ECONOMICS OF GAURAKSHA

Gaushala: Mewat region's biggest gaushala at Sangel in Nuh district

Pehlu Khan's buffaloes. Muslim families have stopped keeping cows for fear of harassment.

MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

The dilapidated house of Pehlu KHan who was killed by a mob in April 2017 when he was bringing legally bought two cows and two calves from Jaipur to his house in Jaisinghpur, Nuh district.

COW-BUFFALO DIVIDE

Even after Rakbar incident, there were 3 cattle smuggling cases in 5 days: Anil K Beniwal, Assistant SP, Alwar

The communal fault lines in Mewat region become evident amid the many moblynching incidents. The Muslim dairy farmers are often at loggerheads with gaurakshaks. As accusations of police connivance fly around, assistant superintendent of police (Alwar)Anil Kumar Beniwal, who is heading the probe into the recent Rakbar Khan incident, tells Nidhi Sharma the police is not involved in any extortion. Excerpts:

05:10Economics of cow vigilantism: Dairy farmers either bribe or get lynched

Why can’t you stop illegal transport of cattle in the area?

We have police pickets on all main roads. But it is difficult to stop people illegally transporting cattle as the routes they take are on internal, village roads.

Villagers allege there’s a booming extortion racket and the police chooses to look the other way. Your comments.

That is not true. I have taken very harsh actions in all cattlesmuggling cases. How rampant the trade is can be gauged from the fact that even after Rakbar Khan

lynching

incident three cases of illegal cattle transport have been filed by us in five days.

Are you saying that there are no police officers involved and this informal trade still happens?

There is no informal arrangement between the police and gaurakshaks. These people are self-proclaimed law-enforcers. It is akin to villagers catching a thief and then informing us. It is just the same. Everybody doubts the police, it has become common mentality. There is no nexus between police and gaurakshaks.

In its recent directives on mob lynching cases, Supreme Court has given a lot of responsibilities to a nodal officer. Is it possible to enforce them?

The police has so much work that my jawans are working over 16 hours. These directives would be better implemented if a separate post for these cases is created at the district level.

NUH/ ALWAR/ JAIPUR: Thirty-five year old Munna is sipping his midmorning cup of tea with his uncle Ali Mohammed at Sharma dhaba. This resident of Doha village in Nuh district of Haryana has just wrapped up the day at Jaipur’s weekly Hatwara pashu mela (cattle fair) buying 10 buffaloes for himself. He has reason to be vigilant as he prepares for the evening journey across the border.“We have the papers but that doesn’t stop anyone from harassing us. Every police Gypsy, every gaurakshak ( cow vigilante ) picket needs to be paid from here till Nuh,” he said.If he resists, his buffaloes would be seized and he would have to wait for two days, spelling a loss for him at his local Ferozepur-Jhirka pashu mela.Did he buy any cows at the mela?“Cows and us Muslims?” he said, incredulity welling up in his eyes. “I don’t want to die before I marry off my children.”Along the route that dairy farmers such as Munna and Ali Mohammed take – buying their cattle from Hatwara pashu mela every Saturday, through Alwar and across the border into Nuh – ET found a political economy that has pitted Hindu cow vigilantes against Muslim dairy farmers.Locals, in what is perhaps northern India’s most backward region, said that even as both sides often brandish firearms the police looks the other way.Dairy farmers and traders hire small pickup trucks or use their own to ferry the cattle bought at the mela. They transport these to Alwar or to Haryana and sell them at a profit to the locals. “The rate of gaurakshaks and police is fixed. It can range from Rs 500 per vehicle per trip to Rs 1,000. So per trip we end up paying Rs 10-11,000,” said Ali Mohammed, who has been coming to this fair for over 25 years.What is operating in the name of gau raksha or cow protection appears to be a well-oiled extortion racket.The Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act prohibits transport of cattle across the state without a certificate from the collector. For farmers, this paperwork is tedious, and so they take the risk of transporting cattle across to Haryana without requisite papers.Since farmers do not complete the paperwork, they are an easy target for gau rakshaks, who operate through groups that go by names such as Gaurakshak Samitis and put up pickets to stop farmers transporting cattle.“It is an extortion racket. Any person bringing cows across the border is checked by these self-proclaimed gaurakshaks,” said Jahad Hussain, a BJP leader in Nuh. “If you pay up, they give you right of passage. If you don’t, they tear up the papers and then make it look like illegal transportation of cattle.”Gaushalas are part of this set-up. These are run by trusts and do not keep an exact count of the number of cows. Noor Mohammed, a social rights activist working in Nuh and Alwar, said, “Just recently, people of this village were getting cattle from Jaipur market and had all the papers. They were checked at two pickets and allowed to go. On the third picket the gau rakshaks tore the receipts and took away the cows. These went to the gaushala. The farmers called me and then we got duplicate papers from Jaipur. Finally we took those papers to the gaushala and the cows were untraceable. Then we threatened and finally after three days we got the cows back – one milch cow had been sent to the trustee’s house.”In Nuh district, there is a cluster of Hindu villages near Ujina. Sangel village is home to Shri Chetandas Gosanvardhan Goshala , the biggest gaushala of the region, where the number of cows has gone up to 4,000 from 2,500 within a year. “Every month we get 400-500 cows. Mostly it is the gau rakshaks who come and deposit,” said Naresh, the supervisor.Seated next to him, Rajbir Singh, a zamindar, proudly declared that he had participated in many “rescue” operations. “Whenever the police suspects the Muslims transporting cows, they call us. We all go with our sticks and anything we have and help. It is our dharm to protect the cows,” he said.Gaurakshaks claim they are only implementing the law as the police doesn’t. “Muslims are illegally transporting cows for slaughter,” said Om Prakash Sharma in Ujina village. “A few months back, an overloaded truck rammed into an electricity pole and that’s when we realised that it had cows being sent away for slaughter. It is illegal. But I am sure they must have paid the police. We freed and deposited the cows in the gaushala at Sangel.”Across the region, the religious divide has extended to the cattle as well.It is evident at the dilapidated home of Pehlu Khan, the 50-year-old who was beaten to death by a mob in April 2017. “We don’t keep any cows now,” said Irshad, Khan’s eldest son who had accompanied him but managed to escape the cow vigilantes. “In fact, now we don’t even want to keep the two buffaloes we have right now. There is a risk.”The family, which was dependent on selling cow milk, has given up the trade. Irshad hasn’t even had the courage to enquire about the cows he and his father were ferrying from Hatwara last year.