A country may have a free vote, a plethora of political parties, an independent judiciary and a free media, but in order to justify its status as a democracy it must also show the timbre to ‘tolerate’ ideas.

This capacity to live with ideas is unthinkable without the capacity to live with their expression, no matter how seemingly outrageous, absurd or supposedly dangerous. Ordinarily, the only limit to be placed on expression is that it must not assume violent forms. So much the pity, then, that in recent days we have seen two high-profile bans being propagated.

The Marxists in West Bengal have banned Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen’s new novel, Dwikhandita. The Union I&B minister appears set on taking off television screens visuals which, in his view, hint at sexuality. The reasons are tiresomely predictable in both cases. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee fears communal trouble and Ravi Shankar Prasad is afraid of morals being undermined. The arguments are shop-worn. The Marxists, of all people, should know that organised political interests arrange rioting, not readers thumbing through the pages of a book. Indeed, trouble-makers often seek to create an opportunity for themselves even out of a game of cricket, but whoever has heard of a ban on cricket? The plain truth is that if the police receive no-nonsense instructions not to tolerate violence, there will generally be no violence. The question, then, is of political and administrative will.

The communists, for their part, need to be reminded that writings pertaining to class struggle used to be banned not so long ago and they were mighty displeased about this. Banning books, films or works of art is only a step away from silencing their authors, as was the case in pre-modern times. Let the brave politician who would stake his name on this come forward. Mr Bhattacharjee will do well to consider that in our own age only totalitarian and theocratic systems have sought to suppress books and ideas, or their authors, with results that have been a shock. An open system will brook no barrier of the mind.