“Why can’t an academic deliver a lecture on secularism without police protection?”

At Pratirodh, the Writers’ Convention organised on 1 November 2015, Romila Thapar began with an anecdotal account of her recent lecture on secularism in Mumbai, a lecture for which she was advised to take police protection. She asks, “After sixty eight years of independence, is it not possible for an academic to give an academic lecture on the subject of secularism without needing police protection? She describes her own take on government awards, and responds to the accusation of “selective outrage” with a history of protests by writers over a period of time on a range of issues. She also criticises the nature of television debates.