Sukanya Ray, a clinical psychologist by profession and an animal lover by heart, is doing a commendable job saving street animals. What was just a small WhatsApp group in 2015 has now become a big non-profit NGO, ensuring the well being of street animals.

Isn’t it amazing to know that there are people out there who think about the safety of street animals more than their own safety? James Herriot said, “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” The same thing was realised by Sukanya over a period of time. Excerpts from the interview:

Tell us about your first experience of saving a street animal.

One cold night in December 2010, I rescued a puppy from the streets in Bhopal, where I was living. Some colony kids were kicking him, so I just picked him up and got him inside my house. Being a psychologist I knew about the behavioural principles and how to deal with it. So, I raised this puppy, trained him and he was with me until 2014, before I relocated due to a job change.

I went through a tragic loss in 2014, both my parents expired. Incidentally, the period that I was grappling with this loss, I did not have anybody else with me, other than my dog. Somehow after this loss, my attention would be captured by these lone pups on the street. So I started picking them up, without any second thought, that where will I keep them or how will I raise them. During 2014-15, I rescued about eight dogs and they were living with me in my home. I reared them and trained them all by myself.

So, how did you come to form a WhatsApp group and grow from having eight to more than 40 dogs?

In my house, there were dogs everywhere. In my garden, in my balconies, on my terrace, everywhere. So gradually the neighbours started making a fuss about it, asking me why are you doing this and how many will you pick up and all that. So I started looking for like-minded people in Bhopal. Gradually, we formed a group on WhatsApp, called 365. The idea behind keeping this name was that it takes very little to save the street animals. Just 1 Rs a day to care for a street dog i.e. only 365 Rs in a year. And even if you can spend 1 hour in a day i.e. 365 hours in a year, you can end up caring for so many dogs.

So we started doing group rescues, helping injured dogs, taking care of accident cases etc. We also learned the techniques of catching dogs and the right way of dealing with them.

When did you think of converting this small animal lovers’ group into a non-profit organisation?

Somebody had just suggested that all of you are doing a good job saving these street dogs, so why don’t you start an NGO for it. We registered the organisation in August 2016. We call ourselves ‘Humane for animals society’. Being a psychologist, from the point of view of mental health also, I started seeing this as something which people often neglect. Saving the animals and forming a bond with them can also play a crucial role in developing empathy in children. Having a pet at home or genuinely having compassion or at least allowing compassion to be there in your heart, responding to an animal in stress, all of these are ultimately somewhere linked to mental health. Gradually we started up kindness clubs in schools and colleges. Teaching them that even the street animals need love and care. On World Animal Day on October 4, we also organised a street play, on how people connect and do not connect with dogs.

So when did the idea of building a shelter for these animals come to your mind?

The organisation had grown, the group had grown so the number of rescued dogs was also increasing. I had almost 40 in my home. There is a government veterinary in Bhopal where they treat animals for free. But they leave them back on streets after the treatment. There are a few dogs, like accident cases or the ones who cannot live back on the street. In 2017, we thought of building a bigger shelter for them. Now we have two shelters. We hired a few people and trained them in how to take care of dogs and how to train them. All our employees are from sections of society who are underprivileged and do not get much work. We also have women workers, who were deserted by their husbands.

What are some of the issues you face in running this organisation?

Since we are a non-profit organisation, all the expenditure and investment for these animals are taken care of by members of our organisation. Raising funds is one problem that we face. Another thing is making people understand that animals have the right to live in the place where they are born. There are ways to deal with these street dogs. Even the Supreme Court has laid out some rules which say relocating street animals is illegal. There is this concept in many societies that there shouldn’t be any street dogs. They are fine with having breed dogs as pets but not street dogs. That is wrong and unlawful. For this, I have done a lot of counselling and shown them sections of laws made for these animals. The constitution also says that we have our fundamental duty towards the environment. These animals are part of the environment and so it is our duty to protect them.

According to you, what are the loopholes in the laws for animals that should be addressed?

Even the police are unaware of the sections of the law that are for cruelty towards animals. I had registered an FIR against some people who were catching pigs. And the police were like, this is the first FIR of its kind. There are plenty of loopholes in the laws. A fine for harming a pet dog is Rs 50,000 whereas it just Rs 50 for a street dog. There is also a loophole in the law of relocation, which needs to be redefined. It says that no sterilised animal can be relocated, which means the non-sterilised ones can be. And people misuse this in many ways by relocating street dogs. The law also has a loophole in defining aggression in dogs. The animal welfare bill is in the parliament now and, hopefully, it will be passed soon and things may improve.

Earlier you said that people are fine with having pet dogs but not street animals. So are these people taking care of pets properly, and what tips can you give to them?

Having a pet has become a status symbol for many these days. It does not matter if you know how to keep a pet or not, you must own a pet. But not everyone is like that, there are a lot of animal lovers who take care of their pets very lovingly. There are behavioural principles to train a dog. The most important thing that should be taken care of is training the pet from the very first day. They are like babies. They learn what you teach them from the very beginning. It is not like you cannot train a grown-up dog, it just becomes a little difficult. You need to understand the body language of the pet and treat them accordingly.

You mentioned that you have been facing a lot of opposition for saving street animals. Tell us about the bravest fight that you have had for them. 

There was one incident last year. There is this neighbour of mine, who is herself a lawyer and she also has a labrador as her pet. We do a lot of feeding programs for street dogs in colonies and call it Akshaya Bhandara. We feed around 40 dogs in our colony every day. I don’t know what offended her, one day she started arguing that it’s illegal to run an NGO inside a residential colony. I will lodge an FIR against you and see you in court. Either you feed the dogs in your home or else I will make sure that this feeding program is stopped. When my staff was feeding the dogs, she and her dad came with bamboo sticks and were almost about to beat my staff. They called me and I went to confront her along with the police. She accused that we were feeding the dogs near her house. And because we were feeding them they barked in the night. But they were all wrong accusations. We were following the Supreme Court guidelines. We fed the dogs at around 9, when not many people were out and at a place which was not near any house.

She also lodged an RTI with the municipality that I was doing such activities from inside the colony. To which she got the reply that I was running a registered NGO and there is no law which specifies that it cannot be run from within the premises. So this was one incident that was pretty rough. Though we are still continuing with our feeding program and creating awareness about saving street animals.

So how are you planning to take this awareness programme forward?

There is an all-women car rally organised by the Times group and it is the biggest women car rally in India. The funds collected from this rally are donated to the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital. My team had participated in it last year also. Last year, our theme was on awareness of breast cancer. This year we thought that we would tag it as cancer of the month – cruelty towards animals. We think that it is a great platform to promote our cause. The rally cars are all decked up with theme slogans, social messages, and pictures. From the four routes set for the rally, my team will be going from Pune to Goa. It is a golden opportunity for us to spread the awareness through this national platform. The rally is on April 28 and 29.

Being an animal lover to the core, Sukanya is a vegan and during the conversation, broke a lot of myths about the lifestyle. She said that people believe once you become a vegan, you become weak but on the contrary, you are healthier and more energetic. She also said that it is a misconception that vegan food does not have alternatives, but there are many.