Last week, filmmaker Lalit Vachani presented his latest documentary “Prisoner No. 626710 is Present” at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Through archival footage and forensic media analysis, the film examines the 2020 arrest and ongoing imprisonment of student activist Umar Khalid under the “Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.”
The 1967 act was designed as a counterrorism measure to prevent activities that threatened India’s sovereignty. But, according to the film, the law has drawn widespread criticism for its broad scope, which some argue limits individuals’ right to dissent.
Khalid, a former student leader at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, was arrested in 2020 for his alleged involvement in violent riots earlier that year. Under the UAPA, Khalid has remained in jail without bail ever since.
A major focus of the film was Khalid’s activism against the Citizenship Amendment Act, a law passed by the Indian government in 2019. The CAA allows undocumented immigrants from neighboring countries to apply for citizenship, but only if they identify with specific religious groups — Muslims are excluded from this act.
Khalid was a vocal critic of the law, arguing that it undermined India’s secular constitution and targeted the country’s Muslim population, according to the film. The documentary shows how his opposition to the CAA, along with his involvement in protests, became a key part of the government’s case against him.
Vachani’s documentary argues that state and right-wing media manufactured a narrative to frame Khalid as an enemy of the nation. The film traces a timeline that begins in 2016 when student activism spread on college campuses, moves through the anti-CAA protests of 2019 and early 2020 and culminates in the Delhi riots and Khalid’s subsequent arrest.
The screening of “Prisoner No. 626710” was organized by the Watson Institute’s Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia. Following the screening, The Herald sat down with Vachani to discuss the making of the film, the challenges of documenting political repression and his perspective on the future of free press in India.
When beginning to work on the film, Vachani envisioned a broader project documenting Hindu nationalism’s growing influence. But while filming in 2019, he witnessed the anti-CAA protests and did not believe the media’s narrative about student protestors. “I knew that could not be the case because I documented them. I filmed them,” he said.
The student protestors were “singing at some of the protests,” Vachani added. The students, he said, were using “cooperative, collaborative, peaceful means.”
This realization led him to center the film on Khalid.
For Vachani, the documentary serves not just as a record of Khalid’s imprisonment, but also as a tool to generate awareness. “I want people to recognize the reality of the situation, recognize that this great injustice has been done to this young man,” he said. While Khalid is well-known in India, Vachani hopes the film will introduce his case to international audiences.
But beyond creating exposure, Vachani sees the film as a way to inspire action. “My hope is that people take up this issue and use whatever means possible — maybe by organizing screenings, by holding discussions — to keep these injustices in the public consciousness,” he said.
When reflecting on the documentary’s impact after the screening, some audience members drew connections between Umar Khalid’s case and broader struggles for free speech and activism worldwide.
“The ongoing situation of Umar Khalid is, sadly, not an exception in contemporary India,” explained Arnav Adhikari GS, who helped coordinate the event and facilitated post-screening discussions.
Khalid “is one of many political dissidents, intellectuals and activists who have been incarcerated for voicing their opposition to the state,” Adhikari continued. “But Umar has become a figure and a symbol for the larger situation that is unfolding.”
Summer Shi is a senior staff writer and illustrator for the Brown Daily Herald. She is from Dublin, California and is currently studying design engineering and philosophy.
