2023

By Rupam Jain

CHAMDHERA, India (Reuters) – Vishnu Dabad attributes his rise from poverty to powerful local politician to an animal: the cow.

The 30-year-old is one of many Gau Rakshaks, or cow protectors: activists who have taken Indian laws banning cattle slaughter and beef consumption into their own hands since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 at the head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Scores of cow protectors in recent years have been accused of using violence to carry out extra-judicial activities, often finding themselves at odds with law enforcement, even as many won acclaim for defending the Hindu faith.

Now some of these operatives are transferring their clout into grassroots political power, where they are pursuing a hardline majoritarian agenda, according to interviews with more than 90 activist-vigilantes, as well as senior leaders of the BJP and other parties, government officials and political analysts.

They described how cow vigilantism has become a finishing school for the young men who mobilise large groups against alleged cattle smugglers and used the resulting popularity to catapult into politics.

Many are now campaigning and preparing for elections in 2024 that the BJP and allied right-wing parties are favoured to do well in.

Forty-one of the cow protectors who spoke to Reuters have been elected to positions such as village chief, town council member or local legislator in the past six years, roles that can involve governing tens of thousands of people.

Another 12 said they were lobbying their family members to seek local office.

“All of what you see: my success, my existence is only because cows have blessed me,” said Dabad, who started a cow protection force in 2014 and was elected as village chief in 2016.

He is now a full-time political campaigner in the northern state of Haryana for a party allied with the BJP, and is keen to seek higher office.

Ancient Hindu religious texts praise cows, who are regarded as deities, for their nurturing ability. But India’s minority Muslims and Christians, as well as some Hindus, consume beef as part of their diet, generating some sectarian tensions.

There is no publicly available official estimate on the number of cow activists nationwide, but activist leaders said they believe more than 300,000 Hindu men in the nation of 1.4 billion are directly involved with their groups. 

India’s interior ministry, which oversees national law enforcement, did not return a request for comment on that figure or the role of cow activists. 

Reuters previously reported that some of them have stopped cow traders – many of them Muslim men – with deadly force, according to prosecutors, witnesses and the families of victims.

Some states have enacted laws enabling cow vigilantes to patrol alongside police.

While government data does not distinguish general violence from cow-related lynching, Human Rights Watch found that at least 44 people – 36 of them Muslims – were killed in cow-related violence between May 2015 and December 2018.

The independent, New Delhi-based Documentation of the Oppressed database found 206 acts of cow-related violence involving 850 victims, mainly Muslims, between July 2014 and August 2022.

The proximity of cow activists to power has raised concerns among many Muslims, who allege that some BJP members and their affiliates have engaged in anti-Islam hate speech and violence. 

Modi and the BJP have denied that religious discrimination exists in India.

Cow protectors “are very powerful men…and there is a climate of fear,” said Jaan Mohammed, a Muslim man whose brother was one of the first victims of a cow-related lynching after Modi took power. “I don’t think this can ever change now.”

Legal proceedings are pending. Seventeen men accused of involvement in his brother’s 2015 killing were released on bail, and another suspect later died. Police at the time of the slaying said the alleged perpetrators behaved as if they had a “licence to kill.”

Modi has repeatedly criticized activists who engage in “criminal” violence, even as his party courts their support.

Giriraj Singh, a BJP minister responsible for rural development, said his party welcomed anyone who wanted to “genuinely serve the cows”.

“Anyone who saves mother cow must be respected and recognised,” he told Reuters.

IMAGE OF MODERN-DAY HINDU WARRIORS

Half of India’s 36 states and union territories have partial or complete bans on cow slaughter – most of them governed by the BJP. But enforcement has often fallen into the hands of activists. By posting videos of their raids on alleged cow smugglers on social media, they have mobilised money, as well as thousands of Hindu men.

Religious cow protection movements have a long history in India, but many activists, including Dabad, said they were emboldened by Modi’s sweeping 2014 victory.

Dabad recounted bloody fights between his activists – who he said are often armed with batons, stones, machetes, and sickles – and alleged Muslim smugglers. He described spreading beds of nails on the road to stop vehicles suspected of smuggling cows, as well as high-speed chases and brutal attacks.

“The journey to protect cows has not been easy,” said Dabad, who previously spent more than a month in jail for his vigilante activities.

Police responsible for the area around his hometown of Chamdhera said Dabad has been the subject of nine criminal complaints related to religious clashes and that he was arrested once for allegedly beating up a Muslim trader.

Investigations continue on one complaint, while the other probes have been dismissed, they said.

The image of lawlessness has not stopped politicians from seeking the support of such activists.

Six officials from the party of Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, who identified himself as Dabad’s political patron, said the activist was an effective campaigner and a rising star.

Influential right-wing organisations such as the ruling party-affiliated World Hindu Council have helped legitimise the activists by depicting them as modern-day warriors waging a war against cow slaughter.

Council spokesman Vinod Bansal likened cow protectors, some of whom he said had been killed in clashes, to brave religious warriors. He added that achieving political fame was only a side-effect of the efforts of some activists.

Christophe Jaffrelot, a professor of Indian politics at King’s College London, said the Indian state cannot harass minorities openly but by allowing vigilantes to do so, it keeps majoritarian feelings satisfied.

“And now these private armies … are being given a share in governance and power at the local level,” he said, adding that they would continue their penetration of politics.

During an interview in his guesthouse, as his aides smoked on a brass water pipe, Dabad looked at them and said: “We can all kill or get killed to protect the cow.”

FORCE OF THEIR OWN

Of the 41 vigilante-politicians, eight said they joined the BJP at its encouragement.

Another eight, including Dabad, joined other regional parties because they said they had doubts about the BJP’s commitment to cows and Hindu values.

“If police would effectively identify and apprehend the alleged violators of cow protection laws, then not a single Gau Rakshak will be needed,” said Ram Charan Pande, a cow vigilante leader who serves as a village head in the northwestern state of Rajasthan.

Narendra Raghuvanshi, a member of a regional nationalist party and a Gau Rakshak based in the central state of Madhya Pradesh said that politicians often approached cow protectors for their support: “They know we can tilt the Hindu vote in their favour”.

Some of the activists-turned-politicians have created power bases of their own. Dabad, the son of an illiterate farmer, now zips around Haryana in a convoy of four SUVs, while running a centre for injured and ill cows.

He said his political clout help him secure licences and offices for business ventures such as an alcohol store, an eatery and a real estate company.

“I have been able to set all of these businesses because now people know me as a man committed to protect cows,” he said.    

That has caused unease within India’s opposition parties and the country’s security establishment, according to interviews with three officials and one lawmaker. 

A top Indian interior ministry official who was interviewed on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with media, said the cow vigilantes have managed to blend popularity with nous on local issues.

“Even politicians feel threatened by the enormous network of cow vigilantes,” he said. “They have become a force of their own.”

(Reporting by Rupam Jain; Additonal reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Editing by Katerina Ang)

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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Weeks before Taiwan holds elections for its president and legislature, China renewed its threat to use military force to annex the self-governing island democracy it claims as its own territory.

Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Wu Qian on told reporters Thursday at a monthly briefing that China’s armed forces would “as always take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Taiwan’s 23 million people overwhelmingly favor maintaining the island’s de-facto independent status, leaving the Jan. 13 polls to be decided largely by concerns over housing prices, health care, employment and education. China has continued sending warships and fighter jets near Taiwan as an intimidation tactic, even as Taiwan’s military said it’s raising alert levels before the vote.

The ruling party’s candidate, William Lai, holds a lead in most surveys, while the main opposition Nationalist Party’s candidate, Hou You-yi, has sought to appeal to voters who fear a military conflict with China that could draw in the United States and lead to massive disruptions in the global economy.

Hou’s campaign literature, distributed Thursday in Taipei, affirmed his opposition to Taiwan independence and concurrence with Beijing’s view of Taiwan as a part of China.

Long a melting pot of Asian and European cultures, Taiwan was a Japanese colony for 50 years until 1945, when it was handed over to Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist government. The Nationalists, also known as the Kuomintang, then relocated to the island in 1949 after the Communist Party under Mao Zedong emerged victorious from a brutal conflict on the Chinese mainland in which millions were killed.

During Thursday’s news conference, Wu repeated accusations that the U.S. was prompting Taiwan into deliberately raising tensions with China. Beijing has provided no evidence, but the claim meshes with China’s posing itself as an unofficial ally of Russia in opposing the long-predominant Western liberal order, in favor of authoritarian rule.

“Any attempt to use Taiwan to contain China is doomed to failure. … Seeking independence by military force is a dead end,” Wu said.

Taiwan has answered Chinese military expansions with boosts to its navy, air and ground forces, all backed by the possibility of swift intervention by U.S. and allied forces spread across the Asia-Pacific.

China maintains the world’s largest standing military with more than 2 million enlisted, along with the largest navy and the second-highest annual defense budget, after the U.S.

Yet, the post of defense minister has been vacant since the former occupant, Li Shangfu, dropped from view in August and was officially dismissed in October with no word on the cause or his current circumstances. The mysterious dismissal of Li, along with that of ex-Foreign Minister Qin Gang, have raised questions about support within the regime for Communist Party leader and head of state Xi Jinping, who has effectively made himself leader for life and has sought to eliminate all political opponents.

Even as the defense minister position remains vacant, Xi appointed two newly promoted full generals to key military commands Monday. Wang Wenquan will act as political commissar of the Southern Theater Command that oversees China’s operations in the highly contested South China Sea. Hu Zhongming will take over as navy commander as China works to establish itself as a global maritime power to protect its trade interests, consolidate its hold over the South China Sea and East China Sea islands, and expand its global interests in order to diminish U.S. power.

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By Samia Nakhoul

(Reuters) – The war aims of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar look unattainable in 2024, and their fight may consign the Palestinian territory to yet more devastation and an open-ended Israeli occupation.

   Netanyahu seeks to obliterate Hamas for its attack on Oct. 7, Israel’s bloodiest day ever, seemingly willing to raze much of Gaza to the ground and risk reimposing a military occupation in the enclave Israel left in 2005.

    Sinwar hopes to trade remaining hostages from the 240 that Hamas and allied groups seized on Oct. 7 for thousands of Palestinian prisoners, end the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza and put Palestinian statehood back in play.

WHY IT MATTERS

    Palestinians initially felt pride that Hamas fighters had shattered Israel’s image of invincibility but soon realised the attack would draw a terrifying response.

Weeks of bombardment have left much of the Hamas-ruled strip in ruins, killing more than 21,000 people and wounding 55,000, according to Palestinian health authorities and displacing 1.9 million, according to relief agencies and Gaza health officials.

   Hamas and its thousands of fighters are dug deep into the territory’s dense cities and refugee camps and there is little sign they are close to defeat, with battles continuing across the enclave and their leaders still at large.

  The Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths but blames Hamas for operating in densely populated areas or using civilians as human shields, a charge the group denies.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR 2024

Israel’s army chief predicts the war will last for months.

   Even if the war ends early in the year, Israel will likely maintain a military occupation, drawing frowns from allies as Palestinians suffer in tent cities squeezed against the enclave’s border with Egypt.

    Netanyahu has yet to articulate a plan for post-war Gaza, but his government has told several Arab states it wants to carve out a buffer zone to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack in which Israel says Hamas killed 1,200 people.     

    No Palestinian authority acceptable to Israel appears able to take over soon. Nor will Hamas readily cede control. Most Arab states are unwilling to get involved. That leaves Israeli occupation, an ongoing siege and no real reconstruction.

    Netanyahu and Israel face risks with troops deployed in a dangerous urban war zone and world opinion turning against them, but the risks for Sinwar may be greater still.

    If Sinwar survives the onslaught, he will be left with an enclave in ruins, a battered or weakened military base and a local population enduring hunger and homelessness.

    “I don’t think there is much appetite for anyone to be standing in and occupying Gaza instead of the Israelis. So the realistic way forward, which, I’m not advocating at all, is Israeli reoccupation,” said Joost R. Hiltermann, Middle East and North Africa Program Director of the International Crisis Group.

    “It’s very difficult to see how Israel could withdraw from Gaza,” he said.

    LONG-TERM OCCUPATION

    The Israeli vision for post-war Gaza so far, most politicians and analysts say, is to emulate the occupied West Bank model by having some designated authority running civic affairs while Israel maintains security control.

The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA), which Hamas ousted from Gaza in 2007 when it took over control, is unacceptable to Israel despite the insistence of its U.S. ally.

Israel would instead prefer a multinational authority, including Arab allies, incorporating a Palestinian council and technocrats, two regional politicians told Reuters.

“No one (Arab states) wants to take control of Gaza. Israel will deal with Gaza like the West Bank after the war. Israeli forces will go in and out as they wish,” said Marwan Al-Muasher, Jordan’s former foreign minister, now Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

This could mean the United Nations and humanitarian agencies providing services inside Gaza until Washington persuades Israel to accept a revitalised PA to govern the territory or to agree to some other arrangement.

“I don’t believe Israel would militarily leave Gaza. It would retain the security responsibility that will allow its forces to enter, attack, raid and arrest when they want and as they want,” said Ghassan Al Khatib, a Palestinian analyst.

“They don’t want to leave militarily from Gaza because Hamas will regroup. It will be a matter of time, one year, two or three and things will go back to where they were,” he added.

    Netanyahu has said Israel will keep some form of security control of all Gaza indefinitely, though he insists that this would not amount to reoccupying the strip.

Calling the war an existential test for Israel, he has repeatedly said the war will end only once Hamas’ leaders and its military capabilities were eradicated.

A senior Israeli official said in a briefing this month that Israel would not want for Hamas or the PA to control Gaza after the fighting is over. Nor would it want to run the lives of 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza itself.

   “On the contrary, we want to see local administration, headed by Palestinians, leadership that is able to work for the future and horizon of the Palestinian people with the help of moderate Arab countries and the whole world,” the official said.

“It might take time,” he said.

MESSY CAMPAIGN

Analysts say that eradicating Hamas will likely result in thousands more civilian deaths, the decimation of what remains of Gaza, further displacement of hundreds of thousands of Gazans and perhaps a mass exodus to Egypt despite Cairo’s objections.

    Israel’s insistence on eliminating Hamas may be undergoing a reassessment or shift in strategy. Longer term, two regional sources say, Israel could attempt more focused raids on Hamas leaders or fighters.

But eliminating leading commanders would not be enough for Israel to claim it had destroyed the group, declare victory and end the war. Most Hamas leaders already are successors to ones previously assassinated by Israel.

    “Killing the leadership doesn’t affect a movement that has a full organizational hierarchy and grassroots. If they kill one, another will take over as we have seen before,” Khatib said.

    Most analysts argue it will be nearly impossible to eradicate the Hamas ideology, with recent polls showing a rise in its popularity.

    REGIONAL CONTAGION

    The war has brought a wider deployment of U.S. military forces in the region, including the presence of aircraft carriers. The longer it lasts and the more the destruction, the greater the risk of regional escalation.

    Fears of spillover are high, even if Iran and its militia proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen have largely kept their support for Hamas to waging low intensity attacks against Israel and its U.S. ally.

    Iranian-aligned Houthi forces have attacked ships in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade routes. The group has vowed to strike U.S. warships if its forces are hit by Washington, which has set up a coalition force to counter Houthi attacks.

    The most dangerous flashpoint is the Israel-Lebanon border, where Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged missile fire and attacks since Oct. 7.

    Although Israel has focused on the war in Gaza, it is also determined to push Hezbollah from its northern border and get tens of thousands of Israelis back to homes evacuated because of the Lebanese group’s rocket fire, the two regional sources said.

    NO HORIZON

There is no sign now the war will usher in a revival of stalled peace moves and bring about a two-state solution as Washington hopes.

The Oct. 7 attack, along with accounts of Hamas atrocities, rapes and executions, has left Israel shaken to the core, deeply affecting any hope for peace or coexistence even among moderates.

    In the West Bank, a rising number of Israeli army raids, renewed settler violence, confiscation of Palestinian land and detention of activists and fighters are closing the window for any settlement, the regional sources and analysts say.

They say the idea, promoted by the West, that eliminating Hamas will eventually allow the PA’s return to Gaza and a new push for a Palestinian state is an illusion.

    “I believe this war will have an extreme reaction and impact on the Israeli society. Israel as a society and as a political elite will become more radical,” said Khatib, a professor of politics at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

“There is no political horizon, whatever was left has evaporated,” Khatib added.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie; Writing by Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Angus McDowall and Howard Goller)

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