Voices From Prison: The Hypocrisy Of Liberals And The 'Good Muslim Bad Muslim' Narrative

The much criticised judgement of the Supreme Court of January 5, 2026 has brought into sharp focus the draconian nature of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 with its vague definition of ‘terrorism’ and related unlawful acts, that increasingly serve as convenient tools to stifle dissent in the country. It has also sparked a debate on the manner in which the Supreme Court, and more generally the judiciary in India, has come to tailor justice to the size of the Chancellor’s foot.

But the judgement is, in fact, unique for one more reason. It marks the first time in public discourse that Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam were spoken about in the same breath and the two were painted with the same brush. All the narrative before that, and much of the public debate since has centred on Khalid, relegating Imam to, at best, a by-line and, at worst, a figure who was, in fact, deserving of the treatment being meted out by the Indian State. This dichotomy has exposed the greatest shortcoming of the liberal discourse: that favour of the self-proclaimed ‘liberals’ is lost the minute religion intervenes.

To understand the Supreme Court judgement, it is important to first realise that neither Khalid and Imam, nor the five others who were granted bail by the court were incarcerated in this case for their role in organising the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) movement and the road blockades that were used as a means of protest as part of it. FIR 59/2020, to which this case relates, is about an alleged conspiracy to organise communal riots in North-East Delhi that resulted in the deaths of 54 people, as per official figures. The reason this is important is because Imam has already been granted bail in each of the individual First Information Reports (FIRs) registered for speeches given by him, including the now well-known speech calling for blocking the ‘chicken’s neck’ connecting the North East with the Indian mainland, and the incidents of road blockades in various places where the speeches were given, and these could thus not by themselves be the subject matter here. In fact, Imam’s case, insofar as the conspiracy to organise the Delhi riots is concerned, stands on a much better footing than the others as he was arrested over a month before the riots occurred, is not alleged to have been present during any of the alleged acts of violence, is not supposed to have attended the meetings where violence was discussed, and had no communication with the other co-accused in the case—the last being necessary for a ‘conspiracy’ to be hatched.

What is common to both Khalid and Imam is that both gave speeches calling for ‘chakka jam’ protests blocking arterial roads as a means of protesting against the CAA in the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s impending visit to India. Both called for resorting to peaceful ‘satyagrah’, both advocated restraint from any act of violence, and both relied on the rights given and the protections guaranteed by the Constitution of India. What was vastly different though, was the idiom employed by them. This difference explains why Khalid has become the poster-boy of the liberal world, whereas Imam has found himself alienated from it.

While Khalid, a self-proclaimed atheist and an active member of a prominent leftist student body that sees religion as ‘the opium of the masses’ according to Marxist doctrine, spoke exclusively in ‘secular’ terms and invoked Mahatma Gandhi in the speech cited by the prosecution, Imam, in his speeches reproduced in the chargesheet spoke of the CAA as a targeted attack on the Muslims of India and, as a corollary, called upon Indian Muslims to emerge onto the streets to demand equal treatment. He called for the use of the Friday sermon in mosques to spread ideas of civil disobedience, and led the chanting of slogans such as ‘Nara-e-takbeer Allah hu Akbar’ and ‘La ilaha illallah’. In his subsequent writings, he criticises Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian National Congress for adopting the ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system that gives reign to the brute majority in a democracy, and gives credit to Mohammad Ali Jinnah for foreseeing that this system would disempower the Muslim minority in electoral politics. While Khalid is accused of organising the WhatsApp groups named ‘Jamia Coordination Committee’ and ‘Jamia Awareness Campaigning Team’, Imam is accused of starting the WhatsApp group ‘Muslim Students of JNU’. The chargesheet marks this difference and speaks at great length about Imam’s attempts at ‘radicalisation’ and his invocation of ‘communally sensitive’ issues and themes.

And this is the reason why Imam’s incarceration by the Indian State has been coupled with a surrounding silence of his mention by the liberal elite. This is perhaps why New York’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, did not read any of his many writings that have struggled to find a publisher amongst the mainstream news media outlets, why he didn’t write any letter to Imam saying he was thinking of him, why no speech of Imam’s was played on any talk show after the judgement and why social media has not maintained a count of the number of days that he has spent in jail—229 days more than Khalid.

And herein lies the hypocrisy of the ‘liberal’ discourse. There must be freedom of expression, provided the ideas expressed are agreeable to the liberal elite and not the words of any ancient prophet or seer, there must be freedom of dissent, provided the dissent is couched in the language of postmodernism and not borrowed from any holy book, there must be freedom of conscience, provided your conscience does not compel you to follow the commandments of any God. Ironically, the playing out of the dichotomy in political discourse of the ‘good Muslim bad Muslim’ was first given currency by Zohran Mamdani’s father in his book bearing that name. That dichotomy is clearly at play here. Khalid is a good Muslim, connected to the political identity of Islam but maintaining arm’s length from the religious one; Imam is a bad Muslim, his politics too enmeshed with his religion for anyone’s comfort.

The liberals’ prejudice against publicly visible Islam plays out in myriad ways. It is the same prejudice that follows the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief, Asaduddin Owaisi, and gets him labelled as the counter-point of the Bharatiya Janata Party in ‘liberal’ political discourse. A bearded man with a shaved upper lip who wears a skullcap bearing a print of Prophet Mohammad’s sandal on his head and invokes Islamic scripture and doctrine in his speeches can cry himself hoarse about secularism and constitutional values, the disdain for him in ‘liberal’ circles will never leave him. The ideal ‘liberal’ Muslim spouts Urdu poetry, is culturally Muslim but not religiously inclined, preferably has a non-Muslim partner and uses the term ‘minority’ instead of ‘Muslim’ as the target when speaking of the growing intolerance in the country. How lucky for Khalid to pass the threshold, how unfortunate for Imam to fail on all counts.

So while decry this judgement we must, let us take a moment to pause and reflect on our own hypocrisy and question our discomfort with the Islamic idiom. There is no doubt that the CAA left out no one but Muslims from its ambit amongst similarly situated persons professing other religions, and while strategically it might be more prudent to protest it in language which is relatable to non-Muslim allies sympathetic to the plight of Muslims, we must cede space to ‘La ilaha illallah’ as the cry of the soul of those it seeks to wound.

(Views expressed are personal)

Saiyyad Mohammad Nizamuddin Pasha is a Delhi-based lawyer.

This article is part of the Magazine issue titled Thou Shalt Not Dissent dated February 1, 2026, on political prisoners facing long trials and the curbing of their rights under anti-terrorism laws for voicing their dissent.