Freedom Is Not Fun

Freedom, people think, is all about merry making. It is assumed to mean to do what one likes. This is a great error of perception. Basically, freedom is all about responsibilities. Being free is, in fact, not even a state of being. It is only continuous striving, intellectual and physical, personal and collective. The fact is that only slaves have the benefit of being free of responsibilities. Enjoying life is a legitimate goal of life. But despite our indulgences, even in the best way what we can imagine, there always remains an inexplicable sense of void, an irritant feeling of something not being to our liking. We try more and more to fill the void, to remove the irritant, but it simply does not go away. Why is it so? The simple answer is – we are not free. In fact, we have a wrong perception of freedom. It is because our indulgences replace of strivings. 

What is freedom then? Freedom is about one’s dignity, and of others’. It is what the people of devious instinct distaste. And, it thus becomes our unending endeavour – holding on to our dignified existence in association with others. In dignity we have freedom. 

Clarifications: 

1. Merry making is not bad at all but it should not be at the cost of one’s or other’s dignity. 

2. Why do we have bad people? We have it. 

3. Rights are responsibilities, and responsibilities are rights.

Niraj Kumar Jha

My Fundamentalism

Our all collective commissions and ommissions are either capital generative or capital destructive. If capital destruction crosses a certain threshold, it's only miseries all around.

Niraj Kumar Jha

It's Social Sciences v. Genetic Coding

When we indulge in social sciences, we address the millinnia of genetic coding in human beings.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Human Dignity

One fights for human dignity not because people are crying out for it. It's for the opposite reason that there is hardly anyone caring for human dignity. The crisis, however, has very ominious implications. In fact, the people bereft of human dignity are behind most of the social ills.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Theocratism and Ideocratism

I distaste theocratism and ideocratism not for the obvious reason that they resort to pseudoreasoaning, but for the reason that they vulgarise disciplines and in turn brutalise life itself.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Poverty of Pedagogy

Our pedagogy is mostly an exhoration for every pupil to attain greatness. It fails to explain that heroism and heroes are mostly about chances and circumstances respectively. And, it ends up demeaning very normal people, in general.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Please Don't Blame the Social Media.

The worst riots, wars, genocides and so many other bad things occurred before the advent of social media. We cannot blame, if we see thoughtfully, the social media for social ills and conflicts. Humanity in no case was better before the advent of soical media. Hence, there is no reason to call for suppressing the media. Ralther people should be allowed to express as they feel without any restriction. It has two clear benefits. First, we know how do different people feel, and thus we have very raw data for understanding and working social relations. And secondly, the media in place of fomenting troubles, in fact, lessens the chances of troubles as it helps people to release their suppressed angers. The good people can always engage with such roguish arguers and help them to see reason. Otherwise, they would definitely be lost cases. And certainly one can argue sensibly to spread good ideas even without engaging in verbal duels with equal effect.The bottom-line (here very literally) is that people engaged in free and frank exchanges would be wiser sooner or later, and the society would be better.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Mahatma

It was the early 1970s. I was just a kid then. I was trying to learn the basic letters. Our tutor Shri Suresh Babu was struggling with me to make me learn the first alphabet but my faculty was stubbornly resistant to accept that. Anyway, at that time I knew about Gandhiji. The Mahatma at that time, I felt, lived around, not as a person but as an influence. His presence as an ennobling ethos permeated the ambience in that remote location of the country. I saw his pictures hung on the walls of public offices and places as if looking at me and everyone affectionately with a mischievous smile. As I grew, I see today, his presence gradually withering away over time. We can discuss the legacies of the Mahatma endlessly in appreciation or approbation but the fact, which I feel we cannot deny is that he bound us in a very humanising association as a nation. At that time, which I can articulate now, the Indians then must have felt that they belonged to the nation, and the nation belonged to them, and everything was geared to the idea of universal good. And Bapu with his careless smile symbolised the spirit.

Niraj Kumar Jha