Sure A Not

In an interview in January 2020, Umar Khalid introduced himself as an “unemployed 32-year-old Indian”, with a doctorate on indigenous people from a prestigious university.

“Ideologically, you could say, I’m a radical democrat. I believe in democracy, and I believe in democracy that is not limited until your voting,” Mr Khalid told VICE Asia.

“It must come into practice in everyday life in a way you can voice your issues and concerns with democratic functioning.”

Mr Khalid had already gained prominence in 2016 as one of five Indian students charged with sedition for organising a protest at his alma mater, Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), over the 2013 hanging of a Kashmiri man.

He, along with another student, had surrendered to the police and had been granted bail months later. In 2022, the Supreme Court temporarily suspended the colonial sedition law, instructing the government to halt all trials until the law’s validity was conclusively determined by the court.

Four years later, in September 2020, Mr Khalid was arrested again and accused of being a “key conspirator” in violent clashes in Delhi that killed 53 people, mostly Muslims. The February riots in the Indian capital occurred amid massive months-long protests against a contentious citizenship law.

Since then the activist has been languishing in a maximum security prison in the city. Mr Khalid, who was one of several students and activists held for the violence, has denied the charges against him. The 36-year-old says he only took part in a peaceful protest.

Two police cases were lodged against Mr Khalid. One case has been dropped, while in the other, he hasn’t been charged in court yet, and the trial hasn’t begun. Denied bail twice in the second case, he has faced prolonged incarceration as the police invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) – a stringent anti-terror law notorious for making it exceptionally challenging to get bail, often resulting in years of detention until the completion of trial.

In May last year, Mr Khalid’s lawyers sought bail from the Supreme Court. Despite 11 scheduled dates over the past eight months, the top court has not yet heard the bail petition.

Lawyers on both sides were occasionally absent; at other times, changes in the bench hearing the case prolonged the delay. Kapil Sibal, Mr Khalid’s lawyer, has told the court that he would need only “20 minutes” to show that the police did not have a case against his client. The next hearing is set for 24 January, with the judge insisting that the proceedings must commence on that day.

The prosecutor said Mr Khalid was identified meeting people accused in the rioting by a witness. His lawyer argued that Mr Khalid was neither present in Delhi when the violence broke out, nor was there any other evidence to link him to the crime.

Under the UAPA, the activist has been charged by police with a “larger conspiracy” of terrorism, criminal conspiracy and engaging in unlawful activities, along with charges of rioting.

The police has described him as a “remote supervisor” and “mastermind” behind the riots, relying on what they said were statements made by unnamed witnesses, Mr Khalid’s membership of WhatsApp groups, phone calls made to him by other accused when the riots began and his presence at various demonstrations.

They also say that unnamed witnesses have told them Mr Khalid supported the overthrow of the Narendra Modi government, making provocative speeches. While denying him bail, the Delhi high court also said that Mr Khalid had called for a revolution, which may not “necessarily” be bloodless. Mr Khalid has consistently denied making any provocative speeches or instigating violence.

The trial court and the Delhi high court, which have denied him bail, are not convinced; they believe the allegations against Mr. Khalid are, on the face of it, true.

Legal commentators say the evidence produced against Mr Khalid is “weak”.

In October 2022, a former Supreme Court judge, three retired high court judges, and a former federal home secretary examined the UAPA case against Mr Khalid as part of a larger report on the riots. They wrote that they found no substantiating evidence to warrant the imposition of terrorism charges.

The prosecution “relies on material that is intrinsically unreliable in law”, they wrote. They found inconsistencies in the claims made by the police which “further corroborates the possibility that the witness statements gathered have been fabricated”.

“The prosecution really needs to make up its mind as to what is the case against me,” Mr Khalid’s lawyer told a court in 2022, challenging refusal of bail. “I have to bear the brunt of two years of imprisonment because you have a [hearsay] statement [from an uncorroborated witness].”

Amnesty International has said that denying bail to Mr Khalid is a “huge blow to free expression and peaceful assembly in the country”. The rights group said it reflected a “rapidly shrinking space for critical voices”, setting a “chilling precedent” for dissenting views.

Meanwhile, in prison, Mr Khalid reads voraciously, writes applications for fellow prisoners, and watches cricket on the TV. He also writes diligently, aiming to craft a prison diary of sorts that has already piqued the interest of publishers.

Mr Khalid’s family is allowed a 20-minute video call each week, and his friends can have a half-hour physical visit at the prison. The family is holding up: after years of editing an Urdu newspaper, his father launched a small political party, while his mother, who used to work as a doctor, now runs a boutique. In July 2022, they had a brief respite: Mr Khalid was granted temporary bail for a week to attend his sister’s wedding.

“It is not a very hopeful situation. But Umar is fine, keeping his spirits up,” says Banojyotsna Lahiri, Mr Khalid’s long-time partner. The two met as students in 2008 and started dating five years later.

Ms Lahiri has written evocatively of how the two have been in a “long-distance relationship while being in the same city”, meeting across a glass partition in prison and talking on the intercom.

“We laugh, joke and don’t discuss sad things… He calls me too, and we have court dates, pun intended. In court we talk in sign language,” she told India Love Project, an Instagram account celebrating unions that defy “the shackles of faith, caste, ethnicity, and gender.”

Last week, Ms Lahiri visited Mr Khalid in prison with six new books, including Paul Lynch’s Booker-winning Prophet Song, William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, and works by Saadat Hasan Manto and a book on Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. She reckons Mr Khalid has read close to 200 books in incarceration, and she has bought bookshelves to store the ones he returns after reading.

In his prison ward, where he’s permitted to leave his cell during the day, Mr Khalid shares space with convicted criminals, including murderers and those guilty of other heinous crimes.

“Why am I here among all these people?” he often asks Ms Lahiri during their meetings.

North Korea experts – by nature, a cautious group who seek to avoid sowing panic – have been left reeling by two of their own.

Last week, the two eminent analysts dropped a bomb – so to speak – in stating their belief that the pariah state’s leader is preparing for war.

Kim Jong Un has scrapped the bedrock goal of reconciling and re-uniting with South Korea, they said. Instead, he’s presenting the North and South as two independent states at war with each other.

“We believe, that like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” wrote Robert L Carlin, a former CIA analyst and Siegfried S Hecker, a nuclear scientist who’s visited the North several times, in an article on specialist site 38 North.

Such a pronouncement set off alarm bells in Washington and Seoul, and a massive debate in North Korea watching circles.

Most analysts, however, disagree with the war theory; the BBC spoke to seven experts across Asia, Europe and North America – none of whom supported the idea.

“Risking his entire regime on a potentially cataclysmic conflict is not on-brand for the North Koreans. They have proven to be ruthlessly Machiavellian,” says Christopher Green, a Korea watcher from Crisis Group based in the Netherlands.

He and others note the North often acts out to bring Western powers to the table for dialogue; and there are political pressures at home too.

What all of the experts do agree on though is that Mr Kim’s increased bluster can’t be ignored and his regime has grown more dangerous.

Because while most argue war may still be unlikely, others fear a more limited attack could yet be on the cards.

Close watchers of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are used to his nuclear threats, but some say the latest messages from Pyongyang are of a different nature.

Six days on from his New Year’s Eve declaration that “it is fait accompli that a war can break out anytime on the Korean peninsula”, his military blasted artillery across the border.

North Korea has also claimed a test of a new solid-fuelled missile, and its underwater attack drones, which can supposedly carry a nuclear weapon, since the start of January.

They follow on from two years of near-monthly missile launches and weapons development in blatant contravention of UN sanctions.

However, it was his announcement of formally abandoning the goal of unification that last week furrowed brows. Reuniting with the South had always been a key – if increasingly unrealistic – part of the North’s ideology since the inception of the state.

“This is a big deal. It fundamentally alters one of the regime’s core ideological precepts,” says Peter Ward, a senior researcher at Kookmin University in Seoul.

Kim Jong Un would now be tearing down that legacy – literally. Along with shutting diplomacy channels and cross-border radio broadcasts, he has announced he will demolish the Reunification Arch, a nine-storey monument on the outskirts of Pyongyang.

The arch, showing two women in traditional Korean dress reaching towards each other, had been built in 2001 to mark his father’s and grandfather’s efforts towards the goal of reunification.

Kim Il Sung had been the one who went to war in 1950, but he was also the one who set the idea that at some point North Koreans would be united with their southern kin again.

But his grandson has now chosen to define South Koreans as different people altogether – perhaps to justify them as a military target.

Mr Carlin and Dr Hecker, the analysts who predicted war, have interpreted all of this as signs that Kim Jong Un has settled on actually pursuing a fight.

But most analysts disagree. Seong-Hyon Lee, from the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China relations, points out the country is due to reopen to foreign tourists next month, and it has also sold its own shells to Russia for war – something it could ill afford if it were preparing for the battlefields.

The ultimate deterrent, however, is that were the North to launch an attack, the US and South Korea armies are just so much more advanced.

“A general war could kill a lot of people in the South, but it would be the end of Kim Jong Un and his regime,”says Kookmim University’s Mr Ward.

Instead, he and others warn the conditions are building for a smaller action.

“I’m much more concerned, in general, about a limited attack on South Korea… an attack of that sort would take aim at South Korean territory or military forces but be limited in scope,” says analyst Ankit Panda, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

This could even be in the form of shelling or attempted occupation of contested islands west of the Korean peninsula.

In 2010, the North struck the island of Yeonpyeong killing four South Korean soldiers, infuriating the South.

A similar provocation again could be done to test the South Korean’s limits, analysts suggest, and to push the buttons of President Yoon Suk Yeol, a defiantly hawkish leader who has vowed to respond to a North Korean attack with punishment “multiple times more severe”.

“North Korea may expect to draw out a disproportionate retaliatory attack from Seoul,” says Mr Panda, something that might spark a broader escalation in fighting.

Others say war fears should also be put in the context of Kim’s operating patterns.

“Looking at the history of North Korea, it has often used provocation to attract the attention of other countries when it wants to negotiate,” says Seong-Hyon Lee.

The regime continues to suffer from economic sanctions and 2024 is an election year for its enemies – with the US presidential vote and South Korean legislature poll.

“This presents a good opportunity for Kim Jong Un to provoke,” explains Dr Lee.

The current US administration under President Joe Biden – tied up with Ukraine and Gaza – hasn’t paid North Korea much heed and Pyongyang has also typically had most engagement with Republican administrations.

Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump famously had a bromance in 2019 before the denuclearisation talks soured – and the North Korean leader may be waiting for the former US president to return to the White House, where he might weaken the alliance with South Korea and be open to dialogue again.

North Korea’s closer friendship with Russia and continued economic support from China in the past year may have also boosted its audacity, analysts suggest. It’s received technical help from Russia to achieve a long-term goal of launching its spy satellites and the two states had several high-profile meetings including a leaders summit last year.

“Much of what we’re seeing is a result of broader North Korean confidence in its own capabilities and its geopolitical position given Russian, and to a lesser degree, Chinese support,” says Mr Panda.

And others say Kim Jong Un’s behaviour is all aimed at stabilising his own regime.

“This appears to be an ideological adjustment for regime survival,” argues Leif-Eric Easley, an associate professor of international studies at Ewha University in Seoul. “North Koreans are increasingly aware of their Communist country’s failings compared to the South.”

He suggests a policy focused on defining the enemy justifies Mr Kim’s missile spending at a time where there are reports of starvation across the country.

Presenting the South as the enemy also makes it easier to resolve “cognitive dissonance at the heart” of the North’s view on South Korea, points out Mr Ward.

“Previously it was an indelibly evil state that was supposed to be the object of unification with a hopelessly corrupting culture that should not be consumed under any circumstances but with people who need to be liberated from their evil government,” says Mr Ward.

“Now the country and its culture can just be branded evil and that justifies the continued crackdown on South Korean culture.”

The BBC last week published rare footage showing two North Korean teenagers sentenced to 12 years hard labour for watching K-dramas.

“He doesn’t actually want a war – a huge gamble where he would have “nothing to gain and everything to lose”, says Sokeel Park, from Liberty in North Korea, an NGO helping North Korean refugees.

His threats are instead aimed at cementing his new North and South policy, designed ultimately to shore up his power at home, he says.

While it’s important for South Korea, the US and allies to prepare for the worst-case scenario, it is also worth a thorough examination of the internal situation in North Korea and the wider geopolitics, analysts say.

At the end of the day, the best way to find out what the North’s leader is thinking is to engage with him, argues Dr Lee.

“The international community does not see the US talking to Kim Jong Un as surrendering to Kim Jong Un’s threats. It is seen as a necessary means to achieve a goal,” he says.

“If necessary, one should consider meeting with the leader of an enemy nation to reduce misjudgements and prevent war.”

With reporting by Kelly Ng