In my last column I drew attention to the exemplary secular-humanist leadership furnished by Deepak Kumar, alias Mohammed Deepak, at Kotdwar in Uttarakhand in stepping up to challenge a brazenly communal demand made by a Bajrang Dal group on one Vakil Ahmed, cloth shop owner.Vakil Ahmed was asked to remove the word “Baba” from his shop title, since in their view, he was cleverly appropriating an allegedly Sanatan appellation.Not only does the word “Baba” have a Persian origin, it has been widely used in India to define Sufi saints and venerable elders of both communities across a historical spectrum.Baba Farid’s teachings are inscribed in the Guru Granth Sahib, a scripture held sacred not just by Sikhs but also by Hindus.Lauding Mohammed Deepak as just the vanguard the denominationally fraught nation needs, it was noted how many Hindus, including more than a dozen lawyers of the Supreme Court had volunteered to take membership of Deepak’s gym, following withdrawals by some earlier members.Well now, the civil-secular initiative of supporting Deepak Kumar’s lead has happily resonated in two episodes of sectarian assault on citizen-minority rights.There may be more than just two pushbacks that we do not yet know of.A villageThe first of these comes from Kareda village in Tonk district of Rajasthan:A former BJP member of parliament, Sukhbeer Singh Jaunpuria, conducting a blanket distribution event among indigent women, brazenly refused to give blankets to three Muslim women in the gathering.In the video clip of the event, this public representative who had taken oath on the constitution as MP to desist from discriminating among citizens on the basis of religion, among other identity markers (Article 15), can be heard to say that those who “abuse” Modi do not deserve to receive such benefits.Expectedly, the Muslim women protested their humiliation at such pointed exclusion. Remarkably, following Deepak Kumar’s example, the protest also came from the Hindu women who had been given the blankets.Returning the same, one of them said, “We will survive without anything but we will not let hatred take us over; this is inhumane”.As per report, this protest against sectarian hate has spread widely among residents of Tonk across communities.Notably also, disregarding its dithering of recent years, the Congress party is in the forefront of lending open support to the resistance of the protesting citizens of the affected areas.Clearly, after years of unchecked and unchallenged minority bashing and exclusion, the ordinary Indian as much as the more privileged lawyers in the Kotdwar case are coming forward to be counted on behalf of the constitutional republic, and on behalf of cultural traditions and values sought to be destroyed by monochromatic, revanchist forces.A universityWithin the old Lal Baradari on the campus of Lucknow University lies an old mosque, used for years on end by alumni for offering Namaz.The mosque has come to be sealed on the proffered reason that it is now dilapidated and unsafe.Thus Muslim campus residents have been offering Namaz in the area in front of the sealed mosque.This once, during the first week of Ramzan, the one holy month of fasting for Muslims, as students gathered to say their prayers, they were sought to be prevented by a group of right-wing youth.Remarkably again, Hindu wards from secular student organisations such as NSUI, AISA, formed a chain behind them, enabling them to complete their ablutions.When the next day another right-wing group turned up to recite the Hanuman Chalisa at the mosque site, the police for once felt obliged to disallow such a blatant exercise aimed to cause communal mischief and potential violence.Even as Hindu students who barricaded the site to shield the Namazis deserve the republic’s praise and gratitude, so do the police who, this once, stood by their sworn duty to prevent sectarian oppression in the guise of nationalism.The big question must be this: in the days to come, will we get to witness a more forthright institutional backing to these new and long overdue people’s initiatives to forestall the collapse of the republic into a sectarian cesspool of unchecked and unconstitutional majoritarian tyranny on the streets and everywhere else in the secure knowledge that the executive power-structure is theirs to command.We may concede that some motes of conscience seem to be stirring in miniscule sections of the media world, one or two on the electronic channels, who are making bold to cover such brigandry without mealy-mouthed prevarications.We call upon the bulk of corporate media to realise that the collapse of secular democracy and of constitutional verities under an authoritarianism helpful to big money may seem just tangential to wealth creation and profit maximisation (ugly truths cloaked under the rubric vikas), but should a polity as diverse and as large as India come to forfeit its founding republican ideals, no corporate edifice may hope to carry on business as usual for long.History surely tells us that, if nothing.Speaking of institutional support to citizen’s endeavours to shore up a non-discriminatory rule of law and constitutional sanctities bearing on the relation of the state with citizens, we must join the dismay expressed in several quarters at the refusal of the Supreme Court recently to entertain a complaint against the chief minister of Assam: the man was seen on a video (now deleted) pointing a large-sized firearm at two natives wearing the accoutrement of Muslim men.The partiesIn the coming days it will remain to be seen how the initiatives now forthcoming from a feisty Congress receives country-wide acknowledgement and support from regional political formations who never tire of berating the ruling RSS/BJP for being the source of majoritarian vigilantism.We dare say that the long years of anti-Congressism (warranted and unwarranted) need to be put behind if the republic is to have any real chance of turning back the systemic and cultural regressions of the last decade or more.Legislators who represent some 60% of the popular opinion must put their heads and wills together to retrieve the virtues of peaceful democratic mass mobilisation beyond the proforma get-togethers outside the portals of parliament – and on a consistent basis.Those that rule now proudly call themselves the children of the JP Andolan (movement).It may be time to return the event and the compliment, taking care to keep at bay forces only too often tempted to drag democratic protest movements into the vortex of self-defeating and unconstitutional violence.Time to draw inspiration from the salt satyagraha of the Mahatma, wherein the satyagrahis braved state violence without returning a punch.With the Mahatma let us also invoke the telling admonition of Martin Luther King jr: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.