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Pawan Pandit, Chairman Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal
Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf spoke to Pawan Pandit, chairman, Bharatiya Gau Raksha Dal, about the Alwar incident, gau rakshaks and the BJP's failure to protect cows.
The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre and five state governments on gau rakshaks. How would you react?
First, we will have to see the grounds on which the Supreme Court has sent this notice.
Second, is to see how the Congress party will gain political mileage from this.
The gau rakshak movement is not new -- it is a 400-year-old movement.
We raised the issue of cow slaughter in India, but today the goal post has moved.
Today, questions are being raised on gau rakshaks. The Una incident was made out to be an anti-Dalit issue by them (the Congress party), while the Dadri issue was made out to be an anti-Muslim issue.
People have died and gau rakshaks are responsible.
I will give you 50 examples in the last five years where gau rakshaks have died because of cow smugglers.
They shot gau rakshaks and killed them, but there are no debates in India when that happens.
The gau rakshak movement is not related to Hindus.
The Arya Samaj initiated gau raksha. Namdhari Sikhs do it to simply protect cows.
Even the Mughal emperor Babur spoke about cow protection though he was anti-Hindu.
There is a history of cow protection in India and therefore cow smuggling and cow slaughter have to be stopped.
In Alwar, the man who was killed, Pehlu Khan, was transporting cows, but he was killed.
Do you have the inquiry report? The home minister of Rajasthan (Gulab Chand Kataria) said these people were cattle smugglers.
More importantly, transporting cows in Rajasthan is not allowed without a permit from the district magistrate.
I am not defending the killing of Pehlu Khan. Such incidents must not take place, but you cannot blame gau rakshaks.
The issue here is about gau hatya (cow slaughter), not gau rakshaks.
  • 'Not my Hinduism' should be our slogan
The police can stop cow smuggling. Why do you take the law in your hands?
Take the example of Una.
It was showcased as gau rakshaks versus Dalits. Till this day, no one has proved that the accused belonged to a gau rakshak organisation.
So how does one know who is a gau rakshak and who is not?
Our organisation is registered like any non-governmental organisation. It is a national body.
We make members sign a declaration on an affidavit that they will not commit any illegal activities.
We also tell them that wherever cow smuggling is taking place they should take the help of the police.
For instance, a woman's purse is stolen in a market. The mob runs after the thief and beats him. The mob beats the thief without any weapons. Sometimes the thief dies because of the beating.
So let me clarify, gau rakshaks do not carry weapons with them, but cow smugglers do. But intellectuals do not want to get into these details.
In Alwar, a man called Arjun, the driver of the vehicle with Pehlu Khan's cattle, was told to leave, but Khan and the others were beaten up because they were Muslim. Is this not communal?
That's what the news is made out to be because politics is involved.
If that's the angle of a news report, the gau hatya issue will die and gau taskar (cow smugglers) will become heroes.
Except for West Bengal, Kerala, Goa and the north-east, cow slaughter is not allowed in most states.
There is a law in most states that bans cow slaughter, yet it happens. How?
Pehlu Khan was transporting cows for milk.
There were more than 20 cows in the Alwar case. There were three vehicles.
If you are transporting these many cows, then you must know the law that is applicable in Rajasthan.
You have to take a permit from the district magistrate. Pehlu Khan did not have the permit.
But you can call the police. Why assault and kill?
Today, there is a unified voice from every corner of India that wants cow slaughter banned. Why are some people not listening to this voice? Why is the media not representing the voice of the people?
The media portrays these gau rakshaks as terrorists.
Why is a doctor becoming a gau rakshak?
Why is a software engineer becoming a gau rakshak?
They are risking their lives for this cause.
They inform the police regularly and we have documented evidence to show that we follow rules and regulations.
Isn't human life more important than a cow's life?
The life of a cow is more precious than the life of a human being. This is according to Indian culture.
Cows help reduce global warming -- it's the only animal which delivers (exhales) oxygen.
Is there any scientific proof for what you are saying?
You prove it. This has been proved. Why has the USA patented cow urine?
Name any animal in world whose poop is useful. Only cow dung can be used.
You can use it to make gas, generate electricity, even build homes.
Our saints have said all this centuries ago. They have said cow slaughter is the biggest sin on Earth.
I also challenge you (to disprove) that you can make mosquito repellent with cow urine.
But your organisation is feeding on fear and rumours. Like in Jaipur, a restaurant was shut down on misinformation that it was serving beef. How long can this go on?
First, there has to be a centralised law against cow slaughter.
Second, why doesn't the government which is in power, say that it is a government for cows, mandir and the Ganga?
Why don't they declare the cow as a national animal?
Once you do that, cow smuggling will stop automatically.
But gau rakshaks are creating law and order problems.
The government has to speak in favour of the cow protection movement, which will not work if you represent cow smugglers.
So why is the controversy happening? It is because cow smuggling is still going on.
The failure of law and order is the responsibility of the government, not ours.
There is a BJP government in Rajasthan and yet cow smuggling is happening in the state. So are you saying the BJP has failed to protect cows?
Yes, the BJP has failed to protect cows.
I am not defending the BJP. The BJP has never been as powerful as it is now. They have a majority in the Lok Sabha and (very soon) in the Rajya Sabha too.
The country's sentiment too is with them. They are winning election after election, be it state or municipal.
Now they must enact a centralised law to protect cows.
Cows are eating plastic and need to be protected.
The government must help people who run cow shelters. They must give subsidies to set up business units using cow dung, cow urine and milk.
The BJP has always claimed that they are for the cow, the mandir and the Ganga.
Let them complete their first task -- the cow.
Why do you feel that the BJP has done nothing for cows?
They have done nothing for the cow.
They are changing names of every city and town. They have changed the name of Gurgaon to Gurugram. I have to change my stationery and it adds to my cost.
So there is no economic benefit for me from the name change, in fact it is a loss.
They must declare the cow as a national animal. Cow smuggling is happening because in many states cow slaughter is still not banned.
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गौ रक्षक तो अपनी जान जोखिम में डालकर गौ वंश की रक्षा करते हैं और उनकी सेवा का उचित इंतजाम भी कराते हैं। अस्सी प्रतिशत गौ सेवकों को असामाजिक तत्व कह देना और रात का बदमाश कह देना तो हिन्दू समाज और गोभक्तों के गाल पर जोरदार तमाचा मारने जैसा है। माननीय श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी जी ने अस्सी प्रतिशत भारत के लोगों के दिलों को गहरे तक दुखा दिया है। उनको जल्द से जल्द इस ब्यान को मुकमल करना होगा। नहीं तो आने वाले समय में देश व्यापी आंदोलन के लिए तैयार रहें ।
(Source: IBN7)



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Pawan Pandit, president of the Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal (BGRD) and resident of Bhiwani, Haryana, described the government’s latest effort as “a way to take some credit, a way to stay in the timeline”. Pandit said that gau rakshaks had to take matters in their hands because the authorities had failed to check violations of the law, saying that “if the government did its job well, civil society need not be involved”.
Cow vigilantism, it turns out, actually has a method to it. Established in 2012, Pandit describes BGRD as “something like a federation”, which comprises of district and state level units affiliated to the apex body, headquartered in Delhi. In the four years since its inception, Pandit feels that BGRD’s efforts have ensured that “people are getting aware” of the importance of cow protection.
But there is a downside to BGRD’s work as well. Pandit said that since gau rakshaks had started going after smugglers, incidents of violence had gone up. “When things were going on smoothly, they [cattle smugglers] were getting away with it easily. But they don’t want to stop their work, so now they come well-armed. Now they’re always ready to fire,” Pandit said.
Over-zealous gau rakshaks have been on the receiving end of attacks by cattle smugglers. Just last week, a member of the Gurgaon Gau Raksha Dal was shot at while attempting to stop a vehicle transporting cattle, and sustained bullet injuries on his fingers. Under the circumstances, Naveen Sharma, general secretary of BGRD, who is based in Himachal Pradesh, agreed that “it’s best if the police does its work”. However, he believes vigilantism is inevitable because of the sacredness of the cow.
“Agar aapki behen-beti ka balaatkar ho jaata hai, tab aap kya karoge [If you daughter or sister gets raped, what will you do then]?” he asked. “And we consider the cow our mother!”
Pandit feels that going after cattle smugglers is important, even though he conceded the point that the people cow vigilantes grab are “mostly rented or hired people”. It still serves a purpose, according to him. “When they [smugglers] know that there is danger out there, that there are people on the lookout and they can’t cross the line, then their masters won’t get new recruits,” Pandit said.
Undoubtedly, Arora is bound to have her hands full with the vigilantes unlikely to back down. She said her officers would receive special training in order to prevent situations where the public takes the law into their hands, thus promoting vigilantism. “Lots of times law and order situations are created when we are not able to catch cow smugglers and the public catches them,” she said. “So we need to train our policemen about the Act. The modus operandi we adopt, the rules we follow, all these things will be shared with our policemen and they will be encouraged to catch such people more and more.”
It is doubtful that the gau rakshaks will be impressed with Arora’s efforts, despite her professed intention of working with them rather than against them. Even after passing a strict cow protection bill and having a dedicated cow protection unit, cow vigilantes have only distrust for the government. What is likely is that regardless of Arora’s cow protection unit, these groups will be out on the streets, setting up barriers, chasing vehicles, beating up smugglers and occasionally taking bullets, all for the love of gau mata.
(source: http://www.newslaundry.com/)
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Pawan Pandit is chairman of an organization called the Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal (BGRD), a group that, according to him, has 6,000 full-time members, mostly men and mostly Brahmins. One among the many such small and large bands of “cow protectors”, this group operates across India, especially in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

Pandit says it’s difficult to establish the count of BGRD volunteers across the country. A volunteer could be a businessman, a shopkeeper, a writer, a film artist, or a software engineer like Pandit himself. What’s common to them is that all believe it is their duty to protect the cow.

Sometimes with acts of violence, cow protectors have attracted media attention since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government assumed power in May 2014.


"We are not anti-Muslim or anti-Dalit. We are a fraternity which wants to save the cow, because she is our mother... because that is what my religion, my parents, my holy book, taught me."- Pawan Pandit, chairman of Bharatiya Gau Raksha Dal.



On 11 July, Gau Rakshaks (cow protectors) in Gujarat’s Una town tied up and beat four Dalit men with iron rods for skinning a dead cow.

A video clip of the incident went viral, sparking violence that left one policeman and many injured. “I condemn this incident, but we need to first establish if the cow was actually dead and if the people who beat the men were actually Gau Rakshaks,” says Pandit.

The term Gau Rakshak has slipped into the country’s lexicon of politics and culture over the past two years, in step with increasing activism by self-styled protectors and vigilante groups.

Such vigilantism took a deadly turn in September 2015 when a 55-year-old Muslim man was killed and his son seriously injured by a mob over allegations of cow slaughter.

Since then, Gau Rakshaks have frequently hit newspaper headlines. In March, in Gurgaon alone, at least eight cases of violence by vigilante groups were reported to police. In June, a video surfaced showing volunteers of a group called the Gau Rakshak Dal in Gurgaon forcing two men to eat a concoction of cow dung, cow urine, milk, curd and ghee. They were suspected to have transported beef.

“Forget that cow slaughter hurts our sensibility, forget that our holy book considers slaughter of cow as the biggest crime, forget that we are a majority... at least, look at the cow as the biggest source of economy for rural India. And look at the scientific reasons, the benefits of using its products—be it milk, urine or cow dung. I am not the one saying all this. International research claims so. America, in fact, has patented a cow urine drug,” says Pandit.


"...look at the cow as the biggest source of economy for rural India. And look at the scientific reasons, the benefits of using its products—be it milk, urine or cow dung"- Pawan Pandit, chairman of Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal



Established in 2012, BGRD claims to have saved the lives of 11,000 cows in Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It is registered as a company by the Union ministry of corporate affairs. Among other things, the aim of the organization, as listed on its website, is to set up a “cow urine therapy research centre and practising centre for critical ailments”.

“If a cow is being slaughtered, you should know that the foundation of the country is being slaughtered,” Pandit says, sitting in front of a wall-size cardboard panel with a picture of a cow, along with the name of his organization etched on it.

Despite complaints of violence by his volunteers, Pandit says taking the law into one’s own hands is not the way to go about it. “My workers call me when they come to know about any such (cow slaughter) incident. I immediately call the police; and in most if not every case, the police have supported us and accompanied us,” he says.

With incidents of violence by Gau Rakshaks rising, Pandit’s home state of Haryana has decided to mandate police verification for cow protection vigilantes if they want to help the police prevent the slaughter and smuggling of cattle.

“Gau Rakshaks can pass on the information on cow smugglers to police and, accordingly, check-posts will be set up. Police are trained in dealing with armed criminals; the people should not risk lives by holding such operations,” said Bharti Arora, supervising officer of the police unit set up in Gurgaon to check cow slaughter and cattle smuggling,The Times of India reported earlier this month. The statement and the creation of the police unit came after beef smugglers in June opened fire at two Gau Rakshaks and injured them.


"Gau Rakshaks can pass on the information on cow smugglers to police and, accordingly, check-posts will be set up. Police are trained in dealing with armed criminals; the people should not risk lives by holding such operations"- Bharti Arora, supervising officer of the police unit in Gurgaon to check cow slaughter and cattle smuggling.



“If they are innocent Dalits, with no malice, how come they carry guns?” asks Pandit gruffly, while condemning the violence in the June incident.

In Gujarat alone, as many as 200 cow vigilante groups have sprung up, The Hindu reported on 22 July.

“Some just use our name to take revenge over issues that have nothing to do with cow protection. Ask most of them if they have ever done gau daan. How many cows do they have in their houses? Am sure no one does,” he says. Gau daan is the practice of donating a cow to a Brahmin on specific occasions.

Sitting in a small, cluttered room—his office in east Delhi—when Pandit talks about his country, he talks about Bharat. There is no India in the conversation. “Our country is divided into two Bharats: one where the likes of me stand, the so-called kattar (Hindi for radical) Hindutva people and, on the other hand, the people who don’t share our ideology,” he says.

He nods earnestly as he speaks, encouraging the listener to believe him.


"Our country is divided into two Bharats: one where the likes of me stand, the so-called kattar (Hindi for radical) Hindutva people and, on the other hand, the people who don’t share our ideology"- Pawan Pandit, chairman of Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal.



“If we just look at our recent history, we will realize how every religion has banned cow slaughter at some point or the other. Didn’t Maharaja Ranjeet Singh ban cow slaughter completely in the 1800s? Wasn’t Arya Samaj of the same view? Namdhari Sikhs started a campaign against cow slaughter. In fact, if you read Baburnama, you will know that (Mughal emperor) Babur had said if you want secularism in the country, you will have to ban beef,” says Pandit.

The first, organized Hindu cow protection movement in India was launched by a Sikh sect in Punjab around 1870.

In 1882, Hindu religious leader Dayanand Saraswati founded the first cow protection committee, according to a 2015 report by the BBC.

It also said conflicts over cow slaughter often sparked religious riots that led to the killing of more than 100 people in 1893 alone. In 1966, at least eight people died in riots outside Parliament in Delhi while demanding a national ban on cow slaughter. And in 1979, Acharya Vinoba Bhave, considered by many as the spiritual heir of Mahatma Gandhi, went on a hunger strike to demand a ban on cow slaughter.

Cow slaughter is banned in a majority of states and Union territories: Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. However, the largest beef/buff consuming state is not-Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir but Meghalaya, where more than 80% of the population consumes this meat.

Pandit says he might not have read the original texts of all religions, but he has read sources and excerpts. “In 1954, a general survey showed that on an average, one man had six cows. Now if you see, even six families don’t have even one cow. Where are the cows? The cows are gone from my village. I don’t see people in the cities rearing them. Why are the cows on the roads eating plastic bags?” says Pandit.


"When we expressed our views, our opposition to beef, who was the one who talked about their rights to eat (it)? It was only the Muslims. Beef was introduced in our cuisine by no one but Muslims"- Pawan Pandit, chairman of Bhartiya Gau Raksha Dal.



Pandit gave up his career as a software engineer in 2008 when he started work on saving cows. Now, it is only very rarely that he does any engineering projects. Pandit says he is not involved with any political party or inclined towards one. The state of affairs in India made him plunge into this work. “You have to agree that cow is the centre of the Hindutva faith. She is the mother of 80% of Bharat. The government needs to make its stand clear on the cow. On the one hand, the government is increasing beef exports; on the other hand, you are talking of cow protection. Every state has two Acts—one to give licences to a slaughterhouse, the other on cow protection.”

After the Una incident, a lot of commentary was around how Dalits had become collateral damage of the Gau Rakshaks’ hatred of Muslims. To that, Pandit says, “When we expressed our views, our opposition to beef, who was the one who talked about their rights to eat (it)? It was only the Muslims. Beef was introduced in our cuisine by no one but Muslims.”

According to the latest National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) round, around 1 of every 13 Indians—or 80 million people—eat beef or buffalo meat. The biggest chunk of beef-eating population are Muslims. After Muslims, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/ST) make up the biggest group of the beef-eating population.

Among Hindus, more than 70% of the beef-eating population is SC/ST, 21% is other backward castes and only 7% is upper caste (others category).

BGRD uses social media to source information on cow slaughter or smuggling and, later, to spread information among its members. It has also launched a prize, Gau Rakshak Puraskaar Sammaan (cow protector award) for people who show their dedication to protecting the cow. In the last three months, 100 people have received this award.

Pandit says, “If there is religious significance to the animal, what’s the problem in that? Everyone cannot speak just for the minority. There should be someone who should speak for the majority, too.”
( source: www.livemint.com)
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