What Makes One Person Stand up When Hate Becomes a Crowd?

On a street in Uttarakhand’s Kotdwar, a small confrontation unfolded in full public view.

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A small mob gathered around an elderly shopkeeper, questioning him over the name of his store, which had existed for decades. He remained seated through the exchange. Living with Parkinson’s, he was limited in how he could respond as voices rose and the crowd pressed closer. Phones came out. Bystanders watched.

Then one local resident, Deepak Kumar, stepped forward and asked a straightforward question: Why change something that has stood unchanged for years?

When someone pressed him to identify himself, he replied with a composite name that signalled solidarity with the person being targeted. The exchange, captured on video, spread quickly online. In the days that followed, the moment drew police complaints and counter-complaints, along with gatherings outside Deepak’s home, as described in a report on the incident.

If you strip away the noise that often follows such clips, one question remains surprisingly clear.

Why do many people fall silent when a crowd turns hostile, and what makes one person step out of line?

Social psychology has been studying this exact gap between “I don’t like what I’m seeing” and “I’m going to say something” for decades. What it finds is less dramatic than we expect, and more familiar. People freeze or fold into the crowd for reasons that often look like ordinary self-preservation. People speak up for reasons that usually start small: one value, one line they refuse to cross, one moment where staying silent feels heavier than the risk of intervening.

Why people go along with a crowd, even when it feels wrong?

In tense public situations, most bystanders are not cheering. They are watching, calculating, and trying to stay safe. That still leads to silence, and silence still changes what a crowd feels allowed to do.

Three forces tend to pull people into conformity.

1) We look around to understand what the “rules” are

When something begins to escalate, the situation often feels unclear. In that uncertainty, people rely on social cues: who looks confident, who is leading, who is being challenged.

If the loudest voices appear unopposed, their behaviour starts to look like the default. Psychologists call this normative influence. In other words, it means the crowd writes its own rules in real time, and most people take their cues from what they see rather than what they believe.

2) Fear of becoming the next target

There is also a personal risk calculation happening in the background. Speaking up can draw attention, hostility, or retaliation. So, many bystanders choose silence because it seems like the quickest route back to safety.

That decision can feel uncomfortable afterwards, but in the moment, it often feels practical: If I get pulled in, what happens to me?

3) The bystander effect

Then there is a well-documented pattern in social psychology: people are less likely to intervene when others are present. Responsibility diffuses. Each person assumes someone else will act, or that someone else is better placed to act.

This is why crowds can contain dozens of witnesses and still feel like they have no brakes.

The hinge moment: what changes when one person refuses the script?

The Kotdwar clip stays with you for one reason: you can see the moment the crowd’s confidence wobbles. Hostility in a group builds speed when no one challenges it. As long as everyone watches and says nothing, the pressure keeps rising. The second someone speaks up, that smooth momentum breaks. Now the crowd has to respond, not just continue.

That is the core of Minority Influence Theory.

Developed through the work of social psychologist Serge Moscovici, the theory explains how a consistent minority can influence a majority. Importantly, it does not require the minority to have power. It requires the minority to hold its position clearly enough that others cannot ignore it.

This is not about winning an argument in the moment. It is about disrupting what feels “settled”.

How one person can influence many

Minority influence tends to work through a few specific mechanisms, and they show up in real life in very recognisable ways.

1) Hold your ground without raising the temperature

When someone stays steady, others are more likely to process what they are saying. In Moscovici’s research, consistency was a key reason minority viewpoints could shift group judgement over time.

In public confrontations, consistency often looks like refusing to match aggression with aggression. It looks like returning to one point, repeating it, and keeping your voice level even when others try to provoke you.

In the Kotdwar video, Deepak does not attempt to overpower the group. He questions the logic and holds the line. That stability matters because it makes the intervention easier for bystanders to accept and harder for the crowd to dismiss.

2) Keep the message simple and clear

Crowds often get away with things because no one says the obvious part out loud. When that happens, hostility can start to look normal.

A simple point about fairness or basic decency cuts through it. It gives bystanders words for what they are already feeling, and sometimes that is what helps someone move from watching to stepping in.

Deepak’s composite-name reply works on this level too. It compresses a larger message into a short, legible signal: I’m with him. You don’t get to isolate him.

3) Give others room to step in

Minority influence often takes the form of a pause rather than immediate agreement. That pause matters because it gives bystanders time to reconsider what they are aligning themselves with.

The shift is subtle but real: once one person dissents, others no longer feel they are the only one who doubts what is happening.

How one supportive voice changes everything

Solomon Asch, a social psychologist known for his 1950s conformity experiments, showed something that maps closely onto real-world crowd moments. In his studies, people often conformed to an obviously wrong group answer. When even one other person gave the correct answer, conformity dropped sharply.

The takeaway is practical.

When one person speaks up, they do more than confront the aggressor. They give uncertain bystanders a cue that dissent is possible. They also reduce the feeling of isolation that keeps people quiet.

That is why crowds can feel unstoppable until the first person refuses to go along, and then suddenly feel less certain of themselves.

Staying calm works better than shouting back

A hostile crowd often tries to pull everyone into a single emotional register: anger, dominance, humiliation. Matching that energy can escalate the situation quickly, especially when there are phones recording and onlookers reacting.

Calm refusal does something different. It changes the frame.

It signals control. It reads as credible. It also makes the hostility look less like power and more like performance. For bystanders who are already uneasy, that shift in framing can be decisive.

This is not a guarantee of safety, and it does not turn conflict into harmony. It does, however, increase the chance that the crowd’s momentum slows rather than surges.

The cost of speaking up, and why people still do it

One report on the Kotdwar incident describes how the confrontation was followed by threats, gatherings outside Deepak’s home, and multiple police cases linked to the episode.

That detail matters because it reflects a truth many bystanders recognise instinctively. Speaking up can come with consequences. So, silence is often chosen because people sense that risk accurately.

At the same time, moments of public dissent do not disappear after the clip ends. They lodge in memory. They become examples people cite later when they are trying to explain what courage looked like in ordinary language, without grand speeches.

Social attitudes shift through repetition: the small moments people remember, retell, and carry forward.

How to step in safely when a crowd turns hostile

Intervening always carries risk. The aim is to reduce harm while keeping yourself safe.

Here are approaches that align with bystander intervention research and de-escalation practice.

1) Focus on behaviour, not identity:Short, plain questions force explanation and lower speed. For example: 

• “What rule is being broken?”

• “Who decided this?”

• “Why are you speaking like this?”

2) Stand beside, not in front:Standing next to the targeted person reduces isolation without turning the moment into a direct showdown.

3) Bring in a second voice if you can:If you are with someone, coordinate. One person speaks. One stays alert and calls for help. One records from a safe distance if needed. Even one ally can reduce conformity pressure for everyone watching.

4) Create an exit if possible:If the targeted person can step away safely, prioritise that. Ending the spectacle often drains the crowd’s energy.

5) Choose safety over visibility:If the crowd is large, armed, or highly volatile, staying back and seeking help is a valid intervention. Witnessing and reporting can also protect someone.

Speaking up still matters

Crowds become dangerous when they convince everyone that their behaviour is normal.

Minority influence works because it breaks that illusion.

In Kotdwar, one person’s refusal to stay silent changed the script in real time. It introduced a pause. It made bystanders look again. It reminded everyone that hostility only works when people go along with it.

And in many public moments, that pause is where things begin to change.

Sources

‘Muslim man's shop, a Bajrang Dal mob, and a 'Mohammad Deepak': Story of three FIRs in Uttarakhand's Kotdwar’: by Aarish Chhabra for Hindustan Times, Published on 2 February 2026

‘Shopkeeper at centre of ‘Mohammad Deepak’ row speaks: ‘Why will we change shop’s name? Everyone is with us’’: by Aiswarya Raj for The Indian Express, Published on 3 February 2026

‘Influence of a Consistent Minority on the Responses of a Majority in a Color Perception Task’: by S Moscovici, E Lage and M Naffrechoux

‘Opinions and Social Pressure’: by Solomon E Asch

‘When Will People Help in a Crisis?’: by John M Darley and Bibb Latane

‘Minority Influence Theory’: by Charlan Jeanne Nemeth