THE BRAVE NEW UNIVERSE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Whether it comes from the Left or the Right, we must create safe spaces for airing criticism. Modernity depends on it. Intermedial hermeneutics offers a way out

- MAKARAND R PARANJAPE

was recently invited to an international conference on 'Social media and society in India' at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. My topic was the space for criticism in India.

The organiser, Joyojeet Pal, affable but focused, teaches at the School of Information. Pal studies the data, both big and small, to understand how social media influences human behaviour. In one of his co-authored papers, he argues that it is not the big as much as the small-but-crucial data that provides a better grasp of how things are really moving.

I couldn't agree more. I consider myself less ideologically programmatic than pragmatic and curious. That is why, in the roomful of left-leaning Indian and US social media influencers, I thought I should offer my main—rather than pain—point in the form of a sutra. India is a criticism-surplus society which is criticism-deficient where it matters.

Improvement is impossible without criticism; modernity depends on it. As also on creativity and innovation. But the more powerful we are, the more imperious and impervious to criticism. In fact, we think that our critics are our enemies. We hound, harass, even jail them. But that is not the path to greatness. Not everyone who criticises us is corrupt or contaminated.

When will we realise this? Indeed, we need to regain innocence after experience, as William Blake suggested. I was speaking mostly to myself. Because, as I said quite candidly, "If I read this room right, there is not a single person who supports the Indian prime minister or his party. I have also been in rooms which are exactly the opposite. You could make a similar statement about the US. Such fragmentation and polarisation hurts democratic societies."