Narendra Modi received a letter last summer. It was signed by 49 writers, filmmakers, scholars, and artists. Describing themselves as “proud Indians”, they beseeched the Prime Minister to put an immediate halt to the public lynchings of Muslims and of Dalits – formerly “untouchable” people, deemed so impure by the scriptures that they are placed outside the hierarchical Hindu caste system – and urged him to end the castigation of critics of his government as “anti-national”.

“These are not the Middle Ages,” they wrote, reminding Modi that there “is no democracy without dissent”. The Prime Minister remained silent and the letter appeared to go unnoticed by the public – until a judge in eastern India accepted the petition of a Modi-worshipping busybody who alleged that signatories to it had “tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the Prime Minister”.

New Statesman