Arrested development: Freedom of speech must be protected, not punished

A police case filed by the Haryana Women's Commission chairperson includes public mischief. Even a cursory reading of Prof Mahmudabad's Facebook posts suggests that these charges have little basis

The arrest of Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad by the Haryana police following the registration of two separate cases over comments connected with Operation Sindoor underlines the degree to which the average citizens’ fundamental right to free speech is endangered in 21st century India. The barrage of accusations against Prof Mahmudabad under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) are baffling — from promoting hatred, imputations and assertions prejudicial to the national interest, endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India and even culpable homicide. These complaints have been filed by a functionary of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Haryana youth wing. A police case filed by the Haryana Women’s Commission chairperson includes public mischief and insult to modesty. Even a cursory reading of Prof Mahmudabad’s Facebook posts suggests that these charges have little basis.

 

Far from criticising Operation Sindoor, Prof Mahmudabad’s posts approve of the manner in which the government has “reset all received notions of Indo-Pak relationships” by “collapsing distinction between military and terrorist (non-state actors) in Pakistan”. This is precisely the message that the government has been seeking to propagate globally. Prof Mahmudabad also praises the government’s decision to appoint two woman soldiers to conduct the military briefings, suggesting that the “optics” of doing so were important in conveying to Pakistan the progressive nature of Indian society. This, too, was undeniably a national value that the Indian government sought to underline. It is difficult to fathom how such references can be interpreted as insulting the modesty of the two soldiers concerned. 

What appears to have roiled his accusers is his comment that he would have been happy if right-wing commentators who applauded Colonel Sofia Qureshi (a Muslim) had demanded with the same enthusiasm “that the victims of mob lynching, arbitrary bulldozing and other victims of the BJP’s hate-mongering be protected as Indian citizens”. As he points out, “... optics must translate to on-ground reality, otherwise it’s just hypocrisy”. Criticising the government can hardly be considered promoting hatred or enmity. Such a right is hard-baked into electoral democracies — in India it is limited only by the Supreme Court stipulation that commentary cannot provoke law and order problems such as riots. Prof Mahmudabad’s Facebook posts did no such thing. 

As over 1,000 students, academics, and thinkers across India and abroad sign a letter of solidarity with Prof Mahmudabad, it is worth asking why a liberal arts university professor has been singled out for such draconian treatment by the state apparatus. The alacrity of police action stands in stark contrast to the relative inaction against a minister in the Madhya Pradesh government who gratuitously insulted Colonel Qureshi by describing her as a “sister of a terrorist”. No local worthy or women’s activist group saw fit to file a police complaint against such coarse behaviour linking her religion and that of the Pahalgam terrorists. It required suo motu cognizance of the high court for the police machinery to reluctantly get into the act. It is deeply reprehensible that a standard exercise of constitutionally guaranteed free speech by a citizen of India will now have to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court. Ironically, this controversy has done more to weaken the government’s image of communal harmony during Operation Sindoor than any critical post by the professor himself.