Thursday, January 6, 2011

Importance of Criticism

Recently I read an article in the Hindu editorial , written by Jaswant Singh. The main idea of the article was to defend BJP's actions in the parliament, which led to the total disruption of the Lok Sabha's winter session. What caught my attention in it were his views on democracy and how dissent is such an important part of a democratic setup. The exact text of the article is pasted.

"Why such profound failures? Perhaps, because our grievance redressal systems have ground to a halt; also because we have lost regard for each other, we have abandoned our sense of kinship and fraternity without which no parliamentary democracy can function. We have forgotten how to accommodate dissent, and the less we do so, the harsher it becomes. We no longer consider the alternative view-point as being even remotely relevant; instead, we now treat disagreement as a disservice, a rebellious challenge, which must either be totally rejected, or then crushed. The tone, tenor and the content of our language, of mutual address, government to opposition, or the other way round has become dryly ritualised, patronisingly rejectionist, emptied totally of the spirit of parliamentary democracy. The hierarchy of our concerns no longer harmonise; courtesy and accommodation to the opposing view point is treated as being ‘soft', a weakness. We no longer recognise the great relevance of the ‘intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of parliamentary debates'. Perhaps, the Hon'ble Prime Minister no longer recognises, or accepts, that it is this ‘passion' which constitutes the personality and the heartbeat of our (or any other) Parliament. This ‘passion' occasionally obscures, but often illuminates, too; it distracts, yes, but this then is both it's strength and its weakness. Parliament is an assembly of human beings; it must have human virtues, and vices and failings, it is not, must not ever be, just a container of ritualised nothingness. " -Jaswant Singh

What striked me the most is the relevance of this in our daily lives. How we need to lend a ear to what the other person has to say. The importance of true and honest criticism from friends and peers is something which is very rare to come by these days. The sad part is that often such criticism is treated just like Jaswant Singh said. Most people(which includes me) dont take it as a god given opportunity to mend our ways. In fact some people simply start hating the person who criticizes him or her. It is such an easy job to actually tell nice and flowery stuff about people , it is to criticize people that one needs some guts. Just like Jhonny Depp said in the Pirates of the Carribean "Honestly its the the guys who flatter that you must beware of"

2 comments:

  1. I don flatter you. I ridicule you. And I am in your bad books for sure. Why Why Why?

    ReplyDelete
  2. i was talking about meaningful criticism. u try to irritate me not criticize.

    ReplyDelete