Has India’s democracy failed its Muslims? Jailed scholar triggers debate

Sharjeel Imam questioned foundational ideas of India’s nationalism in an interview with The Quint, inspiring a heated debate. Has the world’s largest democracy failed the world’s largest minority – its nearly 200 million Muslims?

That question is at the heart of a polarising debate currently under way in India. The debate started with Sharjeel Imam, a 38-year-old Muslim scholar, who gave a lengthy interview to an Indian news website on September 29 from his prison cell in New Delhi.

Imam covered a wide range of issues and raised uncomfortable questions about the place of the country’s Muslim minority, which forms roughly 14 percent of India’s 1.4 billion population. “There are around 210 million Muslims in India – one of the biggest Muslim groups in the world, with practically zero say in this democracy,” Imam told the Indian news outlet, The Quint .