The gym was supposed to be neutral territory where people arrived in all shapes and sizes to sweat through their weights and workouts. Nobody cared what you were called or who you prayed to. Over the past few months, however, a mix of criminal cases and viral claims has brought communal suspicion into a space that once seemed insulated from it.Like ‘love jihad’, ‘thook jihad’, ‘land jihad’ and ‘UPSC jihad’, the latest addition to this growing vocabulary of compound nouns is ‘gym jihad’. In January, police in Mirzapur alleged some gym owners and trainers were using fitness centres to befriend women, film compromising videos and pressure them into conversion. In March, a Saharanpur gym trainer was accused of drugging a nursing student’s protein drink and sexually assaulting her.By April, right-wing groups in Karnataka’s Hubballi were protesting outside a police station, claiming gyms had become hubs of ‘love jihad’. In the last four years, more than a dozen such cases have surfaced. On May 19, authorities in Mirzapur booked 10 gym operators under the Gangsters Act.The most recent flashpoint unfolded in Shamli, Uttar Pradesh, where the family of 30-year-old Ayush Malik accused a female gym trainer-physiotherapist of a calculated conspiracy. According to the police complaint filed by Malik’s father, a pharmaceutical businessman, the accused trainer engineered a relationship to brainwash his son, coercing him into a secret nikah and a new identity as Mohammad Ali to usurp the family’s property.The narrative fractured when Ayush publicly rejected the allegations, asserting he converted entirely of his own free will after a decade of studying Islam. Despite his defense, local authorities registered an FIR under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act and arrested both the gym trainer and her father.In such cases, even before the charges can be verified, social media amplifies the narrative. One viral video last month claimed a Delhi-based Muslim gym instructor was using personal training sessions to advance an agenda. Fact-checkers later debunked the clip as manipulated, but not before it spread widely through WhatsApp groups.The resulting anxieties rarely manifest as overt violence. Gurgaon-based fitness enthusiast Himesh Nanda (name changed) says he began noticing more overt religious symbolism among trainers after the UP cases gained traction online.“You’ll see the red and yellow thread — the kalawa — very prominently on wrists now,” he says. “And more conspicuous displays of tattoos with imagery like Mahadev, Bajrangbali, Om, Ram, etc. In my knowledge, they are more closely associated with akharas and pehlwani culture than with urban gym chains.”In Hubballi, a 23-year-old Muslim gym trainer, Sameer Mulla, was assaulted by local groups over allegations involving a young Hindu woman. While right-wing outfits branded the case as ‘love jihad’, city police and the woman’s family cited rape, blackmail and abduction. “The fact is that we have a victim of sexual abuse and an accused person, and we have taken necessary legal action. A fitness trainer is a fitness trainer. Which community or caste a person belongs to is not a matter of concern for us,” TOI was told by police commissioner N Shashi Kumar, who led the investigation.In Bhopal last year, right-wing activists demanded gym owners pledge not to employ Muslim men and organised mass recitations of the Hanuman Chalisa inside gyms. The controversy escalated when a police officer was filmed ordering a gym to ban Muslim staff and clients. Senior officials later suspended the sub-inspector for issuing the directive.“But suspension hardly works. There is always a new fever in MP. Sometimes it’s ‘thook jihad’ because of an unverified viral video of a fruit vendor gargling water over a fruit cart, or it’s ‘land jihad’ or ‘UPSC jihad’. The community is routinely targeted to deflect attention from other administrative issues,” says Bhopal-based advocate Deepak Bundele, who has routinely petitioned the NHRC on alleged ‘love jihad’ cases.Members of the community have also challenged the cases in court. “Under what law have the gym owners been arrested in Mirzapur,” asks Anas Tanwir, founder of the Indian Civil Liberties Union. The Supreme Court is reviewing the Gangsters Act used in the case, but Tanwir says that despite earlier rulings that allegations alone are insufficient grounds for arrest, youth remain in jail for indefinite periods.In north Delhi’s Wazirabad, Sultan Shaikh insists his gym is “not a battleground in the culture wars”. He has run GS Fitness, a neighbourhood gym, for five-six years. His Instagram reels mix workout clips with messages against violence, hate and vandalism, and draws on Hindu religious values. “People hear rumours, then they go shouting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and vandalise places. I tell them to first understand what Ram actually stood for.”The response is often hostile. “People comment asking if I’m running a madrasa or a temple in the name of a gym,” he says. But Shaikh insists that “all this ‘gym jihad’ nonsense is political tactics.”Yet gym-goers like Prachi, a Pune-based fitness enthusiast, proudly says her gym does not hire Muslim trainers. “That makes me feel safe,” says the 35-year-old IT professional, who also recounts how her husband’s friend “saved” a cousin in Vidarbha from a Muslim gym trainer after they had an affair. “When a Hindu trainer misbehaves with a Hindu girl in a gym, at least there is no added fear of conversion, right?”
