By T Navin
Over the past decade, India has witnessed a troubling intensification of communal polarization. Incidents of vigilante violence, religious profiling, moral policing, economic boycotts, and digitally amplified misinformation have strained the country’s secular and constitutional fabric. Mob attacks on minorities, identity-based harassment in marketplaces and festivals, and attempts to regulate personal freedoms in the name of culture have created an atmosphere where intimidation often appears normalized. In many such moments, the response of the larger majority community was marked by silence — sometimes born of fear, sometimes complicity, sometimes quiet disagreement but reluctance to intervene.
Yet in early 2026, a noticeable shift began to take shape. Across geographically and politically diverse states — Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Kerala — ordinary citizens from the Hindu majority increasingly stepped forward to confront hate, defend those targeted, and assert values of coexistence. These responses were not orchestrated by political parties or large organizations. They emerged organically — from gym owners, park visitors, customers, community elders, social media users, and neighbourhood residents. What connects these disparate events is a growing unwillingness to allow intimidation to masquerade as cultural guardianship.
In Kotdwar, Uttarakhand, on January 26, 2026, gym owner Deepak Kumar intervened when a group claiming affiliation with Bajrang Dal harassed an elderly Muslim shopkeeper, Wakeel Ahmed, objecting to the use of the word “Baba” in his shop’s name. The confrontation could easily have passed as yet another localized act of intimidation. Instead, Deepak publicly declared himself “Mohammad Deepak,” asserting that identity cannot be monopolized and that shared humanity supersedes sectarian labeling. The act was simple yet profound. He faced immediate backlash — boycott calls, threats, and a decline in gym memberships. But the video of his intervention spread rapidly online. Citizens from across the country expressed support. Lawyers volunteered legal assistance. Political representatives visited in solidarity. The phrase “Mohammad Deepak” became shorthand for moral courage within the majority community. It suggested that silence is not inevitable and that intervention, even when costly, can inspire a wider ripple of resistance.
A similar dynamic unfolded in Jaipur on Valentine’s Day 2026. Alleged members of Bajrang Dal entered a public park carrying sticks and demanding identification from couples, claiming to defend cultural values. Moral policing of this sort has often thrived on the compliance of bystanders. This time, however, the script changed. Park visitors challenged the vigilantes, questioned their authority, and demanded to know under what law they were enforcing such checks. Faced with collective resistance rather than passive spectatorship, the group retreated. Videos of the confrontation circulated widely, sparking conversations about personal liberty, the right to public space, and the limits of cultural policing. The episode demonstrated that intimidation depends on acquiescence — and when that acquiescence collapses, the authority of vigilante actors weakens.
In South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, three Muslim meat traders were brutally assaulted after being labelled “Bangladeshi” in a dispute infused with religious slurs. The incident revealed how easily economic competition or local disagreements can be communalized through profiling and rumour. Yet the aftermath reflected a different trajectory. Local majority members publicly condemned the attack. Protests were organized that cut across religious lines. Social media amplified calls for justice rather than circulating inflammatory narratives. This solidarity did not erase the violence, but it diminished the perception of impunity that often emboldens such acts. It signalled that religious identity would not automatically determine public sympathy.
In Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, tensions during a Durga temple procession escalated into stone-pelting and property damage affecting Muslim neighbourhoods. Rather than deepening polarization, several majority community leaders advocated restraint and fairness. They criticized what they termed divisive “bulldozer politics” and urged authorities to conduct impartial investigations. Interfaith dialogues were convened. Public statements emphasized shared civic belonging over retaliatory narratives. The emphasis shifted from assigning collective guilt to preserving civic peace. The insistence on procedural fairness reflected an emerging awareness that justice must not be communalized.
One of the most striking episodes occurred during Telangana’s Medaram Jatara festival. A Muslim street vendor, Shaik Shaiksha Vali from Kurnool, was harassed by YouTubers who accused him of conducting “food jihad.” They questioned his hygiene, demanded his Aadhaar card, and forced him to eat his own buns on camera to “prove” their safety. Despite vending peacefully for over a decade, the incident was sensationalized online. The public reaction, however, disrupted that narrative. Long-time customers, local residents, influencers, and ordinary social media users rallied in support. Videos surfaced of people deliberately purchasing and eating his buns in solidarity. Financial assistance was extended. Messages emphasized that commerce, food, and livelihood cannot be reduced to religious conspiracy. The attempt to inject sectarian hostility into a cultural festival was met with collective refusal. What could have become another flashpoint instead became a reaffirmation of everyday coexistence.
In Kerala, the release of the trailer for The Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond triggered controversy over a scene depicting forced beef consumption in a conversion narrative. Rather than responding solely with outrage, many Keralites — including large segments of the Hindu majority — responded with humour and cultural assertion. Memes, reels, and posts celebrating beef with parotta went viral. People shared images of communal meals with playful captions. Symbolic beef festivals were planned not as acts of provocation but as affirmations of Kerala’s shared culinary heritage across religions. Even tourism messaging adopted light irony. Humour became a tool of resistance, undermining attempts to portray plural practices as coercive. Instead of internalizing divisive framing, citizens reclaimed cultural normalcy.
Across these varied contexts, five interlinked lessons – five Cs emerge. First, courage disrupts the inertia of silence. When one individual publicly challenges intimidation, it signals to others that dissent is possible. Fear thrives on perceived isolation; visible solidarity erodes that isolation. Second, complicity has limits. When injustice becomes overt, humiliating, or widely visible, especially through viral exposure, passive observers may reach a tipping point. Third, collective conscience remains resilient. Despite sustained polarization, everyday interdependence — shared markets, festivals, workplaces — promotes lived experiences of harmony that resist abstract demonization. When propaganda contradicts lived reality, moral instincts resurface. Fourth, community solidarity diminishes impunity. Extremist actors often rely on assumptions of silent majority approval, public condemnation strips away that shield. Finally, constitutional values gain renewed life when citizens enact them. Equality, liberty, and fraternity are not merely textual commitments; they become tangible when people defend a vendor’s dignity, a couple’s freedom, or a neighbour’s safety.
This emerging solidarity does not suggest that communal tensions have disappeared. Structural challenges remain: the need for consistent law enforcement against hate speech and vigilante violence, greater media responsibility in framing incidents, and civic education that reinforces constitutional ethics. Digital ecosystems continue to amplify misinformation at speed. Political polarization persists. Yet the events of early 2026 indicate that communal hate no longer moves unchallenged in many spaces. It increasingly encounters resistance from within the majority community itself.
That shift alters the moral equation. When solidarity crosses religious lines and originates from those not directly targeted, it weakens narratives of inevitable polarization. It demonstrates that pluralism in India is not merely a constitutional aspiration or nostalgic memory, but a living practice defended in markets, parks, festivals, and online spaces. If sustained and amplified, these localized acts of courage may signal not just episodic resistance but a deeper recalibration — a reassertion that unity is not imposed from above but enacted from below, one intervention, one gesture, one shared meal at a time.
T Navin is an independent writer
22 February 2026
Source: countercurrents.org