Monu doesn’t belong only to Manesar, he is the son of Hindus across the world. He has made us proud by protecting the cows,” roared Manoj ‘Sarpanch’, resident of Gokuldas village, during a mahapanchayat held at Baba Bhisam Das Ji Mandir in Manesar, Haryana, earlier this week.
“The government must withdraw the FIR against him within 24 hours or else we will block the Delhi-Jaipur Highway,” he had warned. They did block the highway, though not for more than 10 minutes before being removed by the police.
The mahapanchayat last Tuesday, attended by about 200-300 people, was called by the local Hindu community in and around Manesar, in a show of support to Monu Manesar. Now on the run, Monu is a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of two young Muslim men in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur over suspicion of cow smuggling.
At the end of the meeting, the organisers made an appeal for donations to keep the fight going. Villagers came forward with their names and contributory amounts being announced from the dais.
The man from Manesar
Monu, 32, was once a regular young man in small-town India, trying to make a living like much of the country’s not-so-privileged set. A friend at the mahapanchayat remembers his transformation from Monu Yadav to Monu Manesar, from an Industrial Training Institute diploma holder who ran a grocery shop off the highway a decade ago to a local poster boy for gau raksha (cow protection).
As his following grew, so did his aspirations: Monu has a YouTube base of 2.1 lakh subscribers and over 85,000 followers on his Facebook page. It is customary for politicians in Haryana to take on the names of their villages, to assert their identity, and Monu did just that.
The friend said when Monu ran his shop, he would help cows injured in highway accidents. Soon, he became a part of the Gau Rakshak Mandli, a vigilante group set up even before the present BJP regime brought in a law against cow smuggling in 2015. His determination was hardened when Vikrant Yadav, 24, a resident of Khawaspur village, was killed by alleged cow smugglers in 2013 during a chase.
“Initially, Monu would chase these cow smugglers on bikes, but now they have four-wheelers. He and his team grew in size and strength with social support, more so after the present regime set up cow task forces lending strength to the cause,” said Rakesh, a local acquaintance of Monu.
“The network of these gau rakshaks has widened in the region, with the growing influence of Hindu outfits such as the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.” He added that the gau rakshaks conduct raids accompanied by police teams.
Monu’s growing influence
Monu’s family shut the grocery shop after his father Om Prakash, a dumper truck driver, died five years ago. The family of six survived on income from a few single rooms rented out to the workers employed in the factories around the village.
In 2019, after Monu sustained a bullet injury to the neck while chasing alleged cow smugglers, he was given a weapon’s licence for self-defence. It is not as if his family was goading him on.
Monu’s paternal uncle, Om Prakash Pradhan, said the family had tried to persuade him to give up the cause after the 2019 attack, but he would not listen. “Who gave him the weapon’s licence? It is the government that has made him so ‘big’. Now he has contacts with senior police officers. Why would he listen to us?” he added.
A month before the Bharatpur case, Monu was accused of lynching a resident of Nuh, Warris, on suspicion of cow smuggling. The police, however, maintained that it was a road accident. However, earlier this month, the authorities initiated the process of cancelling his gun licence after he was booked for attempt to murder during a clash between two neighbours in Pataudi.
After the Bharatpur killings, some of his pictures on social media, with senior police officers recognising his efforts as a gau rakshak, have gone viral. Across social media, there are several videos of his team carrying out ‘raids’ to seize what they claim is beef and catch alleged cow smugglers.
Mr. Pradhan sees a bigger game at play here. “Sometimes I feel that people are taking advantage of him to make large fortunes from this business of cow protection. I have information under the RTI and evidence to prove this. I will make revelations at the opportune time,” he said.
