Harsh Mander: The message from the persecution of Ali Khan Mahmudabad

Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad today mercifully walks free. But I am able to draw only limited solace from his conditional and fragile freedom. He continues to be charged with dire crimes against the nation and social harmony. He was subjected to severe verbal censure by India’s highest court for “dog-whistling”, for his “choice of words” and for seeking “cheap publicity”.

Worse, the court thought it fit to appoint a team of three police officers to exhume the true meaning behind his social media tweets that overtly called for social equity and peace. He has been silenced by the court from commenting publicly on the hostilities between India and Pakistan that rose after the brutal terror attack on tourists in Kashmir.

His conspicuous targeting by the heavy arm of the establishment and investigation for any covert “dog-whistles” in his posts that called for peace raise many troubling questions. About the character of the Indian state, about the withering of its democracy, about the contested space of the university, about the narrowing freedoms of the liberal intellectual, about the perils of calling for peace and social equity during times of valorised military aggression, about the dilemmas of empowering the state to regulate free speech. Perhaps most somberly...

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