Jailed Scholar Ignites Fierce Debate: Has India's Democracy Failed Its Muslim Minority?

The question of whether the world's largest democracy has failed its nearly 200 million Muslims is at the forefront of a polarizing debate in India, sparked by a lengthy interview given by jailed scholar Sharjeel Imam. Imam, a 38-year-old Muslim scholar, spoke from his prison cell in New Delhi to an Indian news website on September 29, raising critical questions about the status of the country's Muslim minority, which constitutes approximately 14 percent of India's 1.4 billion population.

"There are around 210 million Muslims in India – one of the biggest Muslim groups in the world, with practically zero say in this democracy," Imam told The Quint. He criticized the Indian constitution for its "enshrined centralisation" of power and described its secularism as "particularly Islamophobic and parochial." Imam argued that democracy, in its current form, serves as a tool to deny Muslims political representation and rights.

Sharjeel Imam, originally from the Jahanabad district of Bihar, holds a computer science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and previously worked as a software engineer before pursuing doctoral studies at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). His research focused on the political history of India's Muslims.

In 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government enacted the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which offered a fast-track to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from neighboring countries. The United Nations deemed the CAA "fundamentally discriminatory" against Muslims, leading to nationwide protests, predominantly organized by Muslims and led by women. The demonstration near Shaheen Bagh became a focal point of these protests, with Imam being one of its chief organizers. He was arrested in January 2020 for allegedly inciting violence through his speeches at the protests, though violence erupted the following month in northeast New Delhi, where anti-CAA sit-ins in Muslim neighborhoods were attacked by mobs reportedly incited by hate speech from leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Despite being incarcerated when the violence occurred, Imam faces charges including rioting, murder, attempted murder, sedition, and "promoting enmity on grounds of religion" under stringent laws, including an anti-terror law. He is not alone; nearly a dozen Muslim students and activists, including JNU scholar Umar Khalid, were arrested and imprisoned as alleged conspirators in the 2020 riots. These individuals remain in jail without trial, repeatedly denied bail, with rights groups condemning their continued incarceration as a "gross abuse of power" and a clear instance of judicial oversight where the accused are presumed "guilty until proven innocent."

Imam contends that such abuses of power, particularly targeting Muslims, are systemic and rooted in the foundational ideas of India as a Hindu-majority nation. He argued in his interview with The Quint that both "secular and Hindutva frameworks share the same core ideas – the myth of uniformity, centralisation and denial of sharing of power." Hindutva refers to the Hindu supremacist movement advocated by the RSS and BJP, aiming to transform India into an ethnic Hindu state.

Imam also criticized Mahatma Gandhi as a "fascist" for allegedly making the Congress party, which led India's freedom struggle, an "essentially Hindu party," and for endorsing ideas now promoted by the BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Founded in 1925, the RSS aims to establish India as an ethnic Hindu state. Imam further accused India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of "falsehood and mythmaking" for portraying India as an ancient, "uniquely tolerant" civilization in his book, The Discovery of India.

In a rebuttal, legal scholar Mohd Zeeshan Ahmad acknowledged that Imam raises significant historical and ideological questions but found his equation of secularism with Hindutva unpersuasive. Ahmad cautioned that Imam's language risks portraying Muslims as a homogeneous bloc, overlooking diversity in class, caste, gender, region, and ideology, and questioned who truly speaks for the Muslim community.

However, Irfan Ahmad, a professor of anthropology and sociology at Ibn Khaldun University in Istanbul, Turkiye, supported Imam's questioning of the distinction between Congress and BJP regarding secularism. He argued that Indian nationalism is built on a flawed division between "secular" nationalism of the Congress and "communal" right-wing forces, noting the historical presence of ethno-racist Hindu nationalists within Congress and the ease of leader transitions between parties. Professor Ahmad stated that the difference between Congress and BJP is akin to that between Republicans and Democrats in the US, where both ultimately advance similar interests. He believes the core issue for Indian Muslims is not party politics but the pervasive Indian/Hindu nationalism subscribed to by all political parties, including the Left. "If a democracy routinely makes a community, Muslims in this case, invisible in terms of representation in legislatures, then there is something fundamentally wrong with this democracy. Declining ratio of Muslims in parliament testifies to the silencing of Muslims," Ahmad asserted, questioning the reality of a secular India.

Imam proposed "constitutional republicanism" to ensure decentralization of power and greater community rights. He attributed the 1947 partition to the Congress and praised Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a "great, democratic leader" and Muhammad Iqbal as his political inspiration. Imam advocated for a faith-based separation of power and echoed Iqbal's call for a "Muslim India within India," demanding proportional representation over the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, arguing that FPTP, without safeguards, leads to the permanent marginalization of Muslims, who were historically a "hated minority."

Responding to Imam, a columnist using the pseudonym Ibn-e-Khaldun Bharati accused Imam of promoting an "Islamist agenda" that seeks "the status of a nation – a Pakistan within the borders of India." Bharati labeled Imam "unapologetically anti-liberal, anti-secular, anti-democracy, anti-constitution – in a word, anti-national," suggesting Imam feels an "entitlement to the rulership of India." Bharati argued that a nation requires a state, while a minority needs constitutional guarantees, and that Muslim leaders have ingeniously managed to be both, securing special privileges.

Political analyst Asim Ali highlighted the "Kafkaesque nature of the whole affair," pointing out that Imam has been jailed for six years on charges of advocating a road blockade without inciting violence, and absurdly accused of conspiring in riots that occurred after his arrest. Ali noted that the experiences of Muslims like Imam include discrimination, historical communal pogroms, framing in terror cases, and police brutality. While Ali found Imam's depictions of Gandhi and Jinnah "grossly distorted" and his historical interpretations "warped," he conceded that Imam could have a role in a radical democratic project striving for equality and liberty. Ali suggested Imam envisions leading an intellectual pressure group of middle-class Muslim activists to articulate a "positive" agenda for "Muslim demands."

Comparisons are often drawn between Imam and Umar Khalid, another JNU scholar imprisoned for alleged involvement in the 2020 riots. While both are accused of being masterminds of the riots and are in the same jail, Khalid, a left-wing activist, does not reject the Indian constitution, democracy, or secularism as explicitly as Imam. Khalid frequently cites Gandhi and non-violent resistance. India's Marxists and liberals hail Khalid as a "model Muslim" punished by an anti-Muslim government, with global figures and rights groups calling for his release. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has publicly questioned Khalid's imprisonment, comparing it to the jailing of Nelson Mandela. Ireland-based Front Line Defenders awarded Khalid their 2026 Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.

Imam, however, does not garner similar global solidarity, which is largely confined to India's Muslim community. Professor Ahmad questioned why figures like Mamdani, who speak for Khalid, do not mention Imam. He suggested that liberals find it easier to support Khalid because he is perceived as "secular" and does not articulate his politics using Islamic vocabulary, while they remain silent about Imam, who does. Ahmad described this selective eloquence as a sign of "intellectual confusion, if not moral cowardice."

Regarding Imam's potential role in Muslim empowerment, Ahmad expressed concern that the "current regime is set to suppress such voices," drawing parallels between Imam's treatment and the imprisonment of Antonio Gramsci, where the prosecutor aimed to "stop this brain from functioning." Ahmad concluded by citing Henry David Thoreau, stating that "The true place for a just man’ in an unjust order ‘is also a prison’,” to highlight the plight of Imam, Khalid, and other "prisoners of conscience."