<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/30/umar-khalid-interview-six-years-indian-jail-without-trial-modi-opposition-political-prisoner>
"Prison is hardest at sunset. As the thousands of prisoners incarcerated in
Delhi’s most infamous jail are cast out of their cells and forced into the dank
yard until darkness falls, prisoner number 626714 feels the punishing dread
begin to rise.
Yet the inmate – better known as Umar Khalid – was recently moved to discover
that another political prisoner, exiled at a camp thousands of miles from
India, wrote of the very same feeling more than 150 years ago.
“Even Dostoevsky refers to this state of mind at sunset in his prison memoir,”
said Khalid, in his first interview since he was jailed in 2020. “I guess maybe
it is because it starts sinking in that another day of your life has been spent
in captivity.”
Outside the walls of Tihar prison, there are few in India who do not know
Khalid’s name. He rose to prominence over the past decade, first as a fiery
student activist and then the face of anti-government protests that swept the
country in 2019, the first major challenge to the government of Narendra Modi.
By September 2020, he had been arrested and jailed as a terrorist, accused of
being a “key conspirator” in deadly religious riots in Delhi and of conspiring
to bring about “violent regime change”.
TV anchors still spit his name on nightly news shows, calling him a Muslim
terrorist and an anti-national. Leftwing activists shout his name at protests
and wear T-shirts bearing his face.
For rights groups and activists, Khalid has come to epitomise the crackdown on
dissent under Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has ruled for 12 years
and stands accused of weaponising the judicial system to go after opponents.
Khalid, a Muslim and leftwing rights activist, is a particularly fierce critic
of the BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda, which seeks to turn India from a secular
country into a Hindu nation. He has accused the Modi government of fuelling the
harassment and persecution of the country’s 200 million Muslims as well as
other minorities. The BJP has repeatedly denied all allegations of religious
discrimination.
International human rights groups have widely condemned Khalid’s nearly six
years in jail without trial as unjust. New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, sent
him a handwritten note to express his solidarity, prompting an enraged response
from the Indian government. The BJP maintains that India’s judicial system is
independent and that Khalid’s prosecution is not connected to politics.
Due to the conditions of his incarceration, the
Guardian could not meet
Khalid for this interview, so the questions and answers were conveyed via
family and friends."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
