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Bengaluru: Actor Prakash Raj has said that incarcerated activist Umar Khalid was standing and fighting for everyone in the country, and his imprisonment symbolised resistance against a society \u201cturning into a prison\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, Prakash Raj made the remarks during a panel discussion and reading of excerpts from a book titled \u2018Umar Khalid and His World\u2019 at the Bangalore International Centre (BIC).<\/p>\n
The panel also included writer-historian Ramachandra Guha and historian Janaki Nair.<\/p>\n
Actor and public intellectual Prakash Raj, during a discussion on the book ‘Umar Khalid and His World’ at the Bangalore International Centre, in Bengaluru, Karnataka.<\/p>\n
The event focused on Khalid\u2019s writings, incarceration, and the broader political and social context reflected in the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we sit here, the supreme leader of the regime has given a statement during campaigning \u2013 \u2018Give me your vote, I\u2019ll give you freedom\u2019,\u201d Mr. Raj said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here because Umar Khalid is standing and fighting for all of us,\u201d the actor said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is in jail to ensure that this country doesn\u2019t become a prison. For Umar Khalid, jailing is like fermentation where he is brewing,\u201d Mr. Raj said.<\/p>\n
He also expressed hope that when he comes out (of jail), Khalid will speak \u201cricher and deeper\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ramachandra Guha said the book featuring a rich and diverse mix of contributors revealed \u201cat least eight different Umar Khalids\u201d, including a thinker, a writer and a democratically minded citizen with a passionate commitment to freedom and justice.<\/p>\n
He also referred to Umar Khalid\u2019s prison writings.
\n\u201cFor all its hardships, jail has also led to several positive changes in his life,\u201d Guha said, highlighting what he termed an \u201cunquenchable spirit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr. Guha added that the volume was a work of enormous complexity, judgment and balance, noting that it was \u201ceasier to write your own book than editing such a collection\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Janaki Nair in her remarks, said the book went beyond an individual narrative and documented a wider historical process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis book actually represents the archive of a very important historical moment in India,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The historian added that the book bore witness to the \u201cvilification and dispossession, incarceration, and the death of Indian Muslims in recent years\u201d.She also criticised the proliferation of terms such as \u2018Jihad\u2019 as a disparaging epithet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter today\u2019s event, we can even add \u2018Book Jihad\u2019 to the list. And it is probably going to be added to the lexicon,\u201d Ms. Nair said.<\/p>\n
She also warned that such narratives had become historical truth with serious consequences.<\/p>\n
Umar Khalid, a former research scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, has been in jail since September 13, 2020, on charges of delivering provocative speeches during anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests.<\/p>\n
The February 2020 Delhi riots, which occurred during US President Donald Trump\u2019s visit, claimed 53 lives and left over 700 injured. The violence erupted during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bengaluru: Actor Prakash Raj has said that incarcerated activist Umar Khalid was standing and fighting for everyone in the country, and his imprisonment symbolised resistance against a society \u201cturning into a prison\u201d. According to Kashmir Media Service, Prakash Raj made the remarks during a panel discussion and reading of excerpts from a book titled \u2018Umar …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":186863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/10\/Umar-Khalid.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199378,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199377\/revisions\/199378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}