India, Oct. 24 -- When you navigate the distance between wood-panelled conference rooms in New Delhi to dusty tehsil offices, one lesson keeps returning to your desk, like a live file: India's policies are at their best when they reflect our Constitution's moral imagination, and not merely our administrative convenience.

When it comes to animals, the moral imagination begins with a simple proposition that our courts and statutes already recognise: Animals are sentient. Law and jurisprudence in India - reading Article 51A(g) of the Indian Constitution alongside the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act and subsequent judgments - acknowledge duties of care towards and the dignity of animals. Once sentience is admitted, indifference is not a...