Umar Khalid and the Long Wait for a Trial

Some cases escape the boundaries of courtrooms and case files. They move into the moral imagination of a society and linger there, asking questions that law alone cannot answer. The continued incarceration of Umar Khalid is one such case-less because of its legal novelty than because of the unease it has generated, quietly and persistently, across borders.

Nearly five years have passed since Khalid was arrested in September 2020. He remains in Delhi's Tihar Jail, charged under India's Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in connection with the February 2020 Delhi riots. His trial has yet to begin. In that gap between accusation and adjudication-between allegation and judgment-his case has taken on a symbolic weight that neither his supporters nor the state originally set out to create.

The Arrest and the Allegations

The prosecution alleges that his speeches during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, his participation in meetings, and his associations within activist networks formed part of an effort to destabilize the state. These allegations are laid out in a chargesheet running into thousands of pages, supported largely by witness statements, digital records, and inferred intent. Khalid's defense has consistently argued that his speeches explicitly called for nonviolence, that association has been mistaken for orchestration, and that no direct evidence links him to acts of violence. No weapons were recovered. No funding trail was produced. No command structure was demonstrated.

What exists, instead, is a narrative of conspiracy-one that courts have not yet tested through trial. Legally, Khalid remains an undertrial prisoner. He has not been convicted. No court has ruled that he incited violence. No evidence has been cross-examined on the merits.

The Weight of a Law

Courts are not required to test credibility at this stage. Delay, under the statute, is permissible. This legal architecture has turned time itself into a form of punishment-or at least into an unresolved question.

As months turned into years, Khalid's incarceration began to trouble not only civil liberties groups but also legal scholars and international observers. The concern has rarely been about innocence or guilt. It has been about duration without determination.

A Letter That Did Not Argue

Mamdani mentioned having met Khalid's parents and conveyed that many continue to think of him. In an era of maximalist statements and hardened positions, the letter's restraint was striking. It treated Khalid not as a cause but as a person-someone enduring time, separation, and uncertainty. It reminded readers that even the most politicized cases are lived one day at a time, by families who measure years not in hearings but in missed weddings, delayed milestones, and waiting rooms.

A Wedding and a Return

When the Question Crossed Borders

Notably, the lawmakers emphasized their respect for India's democratic institutions. Their appeal was framed not as interference, but as a reminder of shared legal principles. They asked simple, unsettling questions: Why has a trial not begun after more than five years? How does prolonged pretrial detention align with international norms? What safeguards prevent extraordinary laws from becoming instruments of indefinite incarceration? Their concern echoed a broader global anxiety: that emergency laws, once normalized, begin to outlast the emergencies that justified them.

Beyond Guilt or Innocence

Democracies are not judged solely by how they punish the guilty, but by how carefully they treat the unproven. They draw their strength not from unanimity, but from their capacity to hold disagreement without fear, accusation without abandonment of due process. The letters written for Umar Khalid's behalf-one personal, one congressional-speak in different registers.

One appeals to conscience and endurance. The other appeals to law and procedure. Together, they ask a question that transcends ideology and borders: How long can a democracy hold a citizen on allegations alone, and still claim fidelity to justice?

The answer, whenever it comes, will matter far beyond one jail cell in Delhi.