'Umar Khalid in jail to ensure India does not become a prison': Prakash Raj

Bengaluru: An evening of readings and reflection centred on the book ‘Umar Khalid and His World’ unfolded under tight security at the Bangalore International Centre here on Tuesday. 

The event featured a reading of excerpts from the book — an anthology of 337 pages comprising 64 contributors and 12 articles by Khalid, nine of them from prison — followed by a panel discussion with historian Janaki Nair, writer-historian Ramachandra Guha and actor Prakash Raj.

Compiled by Anirban Bhattacharya, Banojyotsna Lahiri and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, the book attempts to map what one speaker described as “a world that begins in a prison cell but does not end there.” 

The editors emphasised that the volume was not merely about Khalid’s incarceration but about a broader political and moral landscape. 

Raj offered an impassioned, political reading of Khalid’s imprisonment. “Umar is standing and fighting for all of India,” he said. “He is in jail to ensure this country does not become a prison.” Raj suggested that adversity had strengthened him. “He’s growing,” he added.

Nair called the book “an archive of a crucial historical moment.”

Nair argued that the book documents not only one individual’s experience but also a wider transformation in the functioning of institutions, particularly the criminal justice system. “To be held without trial for so long is to make the process itself the punishment,” she said, describing prolonged incarceration without bail as a form of “social death.” 

Nair traced the emergence and proliferation of terms such as ‘jihad’ used in public discourse as instruments of vilification of Muslims. ‘What began as ‘love jihad’ has now expanded—to land, flood, vote, even disease. This event may well be called ‘book jihad’,” she said. 

“We must deny majoritarian regimes a monopoly over historical wounds,” she said, arguing for a plural and inclusive understanding of citizenship. She urged the audience to “build a new majority” of the oppressed. 

Guha critiqued the book as a complex intellectual project, praising the editors for assembling a diverse set of voices across disciplines, ideologies and generations. 

Reflecting on the material, he suggested that the volume reveals “at least eight different Umar Khalids.”  “Nobody owns Umar Khalid,” Guha said. “Each reader will find their own.”