Nation-making is a metonymic act. Some aspects of the nation easily stand for the whole, while others are deemed exceptions.
– M.S.S. Pandian
Many years ago, in what seems like a different country, Umar and I sat together for the M.A. History lectures in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We were taught by redoubtable historians who happened to be on our faculty. For most of them, history was seldom about the past. It was often a metaphor for the present.
History could radiate hope for the future, or even send across a warning. A stray riot in a late 19th century North Indian qasbah contained lessons for what the country could eventually become. A 20th century workers’ strike that defied both British threats and nationalist requests for moderation was a lesson on how people made history.
Neither Umar nor I were happy to merely study the past. Interpreting the world was not enough, change was necessary. As a budding academic and a student activist, Umar was especially eager to give voice to people who lived under state repression in ‘zones of exception’: Bastar, Manipur, Kashmir, ‘Naxal-affected’ areas of Jharkhand, and others.
Umar consistently demanded accountability from the state, and respect and recognition for the lives and struggles of people on the margins. Umar’s location as a Muslim in Hindu majority (though not yet overtly and unabashedly majoritarian) India put him at a unique vantage point to understand the struggles of those whose loyalties to the nation was suspect in the eyes of the state.
I had known of Umar before I met him. His sister was my batchmate in St. Stephen’s College. She had told me that she had a brother who was into History and wanted to do a Ph.D. She was the one who introduced us during our college days and I was glad to have him as a classmate in JNU. We easily bonded over our shared interest in Subaltern Studies, Left politics, the conundrums of Indian democracy, cricket, a range of departmental activities, and our mutual dislike for apolitical intellectualism.
After class chit-chats, chai pe charcha during public meetings and other political gatherings, were full of fun, laughter and passionate arguments. Both of us were a touch removed from electoral politics on campus, which perhaps shielded our friendship from its vicissitudes. I was drawn towards working class politics in the surrounding industrial areas, and Umar would always enquire about the emerging trends there.
Once the M.A. days were over, our meetings became less frequent. A close affinity had however been cemented. Never a fan of the elitist aspects of my college, and rightly so, he once complimented me through his younger sister who happened to be my college junior, ‘Akash is one of the few good products of your college!’
A similar life decision after our M.Phil. ensured a lasting bond between us. We belonged to an increasingly small tribe of students who chose to remain in JNU for their Ph.D. research rather than seek academic careers abroad. We both wished to remain politically engaged in India, and to take up the fight against a rapidly advancing fascism. ‘It’s finally settled,’ he said with his trademark grin. ‘We are the bhoomiputras of JNU!’ Bhoomiputras (sons of soil) or not, I was indeed happy that our association continued.
As improbable as it may sound in these gloomy times, one of our key takeaways from those long lectures and tutorial discussions on History was that history is open-ended. It could be made and unmade by ordinary people. Indeed, despite the Delhi pogrom and the COVID-19 pandemic which summarily ended the vibrant protests against the majoritarian and discriminatory citizenship laws enshrined in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Umar and his fellow protestors had some astonishing achievements in their bags.
The protests re-energised India’s flagging democratic spirit and gave it new dimensions. Muslims spoke as Muslims and for India on an unprecedented scale. Muslim women led and we the people followed. Barriers erected brick by brick since 1947 and walls heightened since 1992 began to collapse. Political forces, which want to erect permanent walls between communities, felt threatened. They put the leaders in jail. Umar was one of the many, but a significant one, for he had been threatened before and yet he had refused to stay quiet.
Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya. Photo: PTI/ Vijay Verma
In 2016, he and his friends had dared to question a Supreme Court verdict. There was nothing extraordinary about it. It wasn’t the first time someone had questioned the courts or the government in an Indian university campus. This event however got unusual and politically motivated media coverage. The ensuing media trial gave us an icon in the form of Ravish Kumar and a bete noir in the form of Arnab Goswami, and it gave the government an enemy: Umar Khalid.
The subsequent ordeal did not hold him back from voicing his protest against the CAA/NRC.
The colorful nation-wide protests were followed by an apocalyptic horror show in Delhi. Armed militias wreaked havoc in North East Delhi and the police quickly blamed the protestors for it. They put together a case against so-called outsiders who had supposedly colluded with some local people to orchestrate the violence. Citizens who had participated in the protests in an attempt to build solidarities across social locations against the rampaging majoritarianism now faced terror charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
I had spoken to Umar a few days before he was detained. I had called him to ask about the possibilities of his arrest. ‘They are standing with the knife next to my throat – neither slashing my throat, nor retreating’, he had said. The blow indeed came a few days later. Gulfisha Fatima, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, Sharjeel Imam and others had already been arrested. The state took longer to arrest Umar, presumably to give itself some room to collate charges that could potentially imprison him for a while.
I was teaching at Azim Premji University at that time. I started speaking to my students frequently about all these friends who were lodged in jail. On 11 October 2021, the students organized a candle-light vigil demanding the release of the anti-CAA/NRC activists and the repeal of repressive laws like UAPA. In what turned out to be a landmark event that set the tone for student activism in the new University campus, hundreds of students marched across the campus following the vigil chanting the names of our incarcerated friends. When called upon to speak, I duly reminded the students and my colleagues that our friends were behind bars because they had dared to back their beliefs with action.
True to his convictions, Umar has refused to be quiet even after his arrest. He has spoken on behalf of all Indian dissenters across caste, creed and religion; carrying his community identity as a symbol of empowerment, assertion and unity; and not of subjugation, slavery and division. He has spoken on the politicisation of religion but not only on the politicization of religion, but also on Adivasi rights, caste atrocities, economic policies and so on. He has refused to stand only for the part that he has been allocated by the Hindu majoritarian state. He has dared to stand for the whole.
Meanwhile, the absurd police cases have dragged on. Jail, rather than bail, seems to have become the norm for the incarcerated dissenters, much like those put behind bars in the Elgar Parishad case and many other lesser-known cases targeting Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims. Gulfisha’s bail order has been reserved since February this year. Umar’s bail hearing has been adjourned time and again, the latest being a four-week adjournment on 14 September.
A few months ago, I read that Umar wondered how our country had turned the wrong way so quickly. I too wonder how it all happened. But we both know that it did not happen in a day. We could see it coming during our formative years. I first visited Umar’s house with his sister who wanted to share with us the stories of intimidation and trauma that the neighbourhood was subjected to after the Batla House encounter. In those days we slowly realised that Indian democracy was far from perfect and needed urgent course-corrections; Umar perhaps realised it much earlier.
It will indeed take a long time to right what has gone wrong. It will be a long, hard road but I would like to believe that many people in our generation are prepared for the long march. Freedom for Umar and all other political prisoners, and the repeal of repressive laws like UAPA, will be important steps in our journey. Umar’s release will give us back a friend, and simultaneously strengthen our collective quest for freedom and democracy.
Dr. Akash Bhattacharya, former faculty member of Azim Premji University, Bangalore, is a historian and a political activist affiliated to CPI-ML (Liberation). He was Umar Khalid’s batchmate in JNU from 2009 to 2018.
