When a gym owner in a small Himalayan town faced off a Hindu mob targeting a Muslim shopkeeper earlier this year, he quickly turned into an unlikely national figure – and the inspiration for a series of small acts of kindness and solidarity that many would come to regard as a turning of the tide against sectarian hatred in India.
Deepak Kumar’s intervention in the confrontation between members of the Hindu nationalist group Bajrang Dal and the Muslim shopkeeper in Kotdwar, in the northern state of Uttarakhand, took place on 26 January.
