Who is Sharjeel Imam?

For the last ten odd days, a lot has been made out of the name Sharjeel Imam. The media has sounded him out to be a radicalized Muslim youth, the ‘mastermind’ behind Shaheen Bagh, a student who wants to break India, an Urban naxal. Other, more liberal forces have called him a political adventurist. Amidst this surge of tags and epithets, the one person we do seem to be losing track of is Sharjeel himself.

Let’s tell you who Sharjeel is. Currently a PhD student enrolled at the Center for Historical Studies, JNU, he is 32 year old scholar who hails from Kako, Jehanabad in Bihar. Sharjeel has to his accomplishments, a Bachelors and Masters graduations in Computer Science from IIT Bombay. Post his graduation, he worked in Bangalore for two years. The issues of Muslim representation in educational and work spaces and within the larger Indian society, a will to understand them better and work towards disseminating the understanding is what brought Sharjeel to social sciences and to JNU, despite a lucrative career in India and Foreign Countries ahead of him. Sharjeel consciously chose to become a social scientist and gave up on jobs which could have earned him a luxurious life like most IITians choose to do.

Ever since 2013, Sharjeel has been one of us, an integral part of CHS and JNU. A conversation with Sharjeel Imam, a dedicated student and researcher, would be enough to tell one that his thoughts and ideas are not merely figments of an ignorant mind. His approach towards history and politics employs the critical methodology. As a historian, he works with the idea of counter discourses to hegemonic conceptions of the past. A lot of what seems to be jarring to a lot of us in his understanding of history, comes from the use of this methodology, and not mere uninformed reactions. While in an academic space, debate and disagreement is part of academic learning, what we need to remember is that his ideas have been shaped by not only his identity and social location, but more significantly, years of archival work and study as a student of history. A cursory look into his work in public domain speaks for his academic credentials.

However, these are facts that do not make up entirely for who Sharjeel is. Sharjeel, for those of us who have not known him personally, is, to begin with, the kind of exuberant and lively person that one only rarely comes across. His passion towards History and poetry are infectious. A good friend, a lovely human and a competent and probably a little irreverent scholar, we must remember Sharjeel is one of us, and at this point, most vulnerable than any of us. And we as student community need to stand by him and not leave him as a fodder to the fascist state machinations.