Silencing the Indian Minaret by Avani Devi

When a nation begins fearing its own citizens’ thoughts, it is not security it’s seeking, it’s silence.

Ali Khan Mahmudabad, one of India’s most respected Muslim public intellectuals and a professor of politics, now finds himself facing criminal charges. His alleged crime? Expressing an opinion. A well-articulated, contextualized, and academic opinion on social media, regarding India’s military strikes across the border into Pakistan, a reaction to the tragic massacre in India-administered Kashmir.

Let us set aside, just for a moment, the endless complexities of Indo-Pak relations, cross-border terrorism, and the blood-soaked history of Kashmir. Focus instead on what is actually happening: the Indian state is prosecuting a citizen not for incitement, not for violence, not even for an actual threat but for interpretation. Interpretation indeed! We are now prosecuting thought.

Of course, the government’s justification is wrapped in the usual shiny plastic of "national security" and the ever-flexible charge of "promoting communal disharmony." But let’s not be fooled. The real target is not Ali Khan Mahmudabad the professor, the historian, or the scholar. It’s Mahmudabad the Muslim voice. And this, dear reader, is the script we’ve seen time and time again, often in black-and-white footage of countries that no longer exist, regimes that fell under the weight of their own censorship and paranoia.

The Modi government, like so many others seduced by majoritarian power, has mastered the art of the dog whistle. Except in today’s India, it’s less a whistle and more a foghorn. Loud, public, and deliberately inflammatory.

One needn’t agree with Mahmudabad’s opinions to defend his right to voice them. That is the essence of a functioning democracy. But when academic reflection becomes a criminal offense, when a tweet becomes "communal provocation," what’s really on trial is freedom itself.

Ali Khan Mahmudabad has long been a thorn in the side of communalist ideologues. He writes with nuance, context, and perhaps most dangerously of all, compassion. His voice offers a counter-narrative, a reminder that India is not, and was never meant to be, a one-song nation.

In prosecuting him, the state isn’t just gagging dissent. It is attempting to rewrite the national soundtrack, erasing the harmonies, flattening the chords. The minaret, the mandir bell, the church choir, they must all sing the same line. Off-key voices? We arrest them. This is not law enforcement. This is ideological enforcement.

Let us talk about communal disharmony. Is it created by a professor analyzing a military campaign and contextualizing it within regional politics? Or is it created by mobs on the street, chanting hate slogans, emboldened by the silence of those in power?

Is disharmony nurtured in lecture halls, or in rallies where leaders weaponize religion for votes?

If Mahmudabad’s words disturb the peace, perhaps it's because that peace was already a brittle illusion, painted over the fault lines of fear, prejudice, and state-enabled hate.

The ones who truly disturb communal harmony are not the ones who ask questions. They are the ones who punish those who do.

Make no mistake, this is not about Muslims alone. Today, it’s Ali Khan Mahmudabad. Tomorrow, it will be the Dalit activist, the Christian pastor, the atheist comedian, the Sikh journalist. The machinery is being oiled, its gears tested. A society that allows the state to criminalize thought will soon find itself with no thoughts left unapproved. This is not a Muslim problem. This is a democracy problem. This is India’s problem.

In prosecuting Ali Khan Mahmudabad, the Modi government is sending a message, loud and clear: If you are Muslim, if you are intellectual, and if you have a voice, you better learn to whisper. Or better yet, go mute.

The saddest irony? Mahmudabad’s own writings often reflected on the need for national unity, for dialogue, for a country that respects its diversity instead of fearing it. He has written about Partition not with bitterness but with hope, hope that India could still live up to its promise. But hope, it seems, is the most subversive act of all these days.

The persecution of Ali Khan Mahmudabad is not just an attack on an individual. It is an attack on thought, on discourse, on academia itself. It is an attempt to remake India not as a nation of diverse minds and voices, but as a chorus of sycophants echoing a singular narrative.

We should all be alarmed. And we should all remember the timeless warning: when they come for the poets, the professors, and the thinkers, it’s not their words the state fears. It’s our awakening.

Silencing the minaret will not bring peace. It will only echo the hollowness of a nation losing its voice.