Thousands of years ago, when humans were still nomads and the Ice Age winds howled across the land, a pact was silently made between two species. Wolves, drawn to the scraps of human camps, edged closer. The fiercest and most aggressive were chased away or killed. The gentler, braver ones stayed — and over generations, they became something new: dogs.
Humans shaped them deliberately. We bred them for hunting, for guarding livestock, for pulling sleds, for companionship. We altered their very DNA to suit our needs. We made their ears floppy, their tails curl, their faces softer. We bred loyalty into their hearts so deep that it became their defining feature. And in return, they guarded us, worked for us, and loved us without question.
This was not a gift we gave them — it was a contract we wrote into their biology. They didn’t choose to stop being wolves. We made them dependent on us. We made them what they are.
And now, in Delhi, the Supreme Court has ruled that all stray dogs should be removed from the streets and placed into shelters. It sounds humane on the surface, but let’s not sugarcoat it — this is a mass eviction of an entire species from their homes. Shelters in India are chronically overcrowded, underfunded, and ill-equipped to house tens of thousands of dogs. Many will live the rest of their lives in cramped enclosures, deprived of freedom, family, and the territory they know. Some will not survive long enough to see “shelter” at all.
This is not compassion. This is cruelty wearing the mask of civic order.
What is most infuriating is the hypocrisy. Humans created dogs for our benefit. We brought them into our homes and our farms, into our cities and our hearts. We selectively bred them to be dependent on us — to seek out human companionship, to thrive on human scraps, to serve human purposes. And when those purposes no longer fit neatly into our modern cities, we discard them like obsolete tools.
We do not treat other animals this way. We don’t take cows off the streets of India en masse, despite the traffic hazards they cause. We don’t round up every pigeon from public squares because they inconvenience us. But dogs — animals whose very existence is the result of a human-made evolutionary experiment — we treat as expendable.
This ruling is not just a legal directive. It is a moral failure. It sends a message that loyalty is a one-way street, that our responsibility to a species we created ends when they become inconvenient. It ignores the fact that street dogs in India are not “wild” animals — they are urban residents shaped by human society, living in a delicate balance with their environment.
We owe them more than this. We owe them safety, medical care, and the dignity of coexistence. Because when we take the animal that once hunted alongside us, slept by our fires, and guarded our children — and we lock it away in a cage — we are not just betraying dogs.
We are betraying our own humanity.
(Saima Ahmad is a seasoned writer with over six years of experience at Star TV and more than 1,000 episodes penned for leading general entertainment channels across India. A computer science engineer with an MBA in marketing, Saima brings analytical precision and narrative flair to every project. A keen observer of politics and social trends, with a strong sense of justice, Saima uses storytelling as a lens to reflect and question the world we live in.)
