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Indian Express
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Ali Khan Mahmudabad — an arrest and its sub-stories
My first response to the impugned and famous MEA press conference, which featured Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri flanked by Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, was one of astonished admiration. What a masterstroke that was — two military women, one Hindu and one Muslim, spelling out the official take on the punitive response to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. The terrorists had made a point of identifying Hindu males for murder — an explicitly jihadi variant on the slaughter, and a direct assault on India's constitutionally secular aspiration. In a spectacular act of retrieval, after an impressive display of military prowess on the battlefield, secular India was reporting through two women, Hindu and Muslim. Of course, I realised, in that same moment of admiration, that this was tokenism, but it was inspired tokenism, a masterstroke of cosmetic image management — of 'optics', to use the word so curiously abhorrent to Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women. The French wit, La Rochefoucauld, famously declared that 'hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue'. Even in the act of hypocritical performance, of pretending to 'virtue', an awareness of something better is implicitly acknowledged. However, to get beyond mere optics, there would have to be some mode of acknowledging the contribution that Muslims make — and have made, through the centuries — to national life, towards the making of 'our' civilisation. And there would have to be some recognition of the grievous wrongs that have been done to Muslims, individually and collectively, over the years. Over the years, I say, but done with particular intensity in the decades since 2002. Acknowledge, and then address, the criminal acts that have been perpetrated — lynchings, murders, the broadcast brutalities. And beyond that acknowledgment, there is need to abjure the strategies of exclusion, whereby a significant demographic of the national population is disenfranchised and crippled. This is, incidentally, a suicidal strategy from the point of view of the great god Vikas. Any strategy that produces a permanent state of sub-critical civil war can only be bad economics, and it amazes me that the corporate sponsors of the present dispensation cannot see this. Meanwhile, we are dealing with the scandalous business of the arrest of Ali Khan Mahmudabad — ostensibly for saying merely that which has to be the common response of all moderately sentient people, Muslim as well as Hindu: That Muslims contribute more to our national life than merely to make tactically inspired appearances in press conferences. And it is time that 'we' started to make amends for the shoddy and even criminal ways in which 'they' have been, and are being, treated — and not remain content with mere tokenism. To say this — and Mahmudabad seems, on a bare reading of his posts, to have not done much more — is not, as the honourable Supreme Court says, 'doing communal politics'. It is offering, as a responsible citizen, friendly advice to the state, to recover the secular credibility that it has squandered. As I see it, there are two clear villains that may be identified in this sorry and still unfolding episode. The first of these is, appropriately, Jawaharlal Nehru. After all, it is because of the Nehruvians' insistence on universal suffrage in the Constituent Assembly, and because of the consequent deepening of the reach of democracy — in a country that was, sceptics argued, largely illiterate — that the problem has cropped up in the first place. We are confronted by the Nehruvian generations' — our — failure to create the cultures of democratic citizenship in a constitutional republic that is gambling with universal franchise in a postcolonial country that is barely literate, and riven with deep social fractures. Time and again, we are made conscious of this absent culture, particularly when it appears joined together with widespread access to political and state power. However, let me quickly add, for fear of being misunderstood, that the remedy for this defect is not less democracy, but more education in democratic citizenship. The other clear villain is English. Mahmudabad is damned by his very fluency, correlated as it inevitably is with immense class privilege. While Bhatia grapples with 'optics', the sarpanch claims to have overheard something of which we have only his garbled version. Certainly, there is nothing offensive or incriminating in Mahmudabad's published words. And since my distinguished lords of the Supreme Court also seem to suspect some linguistic skullduggery, I suggest with all respect that some English language experts be inducted into the investigative process. It was suggested that Mahmudabad had indulged in 'dog whistling'. Dog whistling is used to describe speech that conveys meanings to select demographics at frequencies that are inaudible to most people. But in Mahmudabad's particularly straightforward words, I was hard put to identify either the dog or the whistle. Unless, that is, Mahmudabad's words conveyed something that was audible only to Bhatia and the sarpanch of Jathedi. As against those who argue that English — relatively widespread English competence — is a great national asset, I have long argued that the presence of English in India is, at best, a mixed curse. English is, unquestionably, strongly correlated with power and privilege. It is, for that very reason, a locus of suspicion and anxiety for those who lack it. But for all that, the English-deprived still have access to real power, occupy positions of influence — as indeed they should. The most innocent explanation for the matter currently at hand — the alleged 'offence' for which Mahmudabad is to be investigated — is that it is simply a linguistic misunderstanding, easily cleared up by people who are competent in English, even if they are not senior IPS officers. But if his offence, in the eyes of some people, is that of merely being the kind of person who is fluent in English, that is an 'offence' he cannot undo. Indeed, as someone who has been an English teacher for over 40 years, I am crushed by a sense of the 'offenders' I might have produced over the decades. (The writer taught at the Department of English, Delhi University)
The Hindu
24-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Gender Agenda newsletter: Ma-behen-beti-bahu
Ma-behen-beti-bahu Around the time that Banu Mushtaq and her translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize 2025 for Heart Lamp, a collection of stories in Kannada, several other events took place in India. On May 18, two days before the Booker win, Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an associate professor of political science in what was marketed as India's first liberal-arts higher-education institution, was booked for social media posts that Renu Bhatia, the chairperson for the Haryana State Commission for Women, had a problem with, because it 'disparaged women officers in the armed forces'. Bhatia gave interviews speaking about 'desh ki beti' being wronged. Many students and colleagues came out in Mahmudabad's support. The other event was the inclusion of journalist-turned-politician M.J. Akbar in a multi-party delegation sent off to Europe, to represent India's stance post the Pahalgam terrorist attack and Operation Sindoor. The Network of Women in Media, India, condemned this in a statement, saying, 'Many women journalists who said they had been subjected to predatory behaviour, sexual harassment and/or assault by MJ Akbar over the years, spoke out during India's #MeToo movement around 2018, with at least 20 women ready to testify against him.' He had also lost a 'defamation case he filed against one of his accusers'. The third was Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, whose bio on social media platform X says he makes 'Genghis Khan look like a humanitarian', called women journalists of Newslaundry 'prostitutes' and their workplace a 'brothel'. Nine journalists from Newslaundry took him to court, and the Delhi High Court asked him to take the posts down. Each is representative of where India stands on gender right now: Mushtaq's book is a subtle commentary on women who are unheard; Bhatia's FIR is illustrative of how a woman can misuse power thrown to her by male bosses; Akbar's inclusion in a peace mission based on tragic losses suffered by women is India's ruling party telling us that in some cases, even optics don't matter. As for Iyer-Mitra, the venom he believed he could get away with speaks of a larger patriarchal structure that attempts to drag women down. Women speak in different voices: Mushtaq's subtle narratives of unheard, pushed-aside women in her book; Bhatia's ventriloquist voice mouthing the words of male bosses; NWMI's statement stemming from collective might; the women of Newslaundry who used the force of education, employment, and the knowledge of their rights, to call out Iyer-Mitra's statements as 'defamatory, false, malicious and unsubstantiated'. All the voices are fuelled by patriarchy, three of them a cry against the violence it brings; one, a reflection on where India is today. The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap 2024 puts India at 129 of 146 countries: 112 on education, 142 in economic participation, 142 on health and survival. Toolkit Students at Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology have developed a 'toolbox to boost gender inclusion'. The Genie Action Toolbox is a set of five potential areas people are likely to encounter challenges: meeting, recruitment, harassment, conflict resolution, community building. Users can query the system that will suggest solutions. Wordsworth Gender-responsive Group policies or activities that acknowledge the barriers to gender quality. These could be familial, cultural, system, or structural, and they often define gender roles. They create an environment that takes on-ground realities into consideration while planning. Last week, the Observer Research Foundation put out an article that spoke about how as India moves from coal-based to renewable energy, 'skill development in coal-dependent regions can support a more equitable transition.' Somewhere someone said something stupid I'm not a feminist really…. I can never believe that we have to fight the men, because every woman's issue is a man's issue, and if we can't fight together it's not worth it, for me it's not worth it.... Usha Uthup, musician Woman we met Hema Nayal, 40, runs a bangles-bindis-barrettes store in the village of Bhatelia in Uttarakhand's Nainital district. She remembers starting in September 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. 'All the shops were shut but women still wanted a few cosmetics. So I put in about ₹2,000, sourced the choodi-bindi from Haldwani (the closest city) and started selling out of home. When everything opened, my husband suggested I rent a place in the market,' she says. Nayal has a full day. She starts her morning with household chores: cooking, seeing her children (a 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son) off to school, cutting grass for the cows. Then she heads to her job as a helper in the Anganwadi, coming in to her little triangular-shaped store that can just about seat two, by about 2 p.m. 'Kuch hi auraten hain yahan jo apne liye bhi jee rahe hain,' (There are only women here who also live for themselves), she says.
India Today
23-05-2025
- Politics
- India Today
My Name is Khan: Whither Justice in ‘New' India?
A few weeks ago, I broadcast a contentious video blog, 'My Name is Rahim Khan,' to reflect upon what it meant to be an Indian Muslim in the age of Hindutva political dominance. I was instantly targeted by the Hindu Right ecosystem, which accused me of falsely portraying Muslim 'victimhood' to escape confronting the real problem of rising Islamic extremism. In hindsight, maybe I got the blog name wrong: I should have titled the video blog, 'My Name is Ali Khan Mahmudabad'.advertisementThe recent arrest of the Ashoka University professor of political science for an opinionated Facebook post reveals all that is horribly wrong with a political establishment that has pushed the Indian Muslim to the wall. Ali Khan Mahmudabad's 'crime' was that he had chosen to express himself on Operation Sindoor by questioning what he saw as the hypocrisy of the right-wing commentariat in celebrating the presence of Colonel Sofiya Qureshi in the government's media outreach on the Indo-Pak conflict.'I am very happy to see so many right-wing commentators applauding Colonel Qureshi, but perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the BJP's hate-mongering be protected as Indian citizens. The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is important but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it's just hypocrisy,' his Facebook post Khan was effectively drawing a distinction between Colonel Qureshi as a token symbol of 'secularism' and the ground reality of growing discrimination against Indian Muslims. It was a sharp personal critique of the Modi government, but could it be perceived as an 'act endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India' or indeed, 'word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman'? Since when did criticism of the government, however provocative, become 'criminalised' to the point where it attracts immediate arrest merely on a complaint by a village sarpanch who is a BJP Yuva Morcha worker, or indeed a notice sent by the Haryana State Commission for Women?When asked in a television interview to show how exactly Ali Khan had 'insulted the modesty of a woman', the Haryana State Commission for Women chief Renu Bhatia was clueless, struggling to offer a coherent explanation for any offending line. It was obvious that the Haryana State Commission for Women, like many a 'sarkari' institution, had simply jumped the gun under 'official' instructions to send a notice to the professor. Aided by a complicit and ham-handed Haryana Police, there was clearly no attempt to follow due process or even a pretense at protecting an individual's right to life and case raises several troubling questions. The first is the brazen abuse of power to curb free speech. This is not an isolated case. Almost every government, be it in the State or Centre across parties, uses its executive authority and total control over the police to muzzle dissenting how a Marathi actor, Ketaki Chitale, faced arrest in 2022 for allegedly sharing a derogatory post about NCP chief Sharad Pawar on social media. Or how the DMK government in Tamil Nadu was silent when Savukku Shankar, a YouTuber and vocal critic of the ruling party, was targeted when a 'group' entered his house and dumped sewage and excreta inside. Or how a Kolkata professor was charged with forwarding a Mamata Banerjee cartoon and eventually discharged only eleven years after his arrest. In a sense, the Indian political system has embraced the dictum of the infamous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was once quoted as saying, 'There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.'Sadly, most state governments have only taken a cue from the Centre, where sedition laws in particular have been 'weaponised' to ensure that any criticism of the Modi government can easily be equated with 'anti-national' not only is the law being 'weaponised' to curb free speech, its application is wholly selective. Which raises the second urgent concern. Who comes under the purview of the law is dependent entirely on the whims and fancies of the power contrast the case of Ali Khan with that of Vijay Shah, a Madhya Pradesh minister, who made the most disparaging, sexist and communally-loaded remarks against Colonel Qureshi. Instead of sacking the minister or at the very least publicly upbraiding him, the BJP leadership in Madhya Pradesh rallied around their colleague. The Centre was conspicuously silent while the minister gave a token apology. It required the high court to insist that a suo motu FIR be filed against the minister and for the Supreme Court to describe his remarks as a 'national shame'. And while a court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been formed to 'investigate' the minister's remarks, the Madhya Pradesh police didn't swoop in to arrest the minister as was the case in Delhi with Ali is why there is a third and more pressing issue that underlies the Ali Khan case. A professor with a doctoral degree from Cambridge University and impeccable academic credentials, Khan has one red mark on his CV: he is an Indian Muslim who is unafraid to speak his mind. That he comes from the erstwhile Mahmudabad royal family and his grandfather, Mohammed Aamir Ahmad Khan, was a key figure in the pre-Partition Muslim League makes him the perfect 'enemy' figure for a Hindutva-driven ecosystem whose prime objective it to 'demonise' the Indian Muslim as 'unpatriotic', pro-Pakistani and of questionable character. An opposition leader or an opinion page writer who is not a Muslim can get away by raising questions on Operation Sindoor, an articulate Indian Muslim does not have the same is why Ali Khan finds himself on the wrong side of the law. His 'crime', like that of so many other Indian Muslims facing the wrath of state impunity and discrimination, is not that he said anything that could be deemed violative of any law of the land; his 'crime' is that he is an Indian Muslim who is an outspoken critic of the present the other hand, a Vijay Shah can make communal remarks that prima facie violate the law, but he will remain untouched because he is after all, a leading member of the ruling party. That is the difference when your surname is Shah and not Khan: apology in one case, arrest in the other. That is 'new' The Supreme Court, while granting interim bail to Ali Khan, has appointed a SIT to look into his Facebook posts. Just what the SIT can 'investigate' is unclear. What is clear is that we seem to have a number of unemployed cops and a judicial system where the process is the punishment.(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior journalist and author. His latest book is 2024: The Election That Surprised India)(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Tune InMust Watch
Indian Express
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
SC grants interim bail to Ashoka University professor, but calls his remarks on Op Sindoor ‘dog whistling'
Ashoka University Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad Bail: The Supreme Court Wednesday granted interim bail to associate professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad of Sonipat-based Ashoka University, days after he was arrested over his remarks allegedly disparaging women officers in the Indian Armed Forces and promoting communal disharmony. The top court, however, called the professor's social media post 'dog whistling'. A Bench comprising Chief Justice of India B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih, however, refused to stay the investigation and directed the DGP of Haryana to set up 3-member special investigation team. Mahmudabad was arrested on May 18 after two FIRs were lodged under stringent charges, including endangering sovereignty and integrity, for his social media posts over Operation Sindoor. He was produced before a local court in Sonipat on May 18 and was remanded in police custody for two days in a case registered on a complaint from the Haryana State Commission for Women (HSCW) filed a day before. The HSCW recently sent a notice to him questioning the remarks, though Mahmudabad maintained they were 'misunderstood' and underscored his fundamental right to freedom of speech. Haryana Police said the two FIRs were lodged at the Rai Police Station in Sonipat — one based on a complaint from the chairperson of Haryana State Commission for Women, Renu Bhatia, and the other on the complaint of a village sarpanch.
Indian Express
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Today in Politics: SC to hear Ashoka University professor's plea against arrest over remarks on Op Sindoor
The Supreme Court on Wednesday may hear Ashoka University faculty Ali Khan Mahmumabad against his arrest for social media posts on Operation Sindoor. A Bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih on Monday noted the submissions of senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the associate professor, and said the plea would come up on Tuesday or Wednesday. 'He has been arrested for a patriotic statement. Please list it during the day,' Sibal insisted. Mahmudabad was arrested on May 18 after two FIRs were lodged under stringent charges, including endangering sovereignty and integrity, for his social media posts over Operation Sindoor. He was produced before a local court in Sonipat on May 18 and was remanded in police custody for two days in a case registered on a complaint from the Haryana State Commission for Women (HSCW) filed a day before. The HSCW recently sent a notice to him questioning the remarks, though Mahmudabad maintained they were 'misunderstood' and underscored his fundamental right to freedom of speech. Haryana Police said the two FIRs were lodged at the Rai Police Station in Sonipat — one based on a complaint from the chairperson of Haryana State Commission for Women, Renu Bhatia, and the other on the complaint of a village sarpanch. Congress to hold Tiranga Yatra in Maharashtra The Congress will organise a 'Tiranga Yatra' in Maharashtra on Wednesday, the death anniversary of former PM Rajiv Gandhi, to mark the success of Operation Sindoor and express solidarity with all 'martyrs', including Mahatma Gandhi and the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack. State Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal also sought an explanation from the Modi government for reaching an agreement with Pakistan amid a military confrontation. The BJP has organised its own Tiranga Yatras to mark the success of Operation Sindoor. 'Indian soldiers performed a glorious act of bravery in Operation Sindoor. To salute their courage and express solidarity with all martyrs, from Mahatma Gandhi to those killed in the Pahalgam attack, Congress will organise a Tiranga Yatra across all districts of Maharashtra on May 21,' Sapkal told reporters. He reiterated the Congress' demand to convene a special session of Parliament to discuss events after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor launched by the Indian armed forces against terrorists. Sapkal said the sudden decision to initiate a 'ceasefire' when Indian armed forces were dealing a blow to Pakistan has raised several questions. SC to hear plea seeking FIR against Yashwant Varma The Supreme Court is likely to hear a plea seeking an FIR against Allahabad High Court judge, Justice Yashwant Varma in connection with the cash discovery row. A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih took note of the submission of lawyer and petitioner Mathews Nedumpara, and said that if defects are cured then it can be listed for hearing Tuesday. 'It can be listed tomorrow if defects (in the petition) are cured,' the CJI said. Nedumpara said he would remove defects, if any, from the petition and urged the bench that it be listed on Wednesday as he is unavailable on Tuesday. The bench agreed to list it on Wednesday provided defects are cured. After an in-house inquiry panel indicted the judge, the then CJI Sanjiv Khanna had nudged Justice Varma to resign. The then CJI wrote to President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Justice Varma refused to resign. Dhankhar to visit Mormugao port Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar will visit Mormugao Port on Wednesday and interact with senior management and staff at Vasco town in South Goa. He will also meet senior Indian Coast Guard officers on board a coast guard ship. The Vice-president arrived in Goa on Tuesday for a three-day visit. – With PTI inputs
