India’s secularism rests on the fate of ‘Mohammed Deepak’
Over the last 11-odd years, ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the Centre, there have been lynchings of minorities from across the country. Many may not remember, but one of the first such incidents took place in Pune, where a man, Mohsin, was lynched within days of the BJP winning the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. There was an indication of what was coming, but many of us still held on to the belief that it was not the norm but an anomaly.
However, we couldn’t have been more wrong. In the time since, countless people, especially Muslims and Dalits, have lost their lives to mob violence, while others have been badly thrashed – all by right-wing Hindutva mobs. So when one person finally decided to stand up to a mob and save a Muslim man on January 26 this year in Uttarakhand‘s Kotdwar, he was hailed as a “true Indian” or even a “true Hindu” by many on the internet.
Bajrang Dal members who caused a ruckus were clearly intimidated by the man, who was a gym trainer. His broad frame and unwillingness to back down even took the right-wing crowd by surprise. But that was, of course, not the end of it, as it eventually resulted in bigger crowds gathering and a breakdown of law and order in Kotdwar.
The man in question, Deepak Kumar, and his decision to call himself “Mohammed Deepak,” carried weight far beyond the moment itself. The fact that the incident coincidentally took place on Republic Day, January 26, was also perhaps fitting that a Hindu man decided to stand up for his Muslim neighbour. The issue? The Bajrang Dal members wanted a shop owner named Mohammed Shoaib to change the name of his establishment from “Baba” to something else, claiming it was similar to that of a local deity.
The economic boycott of ‘Mohammed Deepak’
If one tries to find logic, to see if there is any valid demand that Shoaib could have given into, there isn’t any. It was simply intimidation, to show a Muslim man his place and to dictate how to live his life. All it took was one righteous Hindu man to stir the hornet’s nest and it was enough to lay everything bare – that in the eyes of the right-wing mob which wants a “Hindu Rashtra,” there is no place for Hindus who don’t align with their views.
As things stand, “Mohammed Deepak” faces an economic boycott – a ramification of his decision to do the right thing and stand up for his fellow Indian. His gym now has about 10 per cent of the membership that it once did. It is evident that the people around him also do not want to be associated with him, and that speaks for itself.
More importantly, this also lays bare the fact that perhaps it is time to reconcile with the fact that mob mentality has taken over, at least in some parts of the country. India’s fragile secularism and rule of law has been for a while standing at the crossroads of being violated. In an ideal world, the crowd that came at Shoaib’s shop should have been dispersed by the police and also protected him. But because it did not, “Mohammed Deepak” did, and now he is paying the price.
How India deals with this will certainly give us an indication of things to come.
