Ali Khan Mahmudabad, the Head of the Department of Political Science at Ashoka University, was recently arrested and sent to jail for 14 days for insulting Operation Sindoor and disrespecting women. The operation, Sindoor, conducted by the Indian armed forces, involved airstrikes on terrorist camps in Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 innocent Hindus.
Ali Khan’s Legacy Rooted in Muslim League, Congress & Two-Nation Theory
Ali Khan Mahmudabad hails from a prominent political family with royal lineage and deep historical ties to the All India Muslim League, the party that championed the two-nation theory, leading to the Partition of India. His grandfather was a close associate of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and served as a long-time treasurer and significant financier of the Muslim League during the years leading up to Partition. In 1957, the Raja of Mahmudabad became a Pakistani citizen, although his wife and son chose to remain in India.
His political heritage also includes his father, Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan, popularly known as Raja Sahab of Mahmudabad, who was a two-time Congress MLA from Mahmudabad. Ali Khan Mahmudabad is married to the daughter of Haseeb Drabu, former Finance Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. From 2019 to 2022, Ali Khan Mahmudabad served as a national spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party (SP), and he was regarded as one of the closest associates of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Ali Khan’s Criticism Echoed the Legacy of Two-Nation Theory
The social media post by Ali Khan criticising the media briefings of Operation Sindoor’s women officers has raised serious constitutional and social concerns. While free speech is a constitutional right under Article 19(1)(a), his remarks go beyond academic critique, revealing a deeper intent to undermine institutional integrity and communal harmony during a critical national security operation.
In his post, Mahmudabad described the briefings by Colonel Sofia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh as mere “optics,” stating, “The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is important, but optics must translate to reality on the ground, otherwise it’s just hypocrisy.” This rhetoric reduces the visible participation of women in defence to tokenism, casting doubt on their agency and contributions. Such a perspective not only undermines the dignity of these women officers but also reinforces regressive patriarchal stereotypes, contravening India’s constitutional promises of gender equality under Articles 14 and 15.
Moreover, Mahmudabad’s commentary veils a politically motivated attempt to frame a sensitive military operation in communal terms, risking the erosion of public trust in the armed forces and the State. By selectively highlighting grievances such as mob lynchings and bulldozing without acknowledging the complexity of constitutional duties or the context of the operation, his narrative fuels division and cynicism. This approach weaponizes public sentiment against the State and potentially disrupts communal harmony, a serious concern under Article 19(2), which allows reasonable restrictions on speech in the interests of public order and State security.
Importantly, his remarks implicitly challenge the legitimacy of the Indian Armed Forces’ role, disrespecting not just individual women officers but also the broader institutional authority they represent. Such veiled misogyny disguised as intellectual inquiry threatens to erase the achievements of women in national defence, undermining India’s ongoing efforts toward gender parity and empowerment.
In sum, Mahmudabad’s social media post crosses from legitimate critique into the territory of destabilising public discourse, communalising national security, and perpetuating outdated gender biases. It risks reviving divisive communal narratives reminiscent of the Two-Nation Theory’s legacy, thereby threatening the nation’s constitutional fabric and social cohesion. Upholding the dignity of individuals and institutions, particularly during times of national crisis, remains essential for preserving India’s progressive and inclusive Republic.
Ali Khan & Ashoka: A Nexus of Foreign-Backed Anti-India Agendas?
Ashoka University is a major hub for anti-India activities, operating in close collaboration with foreign powers and serving as a nexus for Islamist urban Naxals. Central to this troubling network is the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD), an organisation established in 2016 under Ashoka University’s Department of Political Science, headed by Ali Khan since December 2015, in partnership with the University of Michigan, USA. With an initial seed funding of Rs 15 crore, TCPD was tasked with analyzing political data in India, but its agenda raises serious questions about national interests.
TCPD’s executive board notably included India’s former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi. This centre was co-founded by Belgian academic Gilles Verniers, a disciple of Christophe Jaffrelot, a French scholar who has aggressively pushed the divisive caste census narrative in India. Verniers completed his PhD in 2015 under Jaffrelot and joined Ashoka as an Assistant Professor in 2014, later co-founding TCPD in 2016. Both men are key figures in an interconnected web of foreign-funded research and pseudo-philanthropic organizations like George Soros’s OSF, Henry Luce Foundation, and the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research (CPR). The involvement of these entities points to a clear agenda backed by foreign funding, aimed at destabilising India through academic and policy influence.
Verniers holds a prestigious position at Amherst College as a visiting Assistant Professor, teaching subjects such as ‘’political violence, Democratic erosion in India, and Histories of the Far-right. The Sciences Po American Foundation, a US-based arm of the French Sciences Po institution with which both Verniers and Jaffrelot are connected, has further cemented this network. In 2021, this institution partnered with Princeton and Columbia universities on a three-year research project titled “Muslims in a Time of Hindu Majoritarianism,” clearly aligned with narratives challenging the Hindu community and national unity.
Christophe Jaffrelot, a visiting professor and member of Ashoka University’s Academic Council, single-handedly propelled the contentious caste census issue into the national discourse in 2021. A month prior, Verniers published similar works from TCPD, timed with funding from the US-based Henry Luce Foundation (HLF). Jaffrelot is also part of the Political Conflict, Gender & People’s Rights Initiative (PCRes), which received a $370,000 grant from HLF in 2021 to “examine fault lines between citizenship, religion in the public sphere, and belonging in contemporary South Asia.” As a scholar at PCRes, he has been instrumental in organizing multiple webinars since October 2023, covering issues like Islamophobia, violence in Haryana’s Nuh district, Manipur unrest, and Hindu nationalism, all topics that fuel social polarization ahead of the 2024 Indian elections. PCRes also hosted a high-profile online event on April 26, 2024, titled “India Elections 2024: Hindu Nationalism, Ayodhya, and Dispossession.” In September 2023, after media reports surfaced, TCPD’s scientific board self-dissolved, Verniers seamlessly transitioned in January 2024 to the New Delhi-based CPR as a Senior Fellow. The deep-rooted foreign influence permeating Ashoka University through figures like Alikhan, Christophe Jaffrelot, Gilles Verniers, and others raises urgent alarms about the university’s role in undermining India’s sovereignty.
Can we really expect anything different from Ali Khan, shaped by the Muslim League, Congress, and SP, in a country where even opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi echo Pakistan’s narrative against their own nation at a time of national crisis?
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