A well-known Muslim musician was targeted online for stepping outside the role assigned to him. Around the same time, a poetry reading session by a Muslim actor was cancelled at a university. In many Muslim homes, the response was not outrage. It was recognition. A tightening in the chest. A recalculation.

What lingered was the following question: how visible is too visible?

That question surfaced repeatedly during a 3,200-kilometre motorcycle journey from Delhi to Kerala undertaken as part of the Ride for Mental Health project. The aim was to listen — to students, daily-wage workers, teachers, activists, small business owners — about how inequality shapes mental health. What emerged was not dramatic testimony. It was something quieter.

People did not speak in a clinical language. They spoke of exhaustion. Of having to watch their words. Of feeling on edge for reasons they struggled to name. Mental strain, in these conversations, was not separate from politics or economics. It was woven into them.

India’s mental-health system is already stretched thin. Access remains uneven, stigma persists, and care often arrives late. For many Muslims, the strain carries additional layers: unstable work, open hostility, and the steady effort of staying alert.

In Gujarat, a barber described inflation and shrinking margins. Longer hours meant less time at home. On his counter sat a QR code bearing his unmistakably Muslim name. Once irrelevant, such visibility now felt loaded. He did not say that directly. He did not need to.

Across Rajasthan and Maharashtra, the pattern repeated itself. Demonetisation. The pandemic. Inflation. Work felt harsher, less secure. For Muslims, economic fragility is often intersected with communalisation.

In Jaipur, activists spoke of burnout shaped by surveillance and intimidation. Teachers described self-censorship as a habit. Even in districts with barely any Muslim residents, suspicion lingered — sustained less by contact than by narrative. Television studios and social media feeds had done their work. Hatred travels easily.

Vigilance, over time, has become internalised. Voices lowered mid-sentence. Conversations cut short. A registered tourist guide in Udaipur said work had declined “because of how we look”. An auto-rickshaw driver in Jaipur put it plainly: “You’re always careful about who is listening.”

Digital life has deepened the strain. Young Muslims said they scrolled not for distraction but for updates — who had been attacked, which speech had gone viral, where tension might flare next. Online spaces did not just amplify fear; they made it routine.

Regional contrasts were stark. In coastal Karnataka — especially Udupi and Mangaluru — the tension felt ambient. Economic mobility and educational parity had not eased hostility. Locals described the region as a testing ground for polarisation where dominance was asserted publicly and often theatrically. Further south, in parts of Kerala, respondents spoke more freely. Identity did not have to be worn “like armour”, as one participant put it. Prejudice had not vanished. But it was less loudly mobilised, less central to everyday exchange.

Yet despair was not the final note. A father in Mangaluru said quietly, “We can’t afford to give up. Our children are watching.” A medical student in Kozhikode was more direct. “Fear is real,” she said. “But so is our future.”

What these journeys revealed was not a string of isolated traumas. It was something steadier and harder to measure. A habit of bracing. A pause before speaking. The effort of calculating the consequence.

The crisis, then, is not only about hospitals or policy gaps. It is about what prolonged vigilance does to ordinary life.

Istikhar Ali has a PhD (JNU) and is a DAAD Fellow. Madeeha Fatima is an independent journalist