“Gau rakshaks” have probably existed for decades or even centuries. But it is only in the last decade or so that we frequently find them in news reports and even headlines. So, who is a “gau rakshak” and what do they do? Samridhi Tewari of ThePrint embedded with a group of cow-protection vigilantes in Faridabad and has written a vivid, day-in-the-life report to educate us about this modern-day sociological phenomenon which seems to be a classical response to the diminishing importance of men in northern Indian middle class life as women – better educated than men, more industrious than and connected to the broader economy through mobile data and UPI – pull ahead.
The reporting opens at dusk. “It is 5 PM in a dusty industrial pocket near Old Faridabad. Inside a local gaushala (cow shelter), the humid air is made heavier by the smell of cow dung, mud and damp walls.” The evening begins with a phone call — “Kanwar yatris are coming to the Press Colony Road. Make sure no meat shops are open” — and “a huddle of five men breaks into action.” One “wraps a saffron gamccha around his neck,” while another wipes down a maroon Bolero plastered with “stickers of faces of popular gaurakshaks of Haryana.”
What follows needs no violence to work. “The Bolero stops instantly. The men step outside, their saffron scarves visible from a distance. Inside, the shopkeepers who were washing their stock leave everything unattended and stand with folded hands—almost frozen, visibly afraid.” Dhanraj Sharma delivers the verdict — “You know the holy month of Sawan is going on. You still decided to keep your shop open. Why? This hurts our religious sentiment.” A shutter comes down; bystanders film it on their phones.
This is not one man’s crusade but an organised operation. Jai Thakur, a former construction worker in his fifties, tells Ms Tewari his day begins with his phone: “I wake up at 8 AM. The first thing I do is to check all my 15-20 WhatsApp groups.” Faridabad alone is said to have 100 to 150 volunteers who hold down day jobs and patrol by night, and the remit, in Thakur’s telling, is sweeping — “This is not only about cows. We have to ensure all Hindus are safe,” and “if there is a young girl in love with a Muslim man, we go and counsel her.”
The cattle work is real enough. Balwant Singh, a factory worker, describes how “our networks actively increase highway patrols and night ambushes on suspicion of illegal cattle transport,” concentrated in the foggy winter months, “when smuggling primarily happens.” It is punishing work — Ms Tewari notes that “at times, they sleep in their cars, parked on the side of busy highways” — but for Balwant Singh, “this is the sacrifice that we are expected to make.” The intelligence is startlingly wide: “Tip-offs come from both Hindus and Muslims,” Thakur says. “Our sources are deployed across neighbourhoods, villages, shops, trucks, and guards.” Much of this now sits under a formal umbrella — Haryana’s 2021 Special Cow Protection Task Force, resting on the state’s 2015 cow-protection Act.
The cost lands on people like Balwinder Singh, whose food cart has stood in the same spot for half a century. “My shop has been here for over 50 years. This has never happened before,” he says. Where he once closed only on Navratris and Tuesdays, he is now told to stay shut through all of Sawan. Ms Tewari’s report is, in the end, a study in how a narrow cause can acquire the machinery — and the licence — of the state, one lowered shutter at a time. “People are already struggling with jobs, and whatever small work we do, that is also being shut,” says Balwinder Singh. “This is just fear and intimidation.
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