We humans have weird habits. We respect what we fear. What is dreadful earns our admiration. This is especially true in the context of our relationships with animals, wild and domesticated. At one point in time we were savages like other savage beasts. We became noble savages much later.

In the primeval forests, we had to fight hard against predators in order to survive. In this struggle fraught with danger we discovered the predatory strength of some animals that posed us mortal threat. Such a threat emanating from certain animals or beasts made them admirable in our eyes because we wanted to be possessed of brutal power that could keep our enemies in the natural world at bay. That is the main reasons why predators like lions, cheetahs, and tigers have become admirable for us. To describe a powerful person we use the epithets of lion, cheetah or tigers. This is a subtle admission that such a person can do others harm in a brutal way. It’s an implicit acquiescence to the dictates of power which frame the parameters of our life. This social and cultural habit is perhaps the lingering vestige of our cannibalistic past where tearing flesh and eating it was part of our dietary needs. Even great poets aren’t free of such a bias.

Damodar Das Gulati, the poet who was the first to compose the tale of legendary Heer, the daughter of a powerful aristocrat, describes her thus: “The white lion roams the forests whose dread is far and wide.” The metaphor of lion, and that too of white colour, which is rare, expresses her unassailable power. It is very common to liken murderous kings, ruthless warlords and ferocious generals to lions or other such animals. In the verse quoted above Heer’s power is stated with a strong hint of her predatoriness before she meets her beloved Ranjha, a dispossessed thoughtful young man. In contrast animals that are either docile or not aggressive enough are disrespected and denigrated. Respect is commensurate with ferocity. One example would suffice to drive our point home. Dog has been our companion since ages. It was domesticated long ago in our evolutionary process. It is one of the most loyal friends we have from the animal kingdom which we are part of despite the fact that we are getting increasingly alienated from it. In some cultures it is loved, taken care of and admired like a member of the family. The western society is a good place to be in for a dog to be a dog.

Halldor Laxness, a great Icelander novelist, in his remarkable novel “Independent People” shows a character that exposes another character by saying that he is so malicious that he can’t even love a dog. But despite West’s love for dog there is aversion to it inbuilt in the very fabric of language. In English language, for example, we have phrases such as dog’s life, dog days, dog’s death, go to the dogs etc. All such phrases carry negative connotations and thus are derogatory.

In Muslim community, a dog is invariably looked at with contempt though a section of it keeps dogs and love them too. Its touch is polluting for the pious. But classical poets Shah Husain, Bulleh Shah and Khawaja Ghulam Farid employ the image and metaphor of a dog for its loyalty and faithfulness to its master. Bulleh Shah’s verses are very popular which celebrate the dog while exposing the ritualistic worship of human beings: “You stay awake at night and bow in worship / The dogs stay awake at night / They are better than you / They do not go away from their master’s door / Even if they are beaten with shoes / They are better than you…”

In the ancient society of the subcontinent, we find that attitude towards dog is ambivalent; it is both loved and reviled. It’s loved for its boundless loyalty; it can go to any extent to guard its master. It is reviled for its alleged polluting touch. Intriguingly, the great epic Mahabharata begins and ends with stories about dogs. According to it, King Yudhishthira, the elder Pandava, walks towards heaven followed by his dog. Indra, king of the gods, appears and asks Yudhishthira to get in his chariot to reach heaven and become immortal but he is asked to leave his dog behind as there is no place for a dog owner in the heaven. Yudhishthira replies: “People say that abandoning someone devoted to you is a bottomless evil…” When the god Dharma, who had been there in the form of the dog, heard these words spoken by Yudhishthira, the Dharma king, he appeared in his own form and spoke to the king with affection and with gentle words of praise: “Great king, you weep with all creatures. Because you turned down the celestial chariot, by insisting, ‘This dog is devoted to me,’ there is no one your equal in heaven and you have won the highest goal, of going to heaven with your own body,” writes Wendy Doniger in her book ‘The Hindus’. So please keep away from the lion and other predators. But power wielders and poets would not listen. They are incorrigible as they are usually given to hyperbole. They glorify power forgetting its brutal nature or deliberately stress the brutal nature of power to keep the others in line. In order to live in peace let the predators roam the jungles and roar. Love your dog and your love will not remain unrequited. Let it guard you and be assured you will never be left unguarded. Let the bond of love prevail over tyranny of power. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2023