In a remote Adivasi village in Madhya Pradesh, a self-funded youth collective called HOWL spent four years building schools, water systems, and health services—until an attack by a mob of Hindutva extremists, false conversion charges, and police custody shattered their work. As the group’s founder sits in jail and members scatter, their story reveals the growing threat to grassroots activism in tribal India: smear campaigns, vigilante violence, and the misuse of new laws to criminalise care.