India, Nov. 12 -- I felt sad because there are several examples to show that such unscientific removal of street dogs does not work. In fact, it is a legacy that the British left us with. Street dogs were killed from the late 18th century, right up to 1994. As a resident of Bombay, I take great pride in remembering the Bombay Dog Riots of 1832, where the Parsi community took the lead in protesting the British East India Company's official order to kill street dogs in Bombay. Non-Parsis joined in, and the British had to give in.

Street dogs are territorial. When you remove them from an area, there is a vacuum. New dogs come and occupy that. These new dogs are unknown to the humans in the neighbourhood, and this creates chaos. There could ...