Cartoonist RK Laxman was one of India’s finest post-Independence institutions, easily the best of his generation, and the next. His cartoons have a timeless epic feel to them, in the sense that what he drew in the 1950s and later is relevant even today. Perhaps even more so, because the assault on our freedoms has never been so sharp, so directed and so dangerous.

Many say he operated in simpler times. Not really. It was a time when the freedom of expression enshrined in our constitution was amended by a prime minister to put restrictions on our ability to criticize. He drew cartoons at a time when a prime minister wanted to become a dictator and run our country like a fiefdom. He expressed his views at a time when the state-run media had nothing else to offer on news television and radio except the events our head of government attended and inaugurated.