Ashoka University assistant professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad | (Photo Courtesy: Facebook)
The release on interim bail by the top court of Ashoka University assistant professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad came as a welcome relief, but his arrest itself on the basis of a couple of social media posts related to Operation Sindoor raised many questions about the condition of free speech and expression in India.
While granting him relief, the Supreme Court bench, led by Justice Surya Kant, came down hard on the academic, accusing him of ‘dog whistling’ and trying to garner cheap publicity. It has refused to stay the case, imposed an effective gag order on him, preventing him from commenting on the current Indo-Pakistan conflict or his case, impounded his passport and handed over further enquiry into his social media posts to a Special Investigation Team of police officers.
Prof. Khan’s arrest came swiftly on the heels of two FIRs registered by the chairperson of the Haryana Women’s Commission and a Haryana sarpanch, who is also a BJP member, both of whom termed his social media posts derogatory to women in the forces and communally loaded. A close reading of the two posts does not reflect any such sentiment, his lawyer Kapil Sibal opined.
The Haryana police invoked several sections under the recently passed Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita, including Section 52 or the equivalent of the sedition law (endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India), in their FIRs against Prof. Khan. This is absurd because nowhere do his posts target India, rather, they paint a favourable picture of the country vis-a-vis Pakistan.
This is a classic case where the so-called ‘left liberal’ elite are ranged against a right-wing ecosystem that sees any dissent against the ruling dispensation as an anti-national act. In the last decade or so, the friction between these two groups has only increased, resulting in a dumbing down of public opinion.
The domain of the public intellectual is severely restricted as the state and the judiciary crack down on those who wish to express their opinions freely. Contrast this to the case of Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah, whose vituperative, obnoxious comments against Army spokesperson Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, terming her the ‘sister’ of terrorists, did not merit an immediate arrest, though an SIT has been formed in this case too.
Both the High Court and the top court passed severe strictures against him, but the self-righteous women’s commissions did not think it fit to reprimand him. That he was not immediately sacked from the MP cabinet points to the political and caste compulsions that allow motor-mouth politicians to get away with the vilest abuse.
Serious questions need to be raised about the extent and scope of freedom of expression in the country. People on either side of the political divide need to be allowed to air their views freely, subject to restrictions prescribed by the Constitution. An illiberal India is something no citizen wants, as the past nearly eight decades of democracy have taught us.
