs”. For that matter, Pariahs, the real community, are not contemptible either. It is those who hold them in contempt, who need to do some thorough self-cleaning inwards to divest themselves of the dross that fill them. Your breeding does not depend on whether you thinned your blood over generations through inbreeding within your own supercilious caste or hold similarly inbred poor animals from foreign climes not suited to this region as a marker of your status. Try opening your doors to a sturdy little puppy dumped by some sods because she is female, because she is a native breed, because she is black or brown skinned – nearly all the things you likely are yourself. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You will find that she is actually very intelligent, fiercely protective, lovable, and loyal – German shepherds and pomeranians don’t hold a monopoly on it. You won’t regret it. (The writer is a freelance journalist based in Jaffna. All views expressed are her own and not of any organisations affiliated to her) © thewholeworldisaplayground.com