The price that Umar Khalid is paying for dissenting in Modi’s India

This article was first published on The Intercept. It was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

It was still dark outside when Umar Khalid sat down to make the farewell video. He had stayed up all night at a close friend’s apartment, where he had just celebrated his 33rd birthday, blowing out candles and cutting a chocolate cake. Now he sat on the couch stiff with tension, dark circles under his eyes, his face tinged a sickly yellow. He had been smoking nonstop for hours and eaten so little that he was feeling unwell. His friend was seated on the ground nearby, his phone ready to record.

“If you’re watching this video,” Khalid said, “it means that I’ve been arrested.”

It was September 2020, on a hot, stuffy morning in Delhi. Seven months earlier, in late February, a wave of sectarian violence had ripped through the Indian capital. Amid mass demonstrations against a restrictive citizenship law that targeted Muslims, a mob goaded by a local leader clashed with Muslims in the area. Over the next four days, violence swept through predominantly Muslim neighborhoods; at least 53 people were killed and 14 mosques gutted.

The timing was noteworthy: US President Donald Trump arrived in India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi the day after the riots...

Read more