‘Seeking peace, calling out hate crimes not a crime’: Former Civil Servants Group on Mahmudabad

Close to 80 former civil servants across states, called the Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG) has released a statement of solidarity with Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad. The professor, Mahmudabad, from Ashoka University was arrested by the Haryana police for a social media post on May 18 and then released on interim bail on May 21 by the Supreme Court of India. His arrest had drawn wide condemnation with his students and fellow faculty members among scores of others coming out firmly in his support.

The statement released on Wednesday, May 28 was in clear solidarity with Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad who was arrested over his posts on Operation Sindoor.

“We are greatly distressed by the grave criminal charges levelled against Mahmudabad and his subsequent arrest,” the statement said, calling the charges “outrageous and absurd.” “The main burden of his posts was to make eloquent and heartfelt calls for peace,” it noted.

Calling the charges against Mahmudabad reminiscent of the colonial-era sedition law, the statement said that it “be a crime to seek justice for victims of lynching and bulldozer demolitions, or to call for peace and restraint.”

The statement in full may be read below:

CCG Open statement on the Ali Khan Mahmudabad case

We are a group of former civil servants who have served in various capacities in the central and state governments. We owe no allegiance to any political party; our only loyalty is to the Constitution of India.

We are greatly distressed by the grave criminal charges levelled against Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad and his subsequent arrest. Professor Ali Khan was charged for two of his social media posts related to Operation Sindoor. His posts were thoughtful and measured. In these he praised the restraint of the Indian Army. He noted the importance of the “optics” of Colonel Sofiya Qureshi as a face of the Indian armed forces during the press briefings at the time that the hostilities were underway, but added that the symbolism of this would be hypocritical if lynching and bulldozing of homes continued.

But the main burden of his posts was to make eloquent and heartfelt calls for peace. He described the loss of civilian lives on both sides as “tragic” and warned against warmongering by civilians who have never experienced war. Denouncing the “blind bloodlust for war” displayed by some people on social media, he declared that warmongering “is actually disrespecting the seriousness of war and dishonouring the lives of soldiers whose lives are actually on the line.”

For these posts, Professor Ali was charged under stringent sections of India’s new criminal law code, the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita. These include Section 152, which penalises acts “endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India”. This closely echoes the language of the colonial-era sedition law under the now repealed Indian Penal Code. Other crimes for which Professor Ali Khan is charged include Section 196(1) (b), which penalises acts that disturb communal harmony and public tranquillity; Section 197(1) (c), which targets “assertions likely to cause disharmony” and Section 299, which criminalises “deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings.”

We regard the criminal charges against Professor Ali Khan as outrageous and absurd. It cannot be a crime to seek justice for victims of lynching and bulldozer demolitions, or to call for peace and restraint. It is noteworthy that despite the orders of the Supreme Court for  taking suo moto action, even rampant hate speeches that openly call for violence and ethnic cleansing of Indian Muslims have rarely attracted these criminal charges of disloyalty to the  nation and fostering religious hate. In the most recent case, after a minister from Madhya Pradesh (MP), Kunwar Vijay Shah, described Colonel Sofia Qureshi as the sister of terrorists, it required the MP High Court to direct the police to register an FIR against the minister. The High Court described the statements of the minister as “cancerous and dangerous”.

Many students and faculty members came forward in heartening solidarity with Professor Ali Khan, even though the management of Ashoka University remained conspicuously silent about the unjust criminal targeting of their faculty. Faculty members took turns to sit outside places where the professor was detained. We were particularly touched by  a statement by Professor Ali Khan’s students, who described him as compassionate and  thoughtful, a teacher who loved his country and taught his students respect for the values of  secular democracy spelt out in our Constitution.

After his arrest and police remand, we were relieved that the Supreme Court granted him interim bail. But, with due respect, we are dismayed by some of the comments made by the bench and the conditions of bail that were laid down. The bench made mystifying allusions to “dog-whistling” in the professor’s social media tweets, criticising his “choice of words” and charging him with seeking “cheap publicity”. The bench ordered the surrender of the professor’s passport and the appointment of a Special Investigation Team to “holistically understand the complexity of the phraseology employed and for proper appreciation of some of the expressions used in the two posts.” It is beyond our comprehension how three police officers could be equipped to extract hidden meanings from a post written in elegant and straightforward English.

The Supreme Court disapproved of public displays of solidarity with the professor, handing out a stern warning to academics and students who supported Professor Ali Khan with the words “we know how to handle them also”. The learned judges also directed the professor to make no further statements about the India-Pakistan hostilities. At a time when the country is deluged with social media posts and speeches of hatemongering and warmongering, it is a matter of painful irony that calls for peace by a political scientist are silenced. It is noteworthy that despite the orders of the Supreme Court for taking suo moto  action, even rampant hate speeches that openly call for violence and ethnic cleansing of Indian  Muslims have rarely attracted criminal charges of disloyalty to the nation and fostering  religious hate.

We are quite disturbed by the deviation from defence of free speech, which has been  upheld by the Supreme Court in numerous cases, including Arnab Goswami vs. Union of India  and even recently in the case of Imran Pratapgarhi vs. State of Gujarat. In the latter case, Justice Oka pronounced that “in a healthy democracy, the views or thoughts expressed by an individual or group of individuals must be countered by expressing another point of view”.  Even if such speech is opposed by many people, it must still be “respected and protected”.  That judgment notably offered advice to judges who might personally dislike certain articulations. Even in such cases, it was their “duty to uphold” and “zealously protect” the fundamental rights under Article 19(1) of the Constitution.

The perils and consequences of suppressing free speech by unjust application of criminal law can be profoundly corrosive for a society. Young journalist Saurav Das aptly describes the treatment of Professor Ali Khan by the police and courts as “a perfect example of how you make a nation of intellectually dead citizens, where critical inquiry is replaced by  rote repetition and progressive voices are muzzled to make space for conformist, mediocre  opinions. This is how a society dies, where the proliferation of free thought is choked, through a slow, judicially sanctioned suffocation of intellectual life”.

Satyameva Jayate

Constitutional Conduct Group (79 signatories, as below)