How many know the real name of Bajrang Dal gaurakshak Monu Manesar is Mohit Yadav? Manesar is just a town near Gurugram, where Mohit hails from.

The Yadav surname is hidden from you, just like PM Modi’s OBC Ghanchi-Teli jaati is conveniently forgotten when our enemies accuse him of leading a ‘casteist & fascist’ government.

Mohit is a polytechnic diploma holder, and reportedly joined Bajrang Dal while he was in college. And what is this dreadful ‘cow vigilantism’ that he is accused of? Let’s read it in the words of India Today (archived here), as left-liberal and Hinduphobic a viewpoint as you can get in Lutyens’ Delhi:

“Monu Manesar’s rise to prominence is closely tied to his vigilantism against alleged cow smugglers. His modus operandi involves receiving tips from night shift workers about suspicious vehicles, which he then reports to the police.

If the police are unable to respond, Monu Manesar and his accomplices take matters into their hands, apprehending the suspects and handing them over to law enforcement.“

So, Mohit and his team of gau-rakshaks pass on tips about cow smuggling to police, and only confront smugglers when police is unable (or unwilling) to respond. Even then, they only hand over the smugglers to law enforcement. Isn’t this what police seeks from citizens – to be vigilant and inform law enforcement when we see a crime being committed?

And if you think that such citizen volunteering is not needed, you need to understand the complete inability of our criminal justice system to punish the cow smuggling mafia. Haryana introduced a new law against cattle smuggling called Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan (HGS and GS) Act in November 2015, which was dubbed ‘draconian’ by Lutyens’ media. In the 4 years since this law was passed, 792 FIRs were filed under the new Act, but they resulted in zero convictions…yes, zero! The Haryana DGP has admitted in court that police personnel in Mewat fear for their lives from the beef mafia. Police is equally helpless against the cattle mafia in Alwar district of Rajasthan, which neighbors Nuh district of Haryana and parts of which fall in the same Mewat historical region.

Here’s the thing – the number of villagers, gau rakshaks and police killed by the cattle smuggling mafia, especially the one which operates from Nuh/Mewat, is far higher than the cattle smugglers who die each year. But if you were to follow only Lutyens’ media, a death of a hardened cattle smuggler like Junaid (with 5 FIRs against his name in different police stations) is a national tragedy which deserves saturation coverage, while even cops like Dharmabir Yadav, Manoj Mishra, Sandhya Topno who were murdered by this mafia are quickly forgotten.

So it is no wonder that men like Mohit Yadav are looked upon as saviors, as symbols of resistance against a brutal organized crime syndicate which targets the one animal that practicing Hindus, especially those living in villages, consider most sacred. If the state won’t or can’t do its job, aren’t ordinary citizens entitled to self defense?

Mohit Yadav and other gau rakshaks come from all sections of society. This shows that Hindutva, which asks for equal respect for all indigenous religions and cultures of this land, has deep roots in all sections of our society. It is just our electoral politics of divide and rule cloaked as ‘social justice’, of cynical minority vote-bank politics that our Anglicized elite and feudalistic regional clans practice, that has deepened divides amongst Hindus on jaati/regional/language lines, and also ignored rational/tolerant voices among the Muslim & Christian communities.

Just as Hindutva-lovers come from all sections of samaj (society), and Hindu-hating traitors with Hindu-sounding names also come from all sections, more so from the Anglicized ‘upper caste’. So Hindus need to steer clear of divisive propaganda and not resort to lazy generalizations. We need to identify friends, enemies, fence-sitters..and work accordingly.