He is the author of Poetry of Belonging, a widely acclaimed book that explores Muslim political imagination in colonial India.Fluent in Urdu, Hindi, English, and Arabic, Mahmudabad also has a connection with war-ravaged Syria, where he studied Arabic at Damascus University, along with academic fieldwork conducted in Iran and Iraq.His grandfather, Mohammad Amir Ahmad Khan, was the last ruling Raja of Mahmudabad and was known to be a key financier of the Muslim League in the pre-Partition era.Mahmudabad has illustrious maternal roots as well. His mother, Rani Vijay, is the daughter of Jagat Singh Mehta, who served as India’s Foreign Secretary between 1976 and 1979. He is also the nephew of policy expert Vikram Mehta.Mahmudabad is married to the daughter of Haseeb Drabu, the J&K Finance Minister during the PDP–BJP alliance from 2015 to 2018.He had a brief political stint with the Samajwadi Party in 2017 and served as its national spokesperson until 2022. Though he has distanced himself from formal politics in recent years, he continues to engage with national issues through his writing and lectures.His arrest triggered widespread condemnation from civil society, opposition leaders, and academic communities both in India and abroad.While Congress leaders, including president Mallikarjun Kharge, called the arrest “unconstitutional and dangerous,” the Samajwadi Party, with which Mahmudabad was associated between 2017 and 2022, also issued a strong statement.“This government is terrified of intellect,” said SP chief Akhilesh Yadav. “It jails those who write, think, and question, and celebrates those who polarise and provoke.”
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