You Don't Have to Be A Critic to Be a Critic!

In a new development yet to fully develop, a complainant has approached the courts, various legislators cutting across parties and regions, and 'arch lobbyists' to demand that 'hurting aesthetic sentiments' be included in the list of cognisable offences. While critics have reacted with scepticism, the possibility of people going to jail for writing bad poetry, terrible books, making rotten films, terribly boring music and kitschy art isn't as silly as it may sound - or not.

Every show of outrage is essentially a critique. But why should critics be the only ones doing the criticism? In this day and age, when being an expert should never be a prerequisite to be a critic, there is no reason why hurt aesthetic sentiments should not be part of the buttons that are already allowed to be pressed for having one's buttons pressed.

It is because the liberal lot have all this while got away with building, extolling and propagating badly designed buildings and bad statues that India has been cursed all this while with terrible public structures. A New Critical India must emerge.


Badly constructed sentences in novels, not to mention horribly stretched-out scenes in shows and movies, must face a real disincentive in legal prohibition and punishment. One man's bad art could be another's favourite. But that's for our underworked judiciary to work out.