In a widely shared Facebook post, retired JNU professor Janaki Nair expresses anguish over the continued incarceration of the student activists
NEW DELHI — A strong and emotional Facebook post by retired Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor and noted historian Janaki Nair has gone viral after she criticised the Supreme Court’s refusal to grant bail to student activists Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid.
Both Imam and Khalid, former JNU students, have been in jail for over five years under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in connection with the alleged conspiracy behind the 2020 Delhi violence. They were among the prominent voices in protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
In her post, Prof Nair said the denial of bail caused her deep pain and anger, not only as a teacher but also as a historian. She wrote, “As a modern Indian historian, I am trained to read state records against the grain. I hope that one day the Supreme Court’s decision denying bail to Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid will also be read in this way.”
She recalled the anti-CAA movement of late 2019 and early 2020, calling it a peaceful and creative public protest that questioned the government’s attempt to narrow the idea of citizenship. “Those of us who lived in Delhi then witnessed a sustained, peaceful movement, led in large part by Muslim women, many of whom had never before stepped into public political life,” she said.
Rejecting the narrative that paints the two activists as violent conspirators, Prof Nair stated clearly, “Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid were not bomb-throwing revolutionaries. I taught them. They were intelligent, hardworking and deeply engaged with ideas.”
She added that disagreement with students was part of academic life at JNU, but criminalising thought and speech was not. “They loved to read, write and argue. That was the culture of JNU — in classrooms, hostels and canteens, often through the night,” she wrote.
Prof Nair questioned why young people should be punished for imagining a better future. “Can we really blame Sharjeel, Umar, Natasha (Narwal) or Devangana (Kalita) for dreaming of a more just world than the one our generation has left them?” she asked.
Drawing attention to what she called a clear double standard, she wrote, “Many who openly called for violence against fellow Indians walk free today and even hold public office, because they have the ‘right’ names and the ‘right’ political backing.”
Referring to B R Ambedkar, she warned that Indian democracy was becoming hollow. “Ambedkar knew that democracy in India would remain a thin layer if deep social injustice was not addressed. We are living that warning today,” she said.
Quoting scholar Rahmat Tarikere, she noted that India often produces great ideas but fails to live by them. “What future is possible when young people capable of imagining a better world are pushed into social death through imprisonment?” she asked.
Despite the grim reality, Prof Nair expressed faith in her former students. “I believe Sharjeel and Umar will come through this ordeal with their ideas intact. Even behind prison walls, they will be thinking, reading and dreaming,” she wrote.
She ended her post with lines from Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, using poetry to speak of freedom surviving even inside a prison cell, and addressed the jailed students directly: “Return to us with freedom, Sharjeel and Umar.”
The post has been widely shared, especially among academics, students and rights groups, many of whom see the continued imprisonment of Muslim student activists as a symbol of shrinking space for dissent in India.
