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

His supporters say the government is trying to silence Khalid, 37, because of his continued dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

The 2020 riots were sparked by widespread anger over legislation introduced 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 at Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), has emerged as a leading voice of dissent against the CAA.

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

“We will fight this with a smile and without violence,” Khalid was quoted as saying when the protests began in February 2020.

However, more than 50 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in clashes between anti-CAA protesters and counter-protesters.

Four years, no bail, no trial

Since his arrest in September 2020, Khalid has been held in the high-security Tihar Jail in New Delhi. He faces charges of sedition and multiple offenses under the Indian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a controversial anti-terror law that allows for prolonged detention pending trial.

In Khalid’s case, the trial has not officially begun.

Lower courts have rejected his bail hearing three times and India’s Supreme Court has delayed his bail application 14 times in four years.

The activist maintained his innocence throughout, saying he was only participating in peaceful protests.

It didn’t 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 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 the sovereignty, integrity and security of India.

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

However, critics say the Hindu-nationalist BJP, led by Prime Minister Modi, is using the UAPA to target dissidents and activists, effectively curtailing freedom of expression.

“The UAPA is a repressive law… The government, judiciary and state forces are complicit,” said Angana Chatterji, Indian activist and founding chair of the Political Conflict, Gender and Human Rights Research Initiative at the University of California, Berkeley. .

“To be critical of the state and the government is a right that cannot be waived. It is not an act of sedition. It is the exercise of citizenship,” she told DW.

Analysis of data from India’s National Crime Records Bureau reveals a steady increase in UAPA cases from 2014 to 2022, with a noticeable increase in 2019.

Based on available data, especially BJP-ruled states like Assam, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh have shown a steady increase in UAPA arrests during 2020-2022.

“UAPA was really designed to deal with real threats to state security,” said Sumit Ganguly, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

“Few of the cases that have been filed against certain people, in my opinion, meet that standard,” he told DW.

‘Systemic prejudice’ against Muslims in India?

Indian political scientist Zeenat Ansari sees Khalid’s case as “a microcosm of the systemic prejudice facing Muslims in India today.”

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

However, Jamal Siddique, the national president of the BJP’s minority committee, denies that the government is silencing dissident Muslim youth to prevent them from becoming future community leaders.

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

Siddique added that Khalid 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 have indeed said 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 thinks it doesn’t matter.

“It seems 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 make up 14.2% of India’s population. However, in the recently concluded general elections, only 24 Muslim MPs were elected, representing only 4.4% of the total strength of the Parliament.

“By silencing voices like Umar Khalid’s, the government is not just targeting individuals, it is erasing the ability of an entire community to stand up for itself,” Ansari said.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn