On Republic Day, a group of people descended on septuagenarian shopkeeper Wakeel Ahmad in Kotdwar, Uttarakhand. The harassment was over the name of his three-decade-old enterprise, ‘Baba School Dress and Clothing’, with the use of the word “Baba” being found objectionable. The word itself has Persian origins, and has been used for or by spiritual leaders in various faiths, including Sikhism, Islam and Hinduism — a fact that must have been lost on the hecklers.
A local gym owner named Deepak Kumar who confronted the mob at the time of the incident has since become the target of further harassment, with the far-right Hindu lobby Bajrang Dal threatening him at his home and at least one FIR being lodged against him and friends of his who had intervened to protect Wakeel Ahmad. During the incident, the instigators had questioned him about who he was. His response was, “My name is Mohammad Deepak.” Now, Mohammad Deepak — whose chosen appellation I’ll continue to refer to him by, out of respect for his courage — stands at the centre of a new storm, as an ordinary citizen of Hindu origin who stood up for someone with less structural privilege than him.
In 2017, protests called “Not In My Name” were held in a few cities across India. The movement consisted of people of Hindu origin, practising or non-practising, standing in solidarity with and against the persecution of minorities, in particular Muslims and Dalit-Bahujan people. This was at a time when notable cases of mob vigilantism involved suspected cow slaughter or beef consumption, sometimes resulting in murders. These persist to this day, alongside many forms of discrimination or outright brutality. That such acts supposedly occurred according to a Hindu moral imperative was an idea challenged by protesting Hindus who saw them for what they really were: violent bigotry.
Mohammad Deepak’s act of resistance is a kind of inversion of the “Not In My Name” concept. By briefly aligning himself with the denominational background of a person being attacked, he offered the mob a distraction. By claiming to be Muslim, he acted as a shield. Although unscathed then, it is obvious why he has been targeted since. The legal challenges and physical danger he now faces are meant to discourage other people from taking similar stances. They are meant to discourage heroism that is only extraordinary in times when common decency and common sense are both uncommon traits.
Less than a decade later, the “Not In My Name” movement is a distant memory, and Mohammad Deepaks — ordinary people, refusing to make evil ordinary, refusing to stand aside and avert their eyes — seem few and far between. It is his response that makes an episode that would otherwise not have gained coverage and notice interesting, because that, unfortunately, is where we are. The harassment of Wakeel Ahmad is part of commonplace prejudice, and doesn’t cause enough discomfort among those who are not directly affected. Not yet, that is. All fundamentalist factions eventually punish the moderate, not only those who are entirely outside the fold. The anger currently turned onto Mohammad Deepak is because he represents their only true threat: dissent from within it.