On Republic Day, patriotic songs blared on loudspeakers and the tricolour fluttered across Kotdwar, a town known as the gateway to the Garhwal hills in Uttarakhand. The atmosphere was upbeat, celebratory, and nationalistic. This did not last.
In a market near Jhanda Chowk, a crowd gathered outside a shop. Voices rose and anger thickened the air. Mobile phone videos — later widely circulated on social media — captured a group of young men coercing a garment seller into removing the word Baba from his shop name. The shop, called Baba School Dress and Matching Centre, itself had existed longer than the men confronting its owner had lived. As the elderly trader trembled and struggled to speak under the bullying, a man, much taller than the youths, stepped forward to challenge the harassment. When asked to identify himself, he replied, “My name is Mohammad Deepak.”
