Constitutional morality is increasingly viewed as subversive when it disrupts majoritarian comfort
IN Kotdwar, Uttarakhand, a gym owner lost nearly 90 per cent of his livelihood because he intervened when a 70-year-old Muslim shopkeeper, Vakil Ahmed, was being harassed.
That is the fact.
Everything else – the viral clip, the slogan “Mohammad Deepak,” the solidarity visits by national leaders, the threats, the protests, the legal cases flow from that stark and uncomfortable truth.
On January 26, a group of men reportedly objected to a Muslim shopkeeper using the word “Baba” in his store’s name. They claimed the word was inseparably linked to a nearby Hindu temple and therefore inappropriate for use by a Muslim trader. The demand was not about municipal compliance or trademark law. It was about symbolic ownership — about who is permitted to inhabit cultural vocabulary.
When Deepak Kumar, a young gym owner, intervened, he was asked his name. He stubbornly and instinctively responded: “Mohammad Deepak.” It was not a casual answer. It was a deliberate refusal to accept that religious identity is a boundary that must be defended rather than crossed.
Within days, his gym’s daily attendance reportedly fell from around 150 members to barely a dozen. His monthly rent of ₹40,000 did not fall. His ₹16,000 housing loan EMI did not pause. His 70-year-old mother reportedly began running a roadside tea stall to cushion the family’s financial blow. His daughter temporarily stopped attending school due to fear and anxiety. Threats surfaced online, including a reported bounty offer later acted upon by police.
The message was unmistakable: solidarity carries a price in a climate shaped by majoritarian enforcement.
Claim Over Public Culture
The Kotdwar episode must be understood as part of a larger ideological project. Across India in recent years, we have witnessed intensified policing of food habits, interfaith relationships, public prayers, street processions, and commercial identities. The dispute over the word “Baba” fits squarely within this matrix.
Language, once shared and porous, is increasingly being partitioned. Words become territorial markers. Religious symbols become exclusive property. Public space becomes implicitly majoritarian space.
The demand that a Muslim shopkeeper erase “Baba” from his signboard was not an isolated outburst; it reflected an assertion that the majority culture possesses veto power over the minority presence. The underlying proposition is simple and dangerous: public legitimacy is conditional, and minorities must constantly demonstrate deference.
Deepak’s intervention challenged that logic. By identifying himself as “Mohammad Deepak,” he symbolically dismantled the binary that the mob sought to enforce. He disrupted the neat architecture of communal separation.
The backlash reveals how fragile that architecture is — and how quickly it seeks restoration.
Economic Sanction as a Political Weapon
The most revealing aspect of this episode is not street confrontation but economic retaliation.
There was no need for overt violence. Instead, the market itself became an instrument of punishment. Members withdrew. Attendance collapsed. Financial vulnerability was activated.
This method is not accidental. It is structurally effective. Small businesses operate on narrow margins. When clientele evaporates, compliance becomes the rational survival strategy. The goal is not merely to punish an individual but to send a deterrent signal to others: do not cross the line.
This is how majoritarian power increasingly operates – not solely through state machinery, but through social and economic ecosystems aligned with ideological currents. The threat of boycott, protest, reputational damage, and association risk is often sufficient.
When Bajrang Dal members reportedly gathered outside Deepak’s gym days later, even if police contained escalation, the psychological objective had already been achieved. Risk was attached to the premises. The association became politicised. In such an environment, silence becomes economically prudent.
The Political Optics of Solidarity
The national response complicates the picture. CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas visited Kotdwar and symbolically purchased a gym membership. Rahul Gandhi publicly praised Deepak as embodying constitutional values. Social media campaigns encouraged support.
These gestures are significant. They signal that not all of India accepts the narrowing of civic space. They restore some moral balance to a situation that might otherwise have been framed as a local dispute.
But they also expose a troubling reality: defending a neighbour now requires national validation. If constitutional conduct demands parliamentary endorsement to feel safe, then everyday pluralism has already weakened. Solidarity should not be extraordinary. It should be ordinary. That it must be publicly celebrated indicates how abnormal the climate has become.
The Weaponisation of Fear
The episode also illuminates how fear circulates in contemporary India. Deepak’s daughter temporarily withdrew from school. His health reportedly deteriorated under stress. His family’s financial structure has been destabilised. A social media video allegedly offering a bounty on him demonstrates how rapidly digital radicalism amplifies local conflict.
Fear need not be institutional to be effective. It operates socially, diffusely. It enters homes. It reshapes routines. It produces anticipatory compliance. When individuals internalise the cost of dissent, formal coercion becomes unnecessary.
Majoritarian power, in this form, is ambient. It is present in whispers, in withdrawals, in calculations. It does not always need explicit orders; it relies on shared ideological assumptions about who belongs and who must defer.
The Silence That Sustains Power
Kotdwar is not populated solely by ideological cadres. Hundreds of residents who once trained at Deepak’s gym chose to disengage. Many may not endorse harassment. Yet withdrawal became the safer option.
This is where majoritarian structures derive their durability – from the compliance of the cautious. Silence, especially when widespread, produces the appearance of consensus. Consensus produces legitimacy. Legitimacy emboldens enforcement.
The republic does not erode only through spectacular violence; it contracts through routine acquiescence.
India’s constitutional framework promises equality before the law and freedom of expression. It does not allocate vocabulary to religious communities. It does not grant the majority supervisory authority over minority identity.
Yet the lived experience in incidents such as Kotdwar suggests a tension between constitutional citizenship and cultural hierarchy.
Deepak’s act was, at its core, constitutional. He defended a fellow citizen from intimidation. He refused the premise that identity should determine rights. His “Mohammad Deepak” statement symbolised a refusal to segregate empathy along religious lines.
The reaction suggests that constitutional morality is increasingly viewed as subversive when it disrupts majoritarian comfort.
A Test Case for the Republic
This episode is not about hero-making. It is about boundaries. And there are uneasy questions.
Is defending a Muslim neighbour an act of provocation?
Is economic survival contingent upon ideological conformity?
Is pluralism permissible only when it is quiet and deferential?
If the answer to any of these questions leans toward conditionality, then the republic stands at a moral crossroads.
Deepak Kumar has reportedly expressed hope that his gym will recover. It may. Markets are fluid. Attention shifts. Tensions cool.
But the precedent remains.
If the cost of solidarity becomes predictable, fewer citizens will intervene the next time an elderly shopkeeper is cornered over a word on a signboard. The chilling effect will extend beyond Kotdwar.
The deeper issue is not the fate of one gym. It is whether India’s civic imagination will continue to narrow under majoritarian pressure – or whether citizens will insist that shared citizenship outranks sectarian entitlement.
The Kotdwar episode forces the question bluntly: In today’s India, who owns public space — the Constitution, or those who claim to speak for a majority? The reaction suggests that constitutional morality is increasingly viewed as subversive when it disrupts majoritarian comfort.
The answer will determine whether “Mohammad Deepak” becomes an anomaly, or a quiet template for reclaiming the republic.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years old. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
