In this country, few actually take books seriously – till there comes a scholarly tome that offers a second opinion of sorts on a historic leader (or religious practice and so on). Then, even hooligans will take a book seriously and will go on a rampage, destroying priceless manuscripts as they did at a Pune institute. They were protesting against American scholar James W. Laine's book 'Shivaji-Hindu King in Islamic India' for portraying the great leader in a light his followers are not accustomed to.

The Supreme Court this week ruled against the Maharashtra government's ban on the book, reigniting the debate on freedom of expression. The Congress, leading the state's ruling coalition, now says if the ban is lifted, it doesn't matter, we will not allow any bookshop to sell the book. The opposition, mainly Shiv Sena, can be depended upon to send their cadre to help Congress workers in this move. The Congress has demanded a law to prevent “defamatory writing” about iconic figures.

We have seen this before. From Christian groups demanding a ban on the movie version of the Da Vinci Code and a then Uttar Pradesh minister declaring reward on the head of a Danish cartoonist to the Gujarat government jumping the gun and banning Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah and the Congress protesting against Javier Moro's biography of Sonia Gandhi, all parties and communities are ready to be offended at the drop of a hat.

On the other, it has been argued that freedom of expression cannot be unconditional, and there are elements out to use it as freedom to insult. They favour a law which can bar offensive but unsubstantiated comments intended to insult a community or denigrate its leader.

So, do we need an “anti-defamatory” law?