The perils of being Umar Khalid

You could read this piece as a story of the trial and metamorphosis of youth leader Umar Khalid Or as Indias inexhaustible capacity to weave the web of identity from which none can escape Or as a case study of the abandonment of MuslimsConsider this In 2015 a few resigned from the Democratic Students Union a wing of the Revolutionary Democratic Front in protest against their leaders insisting on a certain line on gender relations Patriarchy oppression the RDF leaders declared was because of the vulgar cultural imperialism No argued the dissidents it lay in Indias Brahminical feudal structure The dissidents were aghast at the leaderships description of the livein relationship as an opportunistic allianceUmar was among those who quit that rarefied world Months later he joined others to organise a cultural programme against capital punishment in Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University on February 9 2016 On that date in 2013 was hanged Afzal Guru a convict in the 2001 Parliament attack case All hell broke loose as the Hindutva brigade alleged that antinational slogans had been chanted at the programme Student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested Umar and his mate Anirban Bhattacharya went into hidingNow consider this Over the next 20 days Umar watched the TV identify him as a JaisheMohammad sympathiser When Umar resurfaced in JNU to surrender to the police he declared I never projected myself as a Muslim but I have been now made to feel as one Umar had the freedom like all of us to define himself mdash his Muslimness until then had been incidental to his primary identity of MarxistBut a person is also how others define him For the Indian state Umar was Muslim Period His interrogation in custody revolved around the media narrative that he was a terrorist sympathiser In a speech delivered on his release Umar said I felt it was the trial of the whole Muslim community My defence was that I am not a practising Muslim But what if I had studied in a madrasa wore a skull cap and a beard would all that had been justifiedThus was straitjacketed the Marxist PhD scholar as Muslim Yet he pushed back against the States attempts to reduce him to just his religious identity evident from his decision to join others to float the Bhagat SinghAmbedkar Students Organisation He was recognised in cafes and malls some even taking selfies with him Others would glower at him their eyes taunting mdash You terrorist sympathiser mdash and even accosting him once in a cinema hall Umar was saved because some threw a cordon around him His friends decreed that he would travel out of Delhi on speaking tours either by road or air mdash and never alone as death threats on social media became routineWould it not be natural for both his MarxistMuslim selves to worry over the violent targeting of his ordinary religious brethren To assure the families of victims of lynching to assist them for securing justice Umar teamed up with Khalid Saifi to design in 2017 the United Against Hate campaign They sought to turn the essential unity of people into a bulwark against the rising tide of hate At a programme Khauf Se Azadi on August 13 2018 a man pulled the trigger on Umar but the pistol jammedYet the escape only underscored the extent to which his religious identity maliciously spun dyed and wrapped around him by the State had become a threat to him With his PhD complete and residency in JNU over where was he to live in Delhi without worrying about a killer stalking him He chose the Muslim ghetto of Zakir Nagar The prodigal son so to speak had returned home courtesy the StateAs he set out to become the articulate voice of those people who had become his safety net there were some who defined him as the Communist who did not believe in Allah But then in December 2019 the Citizenship Amendment Act was passed and Muslims countrywide took to inviting the atheist Umar to speak at sitins His religious brethren had warmly embraced himMuch has been written about Umar having been falsely implicated in the conspiracy to instigate the Delhi riots So let us skip that to ask Is Umar destined for electoral politics Which party could he join Which constituency could he fight from Before you reply consider this too Kanhaiya now in electoral politics broke his prolonged silence on Umar to recently issue a statement in which he had just a passing mention It is hard to secondguess Kanhaiyas compulsions but his shying away from Umar replicates the reluctance of most secular parties to stand up for MuslimsCurrently reading Vikram Seths A Suitable Boy in jail Umar will realise that suitability is rarely a consideration in Indian politics Even Abul Kalam Azad among the foremost leaders of the national movement was fielded much to his dismay from the Muslim majority constituency of Rampur in Indias first election Umar take heart mdash India would have reduced even Karl Marx to either his Jewish or Christian identityThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to 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