By Rupam Jain
CHAMDHERA, India, Dec 29 (Reuters) – Vishnu Dabad attributes his rise from poverty to powerful local politician to an animal: the cow.
The 30-year-old is one of many Gau Rakshaks, or cow protectors: activists who have taken Indian laws banning cattle slaughter and beef consumption into their own hands since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 at the head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Scores of cow protectors in recent years have been accused of using violence to carry out extra-judicial activities, often finding themselves at odds with law enforcement, even as many won acclaim for defending the Hindu faith.
Now some of these operatives are transferring their clout into grassroots political power, where they are pursuing a hardline majoritarian agenda, according to interviews with more than 90 activist-vigilantes, as well as senior leaders of the BJP and other parties, government officials and political analysts.
They described how cow vigilantism has become a finishing school for the young men who mobilise large groups against alleged cattle smugglers and used the resulting popularity to catapult into politics.
Many are now campaigning and preparing for elections in 2024 that the BJP and allied right-wing parties are favoured to do well in.
Forty-one of the cow protectors who spoke to Reuters have been elected to positions such as village chief, town council member or local legislator in the past six years, roles that can involve governing tens of thousands of people.
Another 12 said they were lobbying their family members to seek local office.
“All of what you see: my success, my existence is only because cows have blessed me,” said Dabad, who started a cow protection force in 2014 and was elected as village chief in 2016.
He is now a full-time political campaigner in the northern state of Haryana for a party allied with the BJP, and is keen to seek higher office.
Ancient Hindu religious texts praise cows, who are regarded as deities, for their nurturing ability. But India’s minority Muslims and Christians, as well as some Hindus, consume beef as part of their diet, generating some sectarian tensions.
There is no publicly available official estimate on the number of cow activists nationwide, but activist leaders said they believe more than 300,000 Hindu men in the nation of 1.4 billion are directly involved with their groups.
India’s interior ministry, which oversees national law enforcement, did not return a request for comment on that figure or the role of cow activists.
Reuters previously reported that some of them have stopped cow traders – many of them Muslim men – with deadly force, according to prosecutors, witnesses and the families of victims.
Some states have enacted laws enabling cow vigilantes to patrol alongside police.
This story was originally published in reuters.com. Read the full story here .
