Death Of A Political Prisoner
The Caravan|December 2019
The unscathed humanity of SAR Geelani
MARTAND KAUSHIK
Death Of A Political Prisoner
ABOUT ELEVEN YEARS AGO, in November 2008, students of Delhi University organised a seminar, titled “Communalism, Fascism, Democracy Rhetoric and Reality,” in Room Number 22 of the Faculty of Arts building. The talk was to be headed by Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, a Kashmiri-Muslim professor who taught Arabic in the university.

There were few people in the country more suited to speak on the topic. Geelani had been sentenced to death in December 2002 for his alleged role in the attack on the Indian parliament the previous year. A sordid media trial had declared him a terrorist even before the court’s verdict. But, in the course of the next three years, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court acquitted him of all charges. At the event, Geelani was going to relate his persecution at the hands of a repressive state machinery and its communalist rhetoric.

On a raised platform, behind a large desk sat the speakers—seated next to Geelani was a 21-year-old Umar Khalid, who would later come into the limelight after he was charged with sedition during the 2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University controversy, and the journalist Rajesh Ramachandran, currently the editor of The Tribune.

Minutes after Geelani took his place at the dais, a student walked up to the desk and leaned in, as if he was trying speak to Geelani. As Geelani too leaned in, the student, a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, spat twice on Geelani. The professor flinched, but then slowly moved back in his chair.

この記事は The Caravan の December 2019 版に掲載されています。

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この記事は The Caravan の December 2019 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。