Political prisoners mirror of India’s democracy: Book on Umar Khalid cites Khurram Parvez, others
New Delhi: The true measure of a democracy lies not in parliament’s pomp or election spectacles, but in how it treats dissenters, says a new book on jailed activist Umar Khalid, quoted by TheWire.in.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the book holds up political prisoners as “a mirror to the State itself,” tracing Khalid’s incarceration alongside cases of Kashmiri rights activist Khurram Parvez, Suneeta Potam of Chhattisgarh, Surendra Gadling of the BK-16, and workers arrested in the Noida protests.
Quoting historian Dr. Ramchandra Guha’s essay in the book, TheWire.in reported: “I must note that he is one of many fine, upright men and women, who are languishing in jail under dubious charges hastily filed by the police under orders from their political masters. Some of these Indians are also scholars and researchers.
Others are social workers and civil society activists, who have in their life and work shown themselves to be steadfastly committed to non-violence and the founding values of the Indian Constitution. It is this commitment to pluralism and democracy and perhaps nothing else that has made them fall foul of the authoritarian and majoritarian tendencies of the ruling regime.”
The report also cites novelist Milan Kundera: “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forging.” It says the Indian State uses prisons “not merely as an institution of confinement, but one of erasure of public conscience itself,” seeking to “delegitimise political struggles and, by locking those who speak the truth away, sever dissent and resistance from our public memory.”
In his 2016 JNU speech quoted in the book, Umar Khalid had said: “They fear us… They fear our struggles and they fear us because we think.” Rights observers in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir say the treatment of political prisoners like Khurram Parvez reflects New Delhi’s attempt to silence dissent in the territory and across India.
