India, June 30 -- Student activist Umar Khalid has said years of incarceration have stripped him of both "humanity" and, at times, "sanity", while accusing the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of presiding over a society where hate and misinformation have become normalised.

In his first interview since being jailed in 2020, conducted by The Guardian through family members and friends because of restrictions on his incarceration, Khalid described the psychological toll of spending nearly six years in Delhi's Tihar Jail without a trial.

"You even hear murmurs about yourself from fellow prisoners you shared meals with, calling you a terrorist behind your back. This propaganda dehumanises me in people's eyes," Khalid told The Guardian. "Hum...