Encroaching on individual freedoms

The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Nirupama Subramanian

It is inexplicable that Chennai seeks to position itself as a gateway city of the future but, at the same time, wants to clamp down on even a hint of cosmopolitanism.

: "In his 1869 essay, On Liberty, which has influenced democrats, freedom-loving and right-thinking people all over the world, John Stuart Mill argued that there were limits to how much authority society had over the individual:

"Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter... But neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. He is the person most interested in his own well-being: the interest which any other person, except in cases of strong personal attachment, can have in it, is trifling, compared with that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and altogether indirect... " "