Stop Lying in the Name of Art!

Murtaza Reyaz

Welcome to an era where people have started lying in the name of art. Yes, I am talking about the fake writers of modern India.

This is an age where writing has become a label rather than a responsibility. Calling oneself a writer now requires no proof, no patience and no personal cost. Books appear overnight, articles multiply endlessly and authorship has become disturbingly easy to claim. Writing, once sacred and demanding, has been reduced to a shortcut for recognition.

Writing was never meant to be learned the way skills are learned. It was not meant to be assembled mechanically. Writing was a gift, not in the romantic sense but in the burdensome one. A gift that demanded honesty, discipline and the courage to confront uncomfortable truths. Real writers were shaped by years of reading, observing, failing, revising and doubting themselves. They earned their words slowly. That reality is disappearing.

Today, anyone can come forward with a book. Anyone can publish an article. Anyone can wear the title of a writer without understanding what it costs to deserve it. At times, it feels as if half the population has suddenly decided to become writers, not because they have something urgent to say, but because writing now promises attention, status and applause.

The question must be asked without hesitation. What is wrong with us?

Writing is no longer respected as a craft. It is treated as content. Disposable, replaceable and rushed. The depth that once defined serious writing has been replaced with speed. The silence required for thought has been replaced with pressure to constantly produce. Words are no longer written to mean something. They are written to be seen. This shift has consequences and they are not abstract.

Real writers are losing jobs. Journalists are being replaced. Editors are under pressure to prioritise volume over verification. Publications increasingly reward what is quick instead of what is careful. Writing that takes time is labelled inefficient. Writing that questions power is treated as inconvenient. In such an environment, authenticity suffers first.

The problem is not that more people want to write. The problem is the intention behind it. Writing today is often pursued not out of responsibility, but out of hunger for validation. People seek glorification through words. They want the title, the visibility, the praise. The labour behind the words becomes irrelevant.

Books are launched for photographs. Articles are written for personal branding. Writing is no longer an act of contribution. It has become a performance.

This obsession with recognition has hollowed out the purpose of writing. Writers are encouraged to be loud rather than thoughtful. Constant presence is valued more than genuine insight. Silence, which once allowed ideas to mature, is now mistaken for weakness. Reflection is treated as inactivity.

Social media has played a central role in accelerating this decay. It rewards confidence without competence and presentation without substance. Anyone who can format words attractively is assumed to understand them deeply. Audiences rarely pause to ask where the words came from or whether they carry truth. Into this already damaged space enters artificial intelligence.

AI can generate articles. It can assemble books. It can imitate language patterns convincingly. But it cannot live. It cannot feel fear, loss, love, injustice, or hope. It does not understand history, memory, or consequence. It cannot take responsibility for what it produces.

Using AI as a tool is not the issue. Tools have always existed. Dictionaries, typewriters, spellcheckers. The issue is dishonesty.

When people use AI to replace thinking, replace feeling, and replace lived experience, then present the output as their own work, they cross an ethical line. That is not assistance. It is deception.

A machine can organise sentences, but it cannot carry moral weight. It does not stand by its words. It does not face criticism. When humans hide behind it, they enjoy credit without accountability. This erodes trust not only in writing, but in public discourse itself.

The tragedy is not technological advancement. The tragedy is the pride with which effort is being abandoned.

Writers today are no longer competing only with other writers. They are competing with speed, algorithms, and endless production. Quality struggles to survive in a system that rewards quantity. Careful writing is drowned out by constant output.

Young writers are taught how to grow visibility, not how to grow understanding. They are taught shortcuts instead of patience. They are encouraged to produce endlessly, not to read deeply. In such a climate, originality becomes rare and truth becomes inconvenient.

And when truth becomes inconvenient, it is always the honest writer who pays the price.

Jobs are lost. Newsrooms shrink. Writers with integrity are sidelined, not because they lack skill, but because integrity takes time. And time is no longer valued. This is not progress. It is erosion.

Writing was never meant to comfort power. It was meant to question it. It was meant to document reality honestly, not manufacture narratives for approval. It was meant to speak for those without voices, not amplifying egos already desperate for attention.

If writing continues to be treated as a tool for self-glorification, it will lose its moral authority. It will no longer inform or awaken. It will distract, entertain, and mislead. Silence at this moment is not neutrality. It is acceptance. This is where conscience must intervene.

If you call yourself a writer while allowing a machine to do your thinking, you are lying. Not only to your readers but to yourself. You are not innovating. You are avoiding the labour that gives writing meaning.

Ask yourself honestly. If a machine can do what you claim is your art, what exactly are you contributing?

Writing was never easy. It demanded courage. It required writers to sit with discomfort, confront their own biases, and revise their thoughts repeatedly. It required accountability.
When words are published, they shape opinions. They influence societies. They leave marks that cannot be erased easily. Dishonesty in writing is never harmless. It damages trust slowly but deeply.

Editors must stop rewarding noise. Publishers must stop confusing reach with relevance. Institutions must stop measuring value by visibility alone. Readers must learn to question rather than worship.
But above all, writers must look inward.

If you write only to be seen, pause.
If you write only to be praised, pause.
If you write without responsibility, pause.

Silence is more honest than false authorship. The world does not need more content. It needs more courage. It needs fewer writers and more truth tellers. It needs words that are earned through experience, not generated for attention.

Technology will continue to evolve. That is unavoidable. But conscience must evolve faster. Writing must remain an act of integrity. Because when people stop trusting words, they stop trusting each other. And when trust collapses, societies weaken. The choice still exists. We can protect the soul of writing. Or we can watch it disappear under applause.

The writer hails from Kupwara, Kashmir. He can be reached at peermurtaza277@gmail.com.