THIS week Narendra Modi's government was left looking rather red-faced. Late last week it had quietly told telecoms companies around the country to block public access to 857 porn sites, citing the need to protect public morality. Days later, on August 4th, the telecoms minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, backed down, saying the sites should not be blocked after all, other than any proven to be showing child pornography. The reversal coincided with another official climb-down, as the government in effect gave up on important plans to change the way land is bought and sold. Together they suggest Mr Modi's administration is making a habit of misjudging policy and the public mood. In the case of pornography in India, what went awry? The ruling politicians bungled badly over porn. India's Supreme Court had heard a case, earlier this summer, from Kamlesh Vaswani, the man who compiled the list of 857 porn sites and sought a ban for an assortment of reasons, including the imperative to protect users of porn from their own base urges. "Nothing can more efficiently destroy a person, fizzle their mind, evaporate their future, eliminate their potential or destroy society like pornography,” he had pleaded. The court sensibly declined to order the ban, finding that adults in India are perfectly capable of judging whether they are fit to look at pornography and fizzle their minds, or not. In any case, as officials from the telecoms ministry admitted this week, many internet users are well aware of how to circumvent national restrictions on access to websites.

When Mr Modi's government took it upon itself to push for a ban, it quickly became the subject of ridicule. On social media it was widely recalled that in 2012 lawmakers in Karnataka from Mr Modi’s own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had been caught on camera watching pornography on their mobile phones as they attended a session of the state assembly. (Soon afterwards other members of the BJP were caught doing the same thing in the state assembly of Gujarat.) More serious critics accused the government of falling under the sway of conservative groups, such as the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), which would have it intrude into the privacy of Indian homes and meddle in decisions that should be left to individuals. Others pointed to India's rich history of celebrating sex—in a wide variety of forms—in sculpture, art and text, for example in carvings at Ellora, Hampi or Khajuraho, or in that ancient guide to etiquette and sexual behaviour, the Kama Sutra. What appeared really to sting was a claim that Mr Modi's government was proving to be as illiberal and intolerant of free expression as the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mr Prasad said: "I reject with contempt the charge that it is a Talibani government, as being said by some of the critics. Our government supports free media, respects communication on social media and has respected freedom of communication always."

What is hard to explain is the lack of preparation apparently made by the politicians before they ordered the ban. Mr Modi's government is making a habit of demanding bans that intrude on personal behaviour, as for example in March when the home minister, Rajnath Singh, said he hoped to see the eating of beef outlawed across the country. Similarly the government this year banned the broadcast of a BBC documentary about rape in India, claiming an "international conspiracy" was under way to defame the country. Such gestures, along with the decision to close off pornographic sites, might be made in haste in order to please backers in the RSS. In any case they appear to have been made without much consideration of the likely public backlash. If there are too many such incidents then the risk, as far as Mr Modi's political fortunes are concerned, is that his government begins to look both illiberal and unprofessional.