On January 26th, I was in the writers’ lounge at the Diggi Palace Hotel, in Jaipur, where the city’s annual literary festival was being held, and was in a leisurely conversation with fellow writers. Suddenly, a group of police officers barged in. A gruff man in a traditional kurta pajama, wearing a black cap and a shawl, was leading them. I began to hear the name of Ashis Nandy being repeated. Ashis Nandy is one of India’s foremost intellectuals, a clinical psychologist and sociologist who has produced some of the most original and important works of scholarship in independent India in his forty or more years in public life. He is also a prolific writer of essays and newspaper columns and a feisty public speaker.

“How could Ashis Nandy call us the most corrupt in India?” the politician in the black cap shouted at the growing crowd of festival organizers and writers. A few hours earlier, Nandy had been on a panel discussion called “The Republic of Ideas” with Urvashi Butalia, a writer and publisher; Tarun Tejpal, a magazine editor and novelist; and a few others. The conversation had turned to the endemic corruption in India. Nandy, a small, bespectacled seventy-five-year-old man with a balding head, a wispy beard, and a ready laugh, had, as usual, an unorthodox take on corruption, “I do wish there remains some degree of corruption in India because I would also suggest that it humanizes our society.”

Nandy spoke about lower-caste politicians, and argued that because they have only recently gained access to the spoils of power, they didn’t yet have the sophisticated social networks that allow India’s upper-caste élite to hide their corruption. Indicating his fellow panelist Richard Sorabji, an Oxford scholar, Nandy said, “If I do a good turn to Richard Sorabji, he can return the favor by accommodating my nephew at Oxford; if it were in the United States, it would be a substantial fellowship.” He mentioned Mayawati, a Dalit (formerly called Untouchable) politician who is president of Bahujan Samaj Party, the largest lower-caste political party, and was the chief minister of Utter Pradesh until last year. Like a vast number of Indian politicians, she has faced charges of corruption (which have since been dismissed). “If she has to oblige somebody or have somebody in the family absorb the money, she will probably have to take the bribe of having a hundred petrol pumps, and that is very conspicuous, very corrupt indeed. Our corruption doesn’t look that corrupt, theirs does.”

Tejpal, the magazine editor from Delhi, followed Nandy’s thought and described corruption in India being a class equalizer, as the only chance for the people on the “wrong side of the tracks” to make it in a highly stratified and unequal society. Nandy responded, “It will be a very undignified and—how should I put it—almost vulgar statement on my part. It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the O.B.C.s and the scheduled caste and now increasingly the scheduled tribes. And as long as this is the case, the Indian republic will survive.” Dalits, the former Untouchables, and others on the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system are described as Scheduled Castes in Indian legalese; India’s poor and marginalized tribal communities are known as Scheduled Tribes. The Indian Constitution initially guaranteed affirmative action for these two groups, but over the years other castes on the lower and middle rungs of the caste ladder have been included—often after political agitations—as “Other Backward Castes” (O.B.C.s).

A populist television journalist, who was also on the panel, promptly called Nandy’s remarks a casteist slur and demanded an apology. Within moments, Nandy’s remark about most corrupt Indians being from traditionally oppressed and marginalized lower castes and tribes was tweeted without its context. Television channels and wire services ran the headline: “SC/ST/OBCs most corrupt: Ashis Nandy.” His words divorced of the complexity of his argument and their context spread quickly—an allegation against a multitude, provoking anger and offense.

And that was what brought Kirori Lal Meena, a lower-caste member of Parliament with a formidable constituency in the state of Rajasthan, to the writers’ lounge at Diggi Palace. Meena’s supporters were already agitating outside the festival gates. Meena sat cross-legged on a bench, his hands interlocked and his body language stiff and unrelenting. He demanded that Nandy be produced. He was accompanied by police officers, who took seats around him, their faces tense. The festival organizers moved about frantically, speaking to Meena in polite, supplicating voices, urging some sort of reconciliation. He seemed keen on legal action against Nandy.

Tejpal, the co-panelist, joined in and began describing Nandy’s career. Nandy had for decades supported and written about equal citizenship for the religious minorities, the lower castes, and the poor in India—even putting himself at risk.

In one of the gravest moments of crisis in Indian polity, after the mass sectarian violence in the state of Gujarat, in 2002, when more than a thousand Muslims including pregnant women and children were killed by extremist Hindu mobs—with the alleged complicity of the government led by Hindu nationalist chief minister Narendra Modi (who is now positioning himself as a candidate for Prime Minister and the future leader of India)—Nandy wrote an essay describing Modi as a “classic, clinical case of a fascist,” with “clear paranoid and obsessive personality traits.” The essay appeared in one of India’s much respected intellectual forums, Seminar magazine.

Six years later, after Modi was reëlected in Gujarat, Nandy published an article in the Times of India commenting on the dire state of civil liberties and institutionalized prejudice against minorities in Gujarat. Article Nineteen of the Indian Constitution guarantees free speech, but it is a right limited by five exceptions: the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India; the security of the state; friendly relations with foreign states; public order, decency or morality; and in relation to contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offense. All these can be interpreted rather broadly, and potentially encompass almost any critical writing, political statement, or cultural expression. In this case, Modi’s police registered a criminal case against Nandy, charging him with promoting communal disharmony—making assertions prejudicial to national integration.

Nandy fought the case for several years and Indian intellectuals and liberal journalists rallied behind him. “The case against me in Gujarat has not been closed, but the Supreme Court of India stayed my arrest,” Nandy told me.

His history and biography failed to check the anger at the Diggi Palace. Meena refused to relent; his hands continued their dismissive, unrelenting interlock.

A few minutes later, Nandy appeared. He was sombre. He faced Meena and spoke slowly, explaining his comments, insisting that his remarks weren’t a casteist slur. Namita Gokhale, a co-director of the festival, appeared with a tea-tray, offering the first cup to the enraged politician.

Meena seemed to demand a written explanation. Nandy began to write. One of the sheets of paper was torn as he wrote. He copied his explanation onto another sheet. I stood by his shoulder, watching him slowly pen his words. Nandy repeated his earlier arguments about the entrenched social networks of the élites facilitating their corruption and added,