Columnists have been quick to rise to the defence of comedian Kunal Kamra in his battle against the Supreme Court. I am one among them: I called him a "Laughing Gandhian" in a piece I did for another media outlet. This sobriquet, indeed, defines Kamra. He dissents with humour; he strives to tickle us through his depiction of what he thinks is the Supreme Court's failure to protect liberty from the executive. He is also willing to pay the price for speaking what he believes is the truth, evident from his November 13 response to Attorney General KK Venugopal granting permission to applicants wishing to initiate contempt proceedings against him. Kamra tweeted to say he intended to neither apologise nor hire a lawyer to defend him. He has, in effect, pleaded guilty.

Kamra's protest against injustice embodies the Gandhian philosophy, which, however, also eschews intemperate language. Kamra crossed this line on November 18, when he tweeted an image and 19 words which, when read together, seemed to tell Chief Justice of India Sharad A Bobde, "Up Yours", an English slang described as derogatory in all dictionaries. The slang is used to convey a person's dislike (Cambridge), or contemptuous defiance (Collins), or rude reply (Merriam-Webster), or insult (Macmillan) to someone's remark or action. The meaning of the slang is also communicated through a gesture, which turns the insult into a bite far severe than when written or spoken aloud.