Rediscovering Empathy and Rekindling Hope

In 1989, at Chitrakoot Inter College, Mahendra, a Hindu, Yasin, a Muslim, and Vishal, a Christian became fast friends. Mahendra and Yasin shared a room because Yasin faced difficulties in renting one as he was a Muslim. In that shared room, they navigated the delicate frictions of difference. They learnt to live together despite differences in food habits and other things. At first, Mahendra, a strict vegetarian, was aghast that Yasin had cooked meat. Then he insisted that cooking meat was okay, but the kitchen had to be cleaned thoroughly afterwards. Slowly barriers melted, and Mahendra began eating eggs.

After college, life swept them down separate paths. Decades rolled by, and as the friends drifted apart into the quiet routines of work and family, the outside world grew increasingly polarized. Mahendra started feeling guilty that he had not kept in touch with his close friend over the years. He wondered how his friend felt in this changing social landscape. Mahendra felt a restless urge to reconnect, but still he hesitated.

Through conversations with friends in the Humqadam initiative, Mahendra finally sought out Yasin in 2021. The moment they met, decades of silence and societal division dissolved. They shared their lives in the years in between, about their spouses and their children, about their joys and their sorrows. It did not take long for Vishal’s name to crop up in their conversation. They met up with him, and soon the three friends were together again. Today their bond has strengthened. Their families now celebrate festivals, attend weddings, and support each other through life's hardships. Their friendship had survived not because the world had become kinder, but because they chose not to let fear decide who belonged in their lives.

In the heart of Bundelkhand’s Jalaun district, the village of Lohai was a place where invisible walls ran deep. Caste divisions dictated daily life, and strict segregation kept communities apart. But during the Navdurga festival, a local man named Jagpal saw a quiet stage in the afternoon sun and envisioned something radical: a stage where everyone belonged.

He proposed a community singing competition for women and girls. It was a beautiful, ambitious dream, but the hurdles were immediate. The festival stage sat squarely in the upper-caste neighbourhood, managed entirely by them. Yet, through gentle persuasion, Jagpal convinced the management committee to open the space.

On the day of the event, the square filled with an unprecedented crowd—Dalit, OBC, upper-caste, and the village’s lone Muslim family sitting side by side.

The air was thick with anticipation as three generations of women took the stage to sing of faith, social change, and old folk traditions. But the old world didn't vanish easily. Early in the program, the management committee quietly withheld the traditional dhol (drum) and jhika (cymbals) from the lower-caste teams.

A small murmur of disappointment ran through the crowd. Soon voices from different communities rose. The musical instruments had to be available to all participants. Each group deserved equal opportunities. Someone suggested that the upper caste women could talk to the management committee. They too had been waiting for this day and wouldn’t let their menfolk ruin their fun. Finally, the committee relented. The instruments were handed over, and the music extravaganza started.

When the last notes faded, the judges faced a delicate crisis: the upper-caste team had not performed well, and declaring a lower-caste winner threatened to shatter the fragile peace. Thinking quickly, Jagpal turned to the crowd, proposing an audience poll.

When the call came, hands shot into the air across all divides. It wasn't about caste anymore; it was about honouring the music and each other. The crowd chose fairness, and the village celebrated as one.

The melody of that afternoon didn't fade when the stage was dismantled. A new harmony had taken root in Lohai. Weeks later, looking at a severely damaged village road that needed urgent repairs, the residents didn't retreat into their separate enclaves. Instead, Dalit, OBC, upper-caste, and Muslim neighbours walked shoulder-to-shoulder to the local authorities, signing their names to a single, joint petition.

In Lohai, music didn't just bridge a historic divide; it taught a village that when they raise their voices together, they can rebuild their world. But why did Jagpal think of doing this music festival? Jagpal was part of a small group of rural activists who were concerned about the increasing social polarisation in the world around. Initially, he felt angry, sad, and helpless at the same time. He felt paralysed with doubt. What if I am also targeted if I say something? He then joined a small group of friends who shared the same doubts, the same hesitation, and the same helplessness. Slowly they shared their fears, rekindled hope and started taking actions like the one Jagpal did in his village or Mahendra in his life. Humqadam was the name they gave their shared journey of courage, hope and action.

Humqadam is the story of quiet resistance. In the villages of Uttar Pradesh, where slowly growing suspicion and hatred were tearing communities apart. A group of veteran social activists was deeply disturbed and hesitant at the same time. They faced fear, not just around them, but within. But once they came together, they responded not with retreat but with hope: rebuilding trust and drawing strength from forgotten traditions of coexistence.

For years, these activists had worked with men to promote gender equality. But this alone did not help against religious polarisation. With deeper analysis, they realised that work on gender equality alone was not enough when communities themselves were being pulled apart by fear and mistrust.

Humqadam was a quiet attempt to find ways to respond to these ruptures. Seven community-based activists turned inward to examine their own journeys, seeking new frameworks for understanding and new ways of action. In the politically sensitive and socially complex landscapes of Uttar Pradesh’s Purvanchal and Bundelkhand regions, it was a quiet collective effort to resist social division. Ten veteran activists—seven Hindus and three Muslims aged between 40 and 60 - drew upon the state's traditional, shared cultural heritage (Sajhi Virasat) as an antidote to rising religious polarization, hostility and aggression.

When the initiative began in early 2022, there were deep anxieties among the community-based colleagues. Decades of grassroots work were being undone by a sharp spike in identity politics, online trolling, and fake news.

The social landscape had profoundly transformed. Communities were fracturing along religious and caste lines, giving rise to aggressive identity-driven groups. Muslim communities faced heightened anxiety. Muslim men were being stereotyped as criminals and anti-socials. As many of the younger men from both Hindu and Muslim communities were outside for work, the older men of the community controlled the social and gender narrative. Government functionaries, who were earlier very cooperative had changed, and partisan politics increasingly influenced public services. Activists, both Hindu and Muslim, had stopped raising everyday deprivations faced by poor Muslims because they faced backlash if they did so.  

Through their conversations with each other, they realized that standard development programs focused strictly on women’s development and rights had inadvertently ignored some other trends in society. Many young men, angry, unemployed and constantly exposed to political propaganda, were becoming increasingly vulnerable to ideas building hatred and suspicion. Widespread government welfare distribution had created a mindset of beholden-ness towards the government. Their earlier approach where they created a sense of ‘citizenship’ demanding rights and services was no longer viable. They had to find new ways to deal with this reality.

Through several rounds of conversations, they realised that there were several practices and spaces in and around the villages where they worked where both Hindus and Muslims took part with equal enthusiasm.

It began when the colleague from Jaunpur mentioned Ghazi Miyan kibarat, a month-long festival that took place in the summer months in several districts of UP. Both Hindus and Muslims take part in the processions and fairs that take place on this occasion. On hearing this story, one Hindu colleague from Azamgarh recalled there was a well-known close to his village. He sheepishly confessed that though he had visited the village several times, he had yet to go to the dargah. He invited all the others to his village to learn more about it.

This visit to the Kichchaucha Sharif Sufi dargah in Ambedkar Nagar was an eyeopener to the Hindu colleagues. The welcome they received from the Mazār authorities, who had been informed beforehand, surprised them. It was in a small village, but thousands of Hindu and Muslim devotees were milling around. People had come from all over the country seeking solace and healing.

Once they had witnessed that ordinary people from both communities still lived and celebrated together, many other stories came tumbling out.

The colleague from Varanasi recalled a person called Jhulan Prasad. He ran a sweet shop named 'Rajshree Sweets' in a busy marketplace and close to a mosque. Several of the shopkeepers in the market were Muslims, and they were his friends. During the month of Ramzan, Jhulan Prasad started distributing pakora, chole, and sweets to his friends as they returned from their Friday evening namaaz. Soon many more namaazis started coming, and it became known as Jhulan Prasad ka Iftar. His grandsons run the shop today, but this tradition continues.

Colleagues started documenting such shared traditions and relationships in their own communities. They realised that Hindu and Muslims living in the same village took part in each other’s family occasions and festivals, though this was coming down. Muslim characters even acted in Ramlila, and Hindus took part in Moharram processions. While rural artisans were mostly Muslim, many of their clients were Hindus. And there was often a long-term client-provider relationship that ran for generations. Friends from both communities supported each other in agricultural activities and also ran businesses together. Muslim artisans made Khadaus (wooden slippers) for Brahmins of Varanasi in Jaunpur. People drank tea and gossiped together in teashops, but slowly these were being segregated by religion.

Once they witnessed these living traditions, some still robust and others that were fading, they decided it was time to start small initiatives that could bring people together. A simple decision was to have joint celebrations for festivals. They started with modest joint Diwali celebrations and Iftar parties. These were quite successful and were encouraged. When Muslim women said that they would take part in Holi, but only if there were no colours thrown at them, they celebrated Holi with multi-coloured petals–Phoolon ki Holi was the name given. The Muslim women were thrilled that their wishes were respected. People slowly started renewing friendships and inviting and going to each other’s family celebrations like marriages, naam-karans (naming ceremony of babies) and funerals.

By the end of the two-and-a-half-year the Humqadam collective successfully pioneered a model for repairing relationships damaged by fear and hostility. Moving past their initial despair, they had not only regained hope but discovered a new way to work. They learnt that facts and logic were not enough to dispel deep-seated anti-Muslim myths. Instead, sharing and celebrating were more successful in bringing people together. It allowed caring and empathy to grow instead of indifference and hate.

A question worth mulling over is why Humqadam worked? How did it succeed in places where religious polarisation was so deep that even senior development workers hesitated to raise any concern about Muslims; where Muslims had become withdrawn; old community relationships were now riven by distances; where social media was relentlessly spreading myths, misinformation, and fake news, and deepening social divides.

All members of the Humqadam collective were part of the community, and these communities had long histories of living together. Also, these communities belonged to similar caste groups and shared similar socio- economic realities. This allowed the use of traditional symbols and histories to rebuild solidarity. Through their efforts, they fostered human connections outside of party politics. Bringing people together for festivals and celebrations and minor acts of sharing helped build trust, cement friendships, and strengthen relationships. People who felt isolated and frightened found new friends. Those who were previously uncomfortable but silent now expressed themselves openly.

Many of us today live with a similar unease. Friendships have become cautious. Family conversations are more contested. People often remain silent, not because they agree with hatred, but because they fear conflict, isolation, or being targeted themselves. Over time, this silence creates distance. And distance slowly makes suspicion feel normal.

Humqadam did not begin with grand political strategies or dramatic acts of resistance. It began with something smaller and more fragile: people deciding not to withdraw from one another. A visit to an old friend; a shared festival; a meal eaten together; a conversation that might otherwise never have happened. These small acts did not change the world overnight. But they changed the emotional atmosphere around the people involved. Fear slowly gave way to familiarity. Hesitation gave way to trust.

Like Mahendra reaching out to Yasin after decades of silence, our first step may simply be to recover an old relationship or build a new one. Perhaps that is how change begins — not in committees, courts, elections, or television debates, but in the courage to rebuild ordinary human relationships before apathy and fear replace trust altogether.