He succeeded his father Mohiddin Badusha I. Dr. Umar Alisha actively participated in the Khilafat Movement, a unique battle against the British rulers, waged with Gandhi caps in the early 1920s by the students of the Victoria Diamond Jubilee Medical School, which later became the Andhra Medical College.

He was incensed like his compatriots of those days over the arrest of the freedom-fighter Maulana Mohammad Ali at the Waltair (now Visakhapatnam) railway station on 1921-09-14.

Umar Alisha, a Telugu poet, made a speech against the arrest of the Khilafat movement leader.

On the morning of 17 September 1921, Ali was taken to the Waltair station from jail with a police escort for his departure to Karachi.

The Umar Alisha Sahithi Samithi foundation established in his name conducts yearly literary gatherings at Bhimavaram.