British colonialism spread the idea that dogs are only legitimate if they belong to a breed, while others are inferior, dirty creatures who should be culled. India has the world’s largest population of street dogs, which were historically labeled as “pariahs” and “strays” by the British and ultimately viewed as a symbol of the decline of India.
But as Krithika Srinivasan explains in this piece, dogs existed before breeds, before fancy dog shows, and before the upper class groomed them as they wished. Shouldn’t India’s street dogs be free to live in public places and coexist with its human inhabitants? Despite the need to find their own food, water, and shelter, and their exposure to mostly human-made harms like traffic and cruelty, these free-living dogs actually live autonomous and peaceful lives. Srinivasan challenges us to reconsider the long-held idea that dogs are meant to be human companions, and to rethink how humans can coexist with other beings on the planet.
Too often in the West, dogs are seen through the prism of pedigree, and connected to their owner via collars and leashes. All too often, the realities of how dogs and humans live together in the Global South are overlooked. As a country with a significant street-dog population, India is a good place from which to explore how humans and canines share street life in cooperative ways that move beyond images of free-living dogs as dangerous.
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