The irony in the judgement by a two-judge Supreme Court Bench on stray dogs in Delhi becomes apparent when the unique ‘Bombay Riot’ of 1832 is recalled. That ‘riot’ was not, as some may think, a communal conflagration. It was over stray dogs. The British had decided to “clean up" Bombay (now Mumbai) by killing all its stray dogs. But they had to face the wrath of the large Parsi community, which revered canines. Finally, the British had to back down.

It actually began in 1813—some 212 years ago—when the British imposed a regulation to “control" the city’s stray dog population by permitting two periods of “culling"—the euphemism for officially sanctioned mass slaughter. But it was never operationalised fully. Nearly 20 years later, though, they doubled down and even offered monetary incentives (eight annas) for every stray culled/killed. That led to greedy civic employees and private individuals killing even pet dogs.

In May 1832, the Bombay Police was allowed to extend culling (killing) to “any time that a nuisance and danger was deemed to exist". The then Governor, the Earl of Clare, declared that “the lives of the inhabitants are endangered by the numbers and ferocity of these noxious animals which now infest every part of the Island". The East India Company also said stray dogs were “worthless, noxious and disgusting animals". Notice the similarities with the rhetoric in 2025?

For those who might still disbelieve that people from the ‘civilised’ west would approve such bloodthirsty measures, a similar diktat was issued targeting leopards, regarded as a........

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