Current Concern

Observers note there is a worldwide decline in support for internationalism, democracy, and the integration of economies. Anyway, it is too obvious. At the same time, one can notice a perceptible decline in respect for science and rationalism. And, there is a simultaneous surge of unfiltered customs, crass ethnicity, and related chauvinism. This is ironic as it is also the time when new technologies conduce life as never before and change living and work fundamentally. The crux of the matter is that the people are worried as they lack support in cases of life and existential crises.

Globally, things are worse. Putin launches a war at the very time when the world was somehow recovering from a devastating pandemic. Xi has more sinister plans. When the world faces unprecedented environmental crises as sinking shores, burning forests, melting glaciers, heat waves, floods, and pollution-generated illnesses havoc the world, the nations are gearing up for the ominous mix of hot and cold wars. It's armament that is the focus; not ecology, public health, and social harmony.

I think this is a result of the collective lag in conceptualizing the mechanisms for common good in this age of fundamental transformations. Earlier, the intellectuals as a whole acted against the very self-emerging template of human advance, what is known as neoliberalism, leading the world towards greater freedom and integration. They undid the organic growth of humankind and pulled the world to the present predicament. It is past now and it is high time that social scientists in general and political scientists, in particular, think about remodelling the world to realise renewed humanism.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Ethical Lapses

    Generally, a gap exists between what a person professes and what he practices. How moral is speaking of ethics without being ethical personally? I think a person can and should speak for moral values even if he does not practise them. A person being duplicitous is a better person than one being a blatant violator. It means the person has not lost faith in the norms and knows in his heart that he has deviated.

    Nonetheless, the mismatch between speech and conduct is a serious social and civilizational issue. I think that the normative part is our civilizational and social legacy, but the practice part is political, a tragic effect of prolonged physical occupation and of ideological occupation of the country after that.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On faking

Fake news pieces circulating in the media make a problem that I find least bothering. The reality is that it is not a problem by itself, but the real problem behind that is the abysmal social divides. It is that every party seeks to manipulate information in its favour. But, such gimmicks hardly succeed as all parties know their positional interests well. Indeed, the social divide is a serious problem, but I am here to address another problem.

The problem I find perturbing from my particular position is that everybody seems to be faking. All suffer but undergo the sufferance silently. Often, they try to forget even the traumatic suffering as soon as possible. The fact is that most of these sufferances are avoidable, but people do not talk about them. Instead, they talk about such things as sports, films, or similar things or events as if their life depends on them, which in reality do not affect their life in any way. We mostly fake our life experiences.

The grand issues and even entertainment events are important but we pay disproportionate attention to them. Problems which affect our lives, which often result in severe mental agony, physical pain, and death, we tend to avoid or ignore. True civilization or commonwealth is about making life less painful, tragic, and insecure. Many societies have indeed done better in these respects and even in our case, great things are doable simply by will. At least, we can talk about these things.

The trivialization of the substance of life by faking we all do with all seriousness and sincerity.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Socialism

 Different variants of socialism were revivalist projects of religionism following the enlightenment era. They were exactly like any religion but without the invocation to the otherworld as the idea of the otherworld had lost favour during the enlightenment age. The idea of the otherworld was replaced by a utopia to be realised by the adherents. In the like manner, it sought to utopiate the masses in place of opiating them. 

   India has been a land of many religions in a sense as different sects or cults were akin to religions with their fixed deities, doctrines, and rituals. But, all these flourished under the greater umbrella of Dharma, which on the whole invoked mindfulness in prescribing do's and don'ts and upholding the greater order to functionality, fairness, and humaneness. And, the Indian genius found a fine balance between otherworldly beliefs and this-worldly practicality. What the West devised as secularism was an old practice in India in a very refined form.  

  When India got independence, the fascination for leftism was raging, particularly in the post-colonial world. India fell for it and lost many decades in processing recovery. This was a colossal tragedy in that the Dharmik people went for a disruptive, conflictual, and destructive ideology while putting aside their own far superior wisdom. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

समय की सीख

इस समय की सबसे बड़ी सीख यह है कि
सच कोई चीज नहीं है,
जो हमें मुहैया करायी जाती है।
पहले भी ऐसा नहीं था,
लेकिन अधिकतर को यह पता नहीं था।

समय इस समझ  की  है कि 
सच प्रयास है, परिपक्वता है,
और सबसे ऊपर यह संवेदना है।

नीरज कुमार झा 

Parliamentary Democracy

Democracy works as the people at the helm design it. The idea of citizenship in place of subjecthood, i.e. a person being master of their own than being a slave of others, requires a carefully created mechanism to realise. The Britons grew to their present form, the parliamentary one, and never had the opportunity for a comprehensive review. The islanders are still growing, but we lapped up their amateurish way as a matured product. Travesty of our choice.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Chickens have come home to roost

 The great war leaders, the statesmen of the times, defeated the axis of evil, and emerged victorious after four years of devasting second global warfare. Humankind had never suffered so much self-inflicted loss and pain, and yet, the leaders of the day could do was not build a just international order,  but create only a mechanism to drain global wealth to themselves and secure their political hegemony. The system was never effective if the violations involved any of the big five, directly or indirectly. Now, again, the same system becomes totally ineffective to stop acts of aggression and annexations as the very leaders holding the levers of global order indulge in grave violations of international propriety. Humankind must think unitedly to overcome the evil designs of the powers that be and stop the brutalities perpetrated on them. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

​दूसरा वैसा हुआ नहीं

जो भी कह लो,
दूसरा वैसा हुआ नहीं कहीं,
कभी भी।

वह जो कर गया,
वैसा कुछ हुआ नहीं कहीं,
कभी भी।

कमियाँ उसमें थीं,
होंगी और भी,
वैसा मानव हुआ नहीं कहीं,
कभी भी।

था वह मानव ही,
उतना मानव मानव,
हुआ नहीं कहीं,
कभी भी।

जितनी बातें उसने की,
जितनों से की,
उतनी किसी ने नहीं की,
कहीं भी और कभी भी।

जितने उसके हुए,
जितनों का वह हुआ,
वैसा हुआ नहीं कहीं,
कभी भी।

जो लड़ता हो नित बड़ी-छोटी लड़ाइयाँ,
उसके लिए कोई शत्रु नहीं,
ऐसा हुआ नहीं कभी भी,
कहीं भी।

वह आस्थावान था,
था जन-जन का प्रेमी भी।
ऐसा कोई हुआ नहीं,
कभी भी।

पंथ अनेक,
पथ अनेक,
लेकिन वैसा पथिक
हुआ नहीं कहीं,
कभी भी।

वह सनातन का था,
वह ध्रुव था और है अभी भी,
बाकी है तुम्हारी मर्जी।

नीरज कुमार झा