Ashoka University Professor Arrested and Later Released on Bail Due to India-Pakistan Conflict Remarks

Ali Khan Mahmudabad. Photo credit: The Wire.

Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad was arrested on May 18 by police officers who showed up to his residence in Delhi, India. The reason given for his arrest was a social media post dated May 8 including Professor Mahmudabad’s comments on the conflict between India and Pakistan which had escalated from May 7 to May 10, 2025, resulting in at least 56 civilian deaths across the two countries.

Ali Khan Mahmudabad is an Associate Professor at Ashoka University in India and current head of the Department of Political Science. His work covers topics such as religious identity and democracy in South Asia and the Middle East with a focus on Islam. He is also a public personality that regularly appears on television and writes opinion pieces for newspapers and magazines.

In his May 8 social media post, Mahmudabad criticized the discrepancy between the celebration of a Muslim female military officer in the Indian military, on the one hand, and the ongoing marginalization of Muslims in Indian society, on the other. In the same post, he also made some anti-war statements and criticisms towards “those who are mindlessly advocating for a war”. Two complaints were filed against Professor Mahmudabad’s statements, which led to his arrest. One of the two complaints was filed by a member of the Youth Wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who accused Professor Mahmudabad of “working to benefit external or foreign forces in the name of religion”. The second complaint was filed by the chair of the Haryana State Women’s Commission on the claim that Mahmudabad’s statements “disparaged women officers in the Indian armed forces and promoted communal disharmony”. Rejecting both of these accusations, Professor Mahmudabad said that his statements were misunderstood and that anything he said was part of his freedom of speech.

After two days in police custody, on May 21, the Supreme Court of India granted bail to Mahmudabad, rejecting the police’s request for a 7-day detention. Under the bail conditions, Mahmudabad is barred from making statements regarding the topics that led to his arrest and is not allowed to leave the country as his passport was confiscated. His laptop and other electronic devices were also seized under the instruction of the court.

Professor Mahmudabad’s arrest caused reactions in Indian academia and beyond, albeit at different intensities. Ashoka University administration’s initial response to Professor Mahmudabad’s arrest was a cautious one that emphasized that the professor’s statements were made “independently in his individual capacity”. Upon his release on bail, the university’s statement was more enthusiastic, welcoming his release as a reassuring development. Meanwhile, faculty and students voiced stronger opposition to Mahmudabad’s arrest. The Faculty Association of Ashoka University called the charges brought against Mahmudabad “groundless and untenable” and his arrest an example of “calculated harassment”. Some faculty members also went to the police station that he was taken to after this detention. The Committee for Academic Freedom at the university released a statement, calling the arrest a “fundamental attack on academic freedom”. In another statement, Professor Mahmudabad’s students condemned his arrest, stating that “his wrongful arrest is a stark violation of not just academic freedom, but of the very principles he taught [them] and stood for”. Objections to Professor Mahmudabad’s arrest extended beyond the academic world, as well. Aakar Patel, Chair of the Board of Amnesty International India, said that Mahmudabad’s arrest showed “how authorities have been consistently misusing the law to target anyone who has a critical view in the country”.

Writing for the Indian Express, Rituparna Patgiri, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, argued that barriers to academic freedom have been increasing in both public and private universities in India. According to Patgiri, the deterioration of academic freedom was initially perceived as a problem of public universities where government control was more direct and that private institutions such as Ashoka were seen as relatively more open to critical voices. However, these private institutions have not stood by those critical voices when they were threatened by the government. Patgiri argues that private universities welcome and encourage its faculty members to develop a presence on social media to advertise for the school and attract students but hesitate to stand by those same faculty members when their public presence becomes a reason for governmental pressure. The tentative commitment of private institutions to academic freedom was demonstrated in a recent example when two professors from the Economics Department at Ashoka University resigned in August 2023 after the university administration attempted to get involved in the evaluation of the scientific credentials of a department faculty’s study on democratic backsliding in India.

Academic freedom has been declining in India in parallel with the deterioration of democratic norms and institutions under the BJP. Within academia, especially Muslim students and faculty, as well as those critical of Narendra Modi and the BJP have been targeted. Recent violations of academic freedom include the weaponization of disciplinary measures against those taking part in protests against or engaging in scholarship critical of the government, restrictions on events deemed to be “political”, and governmental intervention into the teaching of subjects such as history by marginalizing the role of Islam and increasing emphasis on Hindu identity in the Indian past. Muslim students and faculty are at personal risk of harm as well. On March 16, 2024, fifteen Muslim students were attacked by a Hindu-nationalist mob while praying in Gujarat University’s student housing.

Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) condemns the targeting and arrest of Ali Khan Mahmudabad for expressing his views on social media. While Professor Mahmudabad’s release from jail is a welcome development, the restrictions placed on him as part of the bail conditions are also a form of undue punishment. We invite the global community dedicated to upholding academic freedom to join our call.