Is India silencing student activist Umar Khalid?

Supporters of Indian student activist Umar Khalid hope a court hearing in Delhi next week will bring some answers to his fate.

Khalid has been kept behind bars without bail or trial for four years, accused of orchestrating deadly riots during anti-government protests in 2020.

His supporters claim the government is trying to silence 37-year-old Khalid over his continued dissent against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The riots in 2020 were sparked by widespread anger over legislation put forward by Modi's government called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which critics condemned as discriminatory against Muslims. 

Khalid, a civil rights activist and student leader from Delhi's prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), emerged as a leading voice of dissent against the CAA.  

The CAA allows for an easier path to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

"We will fight this with a smile and non-violence," Khalid was quoted as saying when the protests began in February 2020.

However, over 50 people were killed, the majority of them Muslims, in clashes between anti-CAA protesters and counter protesters.

A citizenship bill sparked violent protests in 2020Image: Javed Sultan/AA/picture alliance

Four years, no bail, no trial

Since his arrest in September 2020, Khalid has been held in New Delhi's high-security Tihar Jail. He faces charges of sedition and multiple offenses under India's strict Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a controversial anti-terror law that permits extended detention until a trial is completed. 

In Khalid's case, the trial has not formally started. 

Lower courts rejected his bail hearing three times, and India's Supreme Court has postponed his bail application 14 times in four years.  

The activist has maintained his innocence throughout, saying he only took part in peaceful protests.  

It did not help that Khalid was already on the authorities' radar.

He was first charged with sedition in 2016 for protesting the 2013 hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri member of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed who was convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament.

Security laws in focus

Enacted in 1967, the UAPA was designed to prevent activities that threaten India's sovereignty, integrity, and security.  

More recently, it has increasingly replaced the colonial-era sedition law that is still part of India's penal code.  

However, critics argue that Prime Minister Modi's ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP uses the UAPA to target dissidents and activists, effectively curbing freedom of speech.

"The UAPA is a repressive law … The government, judiciary, and state forces are complicit," said Angana Chatterji, an Indian activist and founding chair of the "Political Conflict, Gender and People's Rights" research initiative at the University of California, Berkeley.

"To be critical of the state and the government is a non-derogable right. It is not an act of sedition. It is the exercise of citizenship," she told DW.

Analyzing data from India's National Crime Records Bureau reveals a steady rise in UAPA cases from 2014 to 2022, with a noticeable spike in 2019.

Based on the available data, especially BJP-ruled states like Assam, Manipur, and Uttar Pradesh have shown a consistent rise in UAPA arrests during the period from 2020 to 2022.  

"The UAPA was really designed to deal with genuine security threats to the state," said Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

"Few of the cases that have been lodged against particular individuals, in my judgment, meet that standard," he told DW.  

'Systemic bias' against Muslims in India?

Indian political scientist Zeenat Ansari sees Khalid's case as "a microcosm of the systemic biases Muslims face in India today." 

''I strongly feel that Umar Khalid is being treated unfairly, and it deeply pains me to see how this injustice seems rooted in his identity as a Muslim and his outspoken political views," she told DW.

However, Jamal Siddique, National President of the BJP's committee for minorities, denies that the government is silencing young Muslim dissenters to prevent them from becoming future community leaders. 

"In India, the law is the same for everyone regardless of class, caste or religion. UAPA is a law that is only applied to those who want to destabilize India," he told DW.  

Siddique added that Khalid has described himself as "a communist and not a practicing Muslim… and if he is not a practicing Muslim, how can he be persecuted for being a Muslim?" 

Khalid's parents had indeed shared in an interview that their son identifies as an atheist, rather than a Muslim.  

Political scientist Ansari is aware of Khalid's dissociation from his Muslim identity but believes it doesn't matter. 

"It feels as though the message is clear: Muslims are not allowed to raise their voices, even if it is to demand justice or uphold constitutional values," she said.  

Muslims comprise 14.2% of India's population. However, in the recently concluded general elections, only 24 Muslim MPs were elected, representing just 4.4% of the total strength of Parliament.

"By silencing voices like Umar Khalid's, the government isn't just targeting individuals— it's erasing an entire community's ability to advocate for itself," Ansari said.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn