Into the world of the gau rakshakPremium

Riding high on religious sentiments, men in Haryana village thrive on social support and government endorsement as they turn cow vigilantes

Monu doesn’t belong only to Manesar, he is the son of Hindus across the world. He has made us proud by protecting the cows,” roared Manoj ‘Sarpanch’, resident of Gokuldas village, during a mahapanchayat held at Baba Bhisam Das Ji Mandir in Manesar, Haryana, earlier this week.

“The government must withdraw the FIR against him within 24 hours or else we will block the Delhi-Jaipur Highway,” he had warned. They did block the highway, though not for more than 10 minutes before being removed by the police.

The mahapanchayat last Tuesday, attended by about 200-300 people, was called by the local Hindu community in and around Manesar, in a show of support to Monu Manesar. Now on the run, Monu is a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of two young Muslim men in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur over suspicion of cow smuggling.

At the end of the meeting, the organisers made an appeal for donations to keep the fight going. Villagers came forward with their names and contributory amounts being announced from the dais.

The man from Manesar

Monu, 32, was once a regular young man in small-town India, trying to make a living like much of the country’s not-so-privileged set. A friend at the mahapanchayat remembers his transformation from Monu Yadav to Monu Manesar, from an Industrial Training Institute diploma holder who ran a grocery shop off the highway a decade ago to a local poster boy for gau raksha (cow protection).

As his following grew, so did his aspirations: Monu has a YouTube base of 2.1 lakh subscribers and over 85,000 followers on his Facebook page. It is customary for politicians in Haryana to take on the names of their villages, to assert their identity, and Monu did just that.