Even odder was the view that if an item was put on the syllabus, it meant it was authoritative. Things are put on the syllabus because they are meant to provoke reflection, and the proper response is to criticise if you can. The episode also highlighted the way in which centralised decision-making on syllabus also ups the stakes for politics. But most deeply, it should worry us that we don’t seem to understand a basic truth: a liberal society can flourish only if individuals have an adequate degree of self-possession; the ability to handle arguments they disagree with, without trampling on people’s rights.

With all due respect, your Lordships, we expect the Supreme Court to give us lessons in self-possession, to create an environment where people can take risks and stretch the frontiers of art and scholarship. But if we send out the message that offence easily taken will be easily rewarded, that potentially uncomfortable truths of scholarship will have no protection, that there are no ways of expressing disagreement and even dissatisfaction short of bans, we will truly have jeopardised our freedoms.

I hope the Lordships will excuse the gracelessness in commenting on this matter. But there is a larger and increasingly suffocating atmosphere in which public discussions on art, morality, scholarship and pedagogy are taking place. The high court finally rescued Jodhaa Akbar in Madhya Pradesh. But which politician dared to come to the defence of its right to be screened? In a society where the narcissism of identities is becoming a threat to freedom, we do still hope the Supreme Court will protect our liberty.

... contd.