A letter from a besieged republic

From being a republic that once prided itself on its argumentative citizens and fearless public discourse, we seem to be on our way to becoming a country where every thoughtful utterance is weighed not in reason but in ideology. The case of Prof. Ali Khan Mahmudabad is not merely about bail; it is about the air we breathe as citizens, and the right to think, write and speak without fear of prison or persecution.

The Supreme Court’s decision to grant Prof. Ali Khan bail — while welcome in its bare legality — is laden with caveats that suggest that thought itself has become suspect. Instead of upholding the citizen’s right to critique, analyse and reflect, the apex court’s commentary sounded an implicit warning: speak with caution, lest you be misunderstood.

But what was the professor’s sin?

He wrote a Facebook post. It was long, measured, reflective. It drew attention to the complex dynamics of India–Pakistan relations, the nature of war, the futility of violence and the hypocrisy of celebrating military optics without reckoning with grassroots realities. It condemned terrorism, critiqued Pakistan’s military for its complicity with non-state actors, and urged restraint and humanity. The professor spoke of peace as something hard-won, not easily tossed about in the shrill clamour of TV studios or tweet storms.

And for this — this deeply patriotic, even if provocatively honest post — he found himself accused of sedition and spreading communal disharmony.

We are told the State must act against subversives. That some things are better left unsaid. That national security demands a muzzle on dissent. But this logic is the enemy of the constitutional republic we claim to be. It assumes that citizens are children incapable of handling nuance, irony or complexity; that they have to be spoon-fed official narratives. And so, any comment that does not cheerlead the State is treated as betrayal.

Enter Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the Haryana State Commission for Women, who seems to have appointed herself custodian of patriotism. Her grievance, expressed in loud indignation, was that the professor’s post hurt national sentiment. She interpreted his reasoned words as a slight to the nation — a nation that, in her view, can only be affirmed through jingoistic slogans and thoughtless allegiance.

This, precisely, is the problem. The Constitution of India does not demand obedience; it demands engagement. It guarantees freedom of expression, not for the comfort of the majority but for the discomfort it may sometimes cause. The freedom to speak includes the freedom to critique — even harshly — the conduct of our armed forces, our elected leaders, our policies. Especially so, when that critique is driven by a desire for peace and justice, not partisanship or malice.

The Supreme Court, as sentinel on the qui vive, is not merely a court of law. It is the last redoubt of liberty, the institution meant to guard the fundamental rights of all citizens, especially when the winds of majoritarianism blow harshly. But in this instance, it did not speak loudly enough for liberty.

By granting bail with comments that suggest the speech was questionable, the court has sent a subtle but powerful signal: think carefully before you speak. Don’t provoke. Don’t analyse. Don’t question the optics. And above all, if you are Muslim, mind your metaphors.

And so, joyless characters like Ms Bhatia will feel emboldened. She will see herself not as a censor, but a heroine of national purity. Each time she calls for punishment of someone who does not fit her idea of patriotism, she will believe the highest court is, if not on her side, then at least not pushing back.

The State, in such cases, doesn’t need to win. It only needs to scare. The long process of trial, the reputational damage, the chilling of peers — all of it serves the larger strategy of silence. As if on cue, commentator-politician Swapan Dasgupta weighed in on the affair with a tweet that was as poisonous in implication as it was smug in tone. He wrote: ‘It will require more than flat-footed policemen in Haryana to unsettle the deep network of entitled subversives working overtime in the war of a thousand cuts. I am afraid that a ham-handed approach will end up making heroes of papier-mâché jihadis with pedigree.’

This is not just rhetoric. It is a calculated dog whistle, invoking the trope of the ‘entitled Muslim intellectual’ who must be viewed with suspicion. It wraps demonisation in the language of strategy. The ‘papier-mâché jihadi’ jibe is designed to wound, to de-legitimise the professor’s scholarship, and to suggest that any Muslim with a platform must be a sleeper agent in the ‘war of a thousand cuts’.

But what was the professor saying that so offended this chorus? He wrote, among other things: ‘The loss of civilian life is tragic on both sides and is the main reason why war should be avoided… The poor suffer disproportionately and the only people who benefit are politicians and defence companies… political conflicts have never been solved militarily.’

This is not jihad. This is Gandhian realism. This is Ambedkarite dissent. This is the kind of insight that made Nehru write The Discovery of India in prison; it’s not a subversive Facebook rant. The professor even ends with ‘Jai Hind’ — not as performance but as belief.

What bothers the State and its cheerleaders is not that the professor might be wrong; it is that he might be right — and that his voice might inspire others to think, too. It is this thinking that is now the real threat.

Let us recall that in the United States, during the McCarthy era, people were dragged before committees not for crimes but for ideas. For friendships, for books read, for refusing to condemn others. We seem to be building our own desi version of that moment — complete with judges of Facebook posts and FIR-happy bureaucrats.

What the Supreme Court must remember is that its own legacy is not one of cautious compromise. It is built on bold defence. When it yielded during the Emergency, it failed, but it gloriously succeeded when it read into the Constitution the right to privacy, when it stood up for free speech in Sakal Papers and Bennett Coleman. It did not worry about being misunderstood. It trusted the citizen. It trusted the Constitution. That trust seems to be eroding.

Prof. Mahmudabad should never have needed bail. He should have been thanked for reminding us that war is not a video game, and that our better angels lie not in flags and uniforms but in our capacity to think deeply, critically and empathetically. Instead, we have a situation where an academic’s Facebook post is treated like an act of treason, while online hate speech, lynch mobs and the destruction of homes pass with a wink and a nod.

We cannot afford to let such precedents stand. Because the real subversion is not in a thoughtful Facebook post; it is in the slow erosion of the space to make one. The court must rise higher than this. It must not merely grant bail — it must protect speech. It must draw the line not with ambiguity, but with clarity. It must say, without hesitation, that patriotism includes protest, and that dissent is not sedition. Otherwise, we will find ourselves governed not by a Constitution but by outrage. And in that world, thought itself will become dangerous.

Jai Hind!

Sanjay Hegde is a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India

More of his writings may be found here