Umar Khaled Presents Paper at Scholar Conference Post His Release

Many criticised that the taxpayers’ money is being wasted at JNU and students should focus on studies.

Umar Khaled and Anirban Bhattacharya after their release. (Photo: PTI/altered by The Quint)

A day after his release from Tihar jail where he was lodged in a sedition case, Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khaled, presented a paper at the Young Scholar’s Conference at the university, on Saturday.

The Centre for Historical Studies (CHS), was initially supposed to organise its annual Young Scholars’ Conference from 18-20 February. The meet, however, was postponed following the sequence of events that unfolded in JNU after the controversial 9 February event.

28-year-old Khaled, who is pursuing his PhD at the same department, presented a paper titled Changing Village Authority in the Adivasi Hinterland: State, Community and Contingencies of Rule in Singhbhum (1830-1893).

A student in JNU said:

Umar presented a paper and Anirban will have to start writing the last bit of his PhD. Because this is what we do in JNU. We study and we struggle. We fight in the streets brave your water canons, and come back to debate mode of production (as fiercely).

In the wake of the current row, the varsity has been severely criticised from various quarters who alleged that taxpayers’ money is being wasted at JNU and the students should focus on studies and not politics.

Khaled, who has been found guilty by the university of “arousing communal violence and disrupting communal harmony”, was in custody along with Anirban Bhattacharya for three weeks.

The duo walked out of Tihar on Friday after a city court granted them interim bail for six months.

They were accorded a huge welcome at the JNU campus where they addressed the gathering. Anirban and Umar asserted that they are proud of the fact that their name has been added to the list of the freedom fighters and activists who have been booked under sedition for raising their voice.