Held since 2020, India’s most prominent political prisoner has become a symbol of repression under the Modi regime
“T
here is indeed something about captivity that makes one feel like a state of somewhere between life and death,” wrote Umar Khalid in June in a letter penned as his fifth year languishing behind bars approached.
Few understand the purgatory of jail like Khalid. For five years – since his arrest in September 2020 under a draconian terrorism law – he has remained India’s most prominent political prisoner, to many a potent symbol of the systematic crushing of dissent under the dominant Hindu nationalist regime of the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
This month the Delhi high court became the latest to deny the bail pleas of Khalid and his alleged co-conspirators. His bail case is now with the supreme court, where a hearing was delayed again on Friday. In the meantime he has remained detained in Delhi’s notorious Tihar jail without a conviction to his name.
