India today stands at a civilisational crossroads because of one man whose words should have been enough to trigger swift, uncompromising prosecution: Sharjeel Imam.
Not because he is an activist. Not because he criticised a law. But because he openly called for cutting India into pieces—and has been rewarded with years of prime-time sympathy, academic sanitisation, and a judicial process moving at the speed of a funeral procession.
This entire episode is not about a bail plea. It is about whether India still has the spine to defend its own territorial integrity against those who dream of dismembering it.
Sharjeel Imam’s speeches during the anti-CAA protests were not slips of the tongue. They were manifestos of secession, delivered with the arrogance of someone convinced that India’s democracy is too indecisive, too timid, and too self-hating to punish him.
His call to block the Siliguri Corridor—the Chicken’s Neck—was a strategic instruction straight out of Pakistan’s playbook. The very land bridge that secures Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram was, in his words, to be cut off by “his people.”
This is not activism. This is not dissent. This is seditious engineering wrapped in academic language.
If any citizen in China, Russia, Bangladesh, France, or even the United States had suggested severing strategic territory, they would have been tried, convicted, and locked away—or worse—within weeks.
In India, we debate whether he deserves a cup of sympathy on primetime debates.
The Delhi Police used the exact phrase: “intellectual terrorist.” And they were right.
Imam represents a dangerous category—an educated elite who weaponize ideology to mobilise crowds, mislead impressionable youth, and provide the philosophical fuel for street mobs.
This class enjoys immense cover from the entrenched ecosystem of Lutyens lawyers, celebrity activists, foreign-funded NGOs, and political parties whose electoral arithmetic depends on perpetual grievance-mongering.
No wonder they portray Imam as a saint imprisoned by an oppressive State. And no wonder the judicial system—already notorious for bending backwards to please this ecosystem—continues to drag its feet.
Let’s be brutally honest: If Sharjeel Imam is out on bail tomorrow, it will not be because he deserves it. It will be because the Indian judiciary cannot muster the will to enforce the very laws passed by Parliament.
For decades, courts have behaved as if Article 19(1) exists in a vacuum and Article 19(2)—which specifically allows restrictions on speech threatening sovereignty and public order—is merely a decorative footnote.
Why is there so much hesitation in applying UAPA? Why does a man who openly calls for breaking India get treated like a misunderstood poet? Why does the judiciary bend over backwards to appear “civilised” while confronting those who want to fracture the civilisation itself?
This weakness is not judicial restraint. It is judicial capitulation.
Sharjeel Imam’s involvement in:
- Shaheen Bagh road blockades
- CAA agitation logistics
- mobilisation networks masquerading as student protests
- amplification of anti-India narratives through intellectual circles
…shows a consistent ideological intent. His speeches, videos, and online interventions form a seamless pattern: create conflict, portray the State as a villain, energise the street, and then claim victimhood.
This is the new-age toolkit of urban radicalism. And Imam was not just a participant. He was a strategist.
India is a civilisation that survived invasions, genocides, partitions, and foreign rule. But the greatest threat to any civilisation is internal decay—the willingness to tolerate those who ridicule national unity while enjoying the freedoms that unity creates.
Sharjeel Imam’s punishment should not be symbolic. It must be exemplary.
If the evidence proves his role in attempting to inspire secessionist action, then the legal system must deliver the harshest penalty available under law.
Not out of revenge. Not out of anger. But because a Republic that refuses to defend itself will eventually not exist to defend.
India must send a message—clear, loud, and undeniable—that the age of pampering separatists is over.
And Sharjeel Imam’s case is the perfect place to begin that course correction.
