Why gau rakshaks are not unconditionally backing BJP in Haryana's elections

Sonu Jat’s phone had been buzzing throughout the day with calls from the camps of two electoral candidates in the Badshahpur assembly seat in Gurugram, Haryana.

“Don’t worry, sister,” he assured someone on the phone. “Ask any of the gau rakshaks in the constituency – they’ll all tell you that they will only vote for whoever Sonu tells them to vote for.”

After the call, he grinned. “We have been holding daily meetings to decide which candidate to support in the election,” he said, ahead of the Haryana assembly polls on Saturday.

Jat, 29, is the Gurgaon district head of the Akhil Bharatiya Bajrang Vahini, one of several cow vigilante groups or gau rakshaks – literally cow protectors – active in Haryana. The young men in these groups often use violence to enforce bans on cow slaughter as they chase down people they believe are “cow smugglers”.

Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power for the first time in Haryana in 2014, gau rakshaks in the state have been associated with incidents of harassment, assault and even murder. Most of their victims have been Muslim. The BJP state government even set up “cow task forces” of the police that with these groups, providing state backing for...