History Takeaways

The colonial enslavers deployed history to better effect than they could do with their troopers. They devised a history to cement the servitude of the race. The irony is that the same historiography flourishes in different garbs. Though many ommissions and commissions of mainstream historiographies denying dignity and agency to the people are now exposed, the citizens have yet to have a history which offers them takeaways to facilitate their well-being and national good. Things are happening for good, but without the intellectual support history could have provided.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Democracy

Though it is least understood, the crux of the matter is that democracy is a collective mechanism for guaranteeing individual autonomy and dignity. In other words, it is a broad agreement in a polity to secure every member of their person, possessions, and worthwhile pursuits collectively. And, any democracy to be true to its name, does not rely on periodic elections alone. Rather, its bedrock is constitutionalism, a working legal mechanism for keeping government powers in check through the separation of powers and checks and balances At the same time, it obligates the government to guarantee a set of rights. In fact, SOPs do exist, but mechanisms need to be put in place properly.

NIraj Kumar Jha

On Understanding

Great gems of wisdom, which we see plastered on any writable surface, real or virtual, mean nothing. Mostly these are useless pieces of information serving no purpose.

Understanding is not something which comes on a platter. Knowing is doing, experiencing, suffering, and to be precise, it is efforting. It is basic and basis without which no understanding can accrue to one.

Nonetheless, it is not sufficient. The structure of understanding comes from the eyes of the mind. One must have an informed and trained mind, and efforting must not exhaust that mind. Thereafter, the furnishing comes. That is articulating, expressing, and sharing ideas, and thus examining the validity of the idea.

Constructing the structure of understanding is a professional job. However, it is their job to go into real-life situations and feel the intensity of existential reality, and then only share their understanding with the addressee. Understanding is a conscious, enabled and collective effort.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Bureacracy

Bureaucracy is a form of organisation or authority. It is Weber's conceptualisation: bureaucracy is the rational-legal authority. Unfortunately, bureaucratism has turned out to be a pejorative term owing to how it is practised. The irony is that bureaucracy owes its existence both to rationality and legality. It means it is the most reasonable and agreed-upon form of organisation. In fact, all the ills of bureaucracy have their causation from two sources: first, there is the bureaucratisation deficit, that is to say, it lacks rationality and laws backing its functioning are not well-framed. Secondly, it is a deficit of quality personnel. Bureaucracy being a superior and complex organisation needs educated, intelligent, well-trained personnel.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Doom or Boom

In this networked world, nations work their doom or boom with immediate effect.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Nemesis of a Commanded Market

Newspaper reports suggest that the Chinese economy is losing steam. It is a delayed predicament happening now. An authoritarian project of augmenting growth is done by administering steroids. Naturally, times come when the economy loses its organic strength, and organs become unresponsive and even dysfunctional.

The command system of the economy does not work for long even if it holds a market economy.

It is highly imperative that there is a wider understanding of the algorithm of a functional economy among the citizenry so that they are not taken for a ride.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Understanding of Human Phenomena

The composite of social processes is composed of, among others, how they are in general comprehended. Understanding of a phenomenon is a crucial component of that phenomenon. In other words, how a phenomenon is understood goes into shaping what a phenomenon is. Here, the point to underscore is that the core of a phenomenon is how it is viewed. It is the human mind which processes what comes as social processes. Science in the context of human phenomena is not only an approach but also a factor.

The takeaway is: be expressive and argumentative and partake in the making of the world.

Niraj Kumar Jha

True Knowledge

Unfortunately, even the mechanisms of evading knowledge are accepted as knowledge. Civilized people pursue and respect knowledge, not its evasion. Prolonged subjugation made us aloof to true knowledge. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Unavoidable UBS

Universal Basic Income (UBS) is happening under the compulsions of political economy but in a contorted form and unsustainable fashion. Populist intent may make the idea counterproductive, which is a critical necessity in the age of intelligent bots (intelbots or brainybots).

NIraj Kumar Jha

Making of a Political Process

Political processes have their mass and momentum mostly independent of what political players do and occurrences of extraneous events at or over any particular time. The process is in making or unmaking for quite a long time and bears the effects of innumerable factors, including non-human ones. Most political analyses have only entertainment value.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

Self-defeating Intellectualism

Most of the intellectualism is still smitten by the genetic call of primitivism. I heard a so recognised leading public intellectual of the country saying in a podcast that capitalism is only about maximising profits and possessions. I was aghast to witness such a celebrated mind being so regressive. He forgot that capitalism is only liberalism but viewed from an economic angle. It is primarily about an individual's autonomy and dignity and doing things in a rational way. It is a combination of humanism and rationalism.

I know the intellectual's personal background. He is married into a rich business family and with such an abundance of moolah at his disposal he can relishingly philosophise.

It is capitalism which makes people afford the luxuries of other higher values. Alternatively, human folks can only avail jungle, where they struggle for their position in the food chain and negotiate with the elements to survive. A jungle may grow without trees in any human habitation. If you do not believe, cross India's borders in any direction.

Ancient India, a glorious state of the human race, ran its affairs till the Guptas, more or less, on the same principles as per the times that the West discovered very late as capitalism. Kautilyan schema was a case of well-regulated capitalism. An elaborate bureaucratic administration, which very late Weber identified as the form of the modern organisation, existed then. Mathematical feats of our ancients and an economy running on cash testify to the capitalistic order being the economy then.

Niraj Kumar Jha

इसे ध्यान में रखना

 तुम्हें घबराने की जरूरत नहीं है,

नया संचारतंत्र  तुम्हारा माध्यम और मंच है। 
कृत्रिम बुद्धि देगी तुम्हें भाषा,

गढ़ेगी तुम्हारे लिए अवधारणाएँ और विचार 

कहे तुम्हारे,

तुम्हारी अनुभूत भावनाओं से । 

तुम्हें भाषा मिलेगी,

मिलेगी अभिव्यक्ति, 

अवधारणाएँ होंगी तुम्हारी,

विचार तुम्हारे होंगे, 

तुमसे होंगे। 

आभिजात्य वर्ग का विशेषाधिकार 

साहित्य और दर्शन का विलास; 

हाँ, तुम्हें पता है,

अब तुम भी कर सकते हो,

यंत्र है तुम्हारी मुट्ठी में। 

 

समझो, होगा ऐसा पहली बार,

तुम रहे हो अभी तक,

बिना सुने-सुनाए, 

सोच ही नहीं पाए क्या बताना है, 

इतना सब सहते हुए। 

तुम्हें मिलेगी फुरसत भी पहली बार,

उबाऊ,  कमरतोड़ 

और जानलेवा भी,

 काम करेंगे अब बोट, 

तुम अपने  मशीनीकरण से 

उबरोगे पहली बार। 

मत भी रहेगा तुम्हारे पास, 

आजीविका का साधन भी, 

प्राप्त होगा सबको आधार आय; 

उत्पादन की क्षमता के  विस्तार से 

होगा सबका निर्वाह, 

और जो यत्न करेगा,

होगा हिस्सेदार भी। 

तकनीक पराप्रकृतिक नहीं 

यह तुम में ही निहित है, 

यह तुम्हारी ही क्षमता है 

जो उत्तरोत्तर करती 

सभ्यता का परिष्कार है,

बनाती मानव को और मानव है। 

हाँ, तुम बढ़ाओगे पूँजीवाद को जितना, 

पूँजीवाद सशक्त करेगा तुम्हें उतना,

जनतंत्र पूँजी की उपज है, 

दोनों अन्योन्याश्रित हैं, 

बस, इसे ध्यान में रखना। 

नीरज कुमार झा 

Happenchance Good

Mostly bad leads to worse. The pathway to betterment is from good. Generally, good depends on the happenchance of the successful efforts of the good people.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Harari and Hacking of Minds

Y N Harari sees the vulnerability of the human mind to being hacked by AI-enabled tools. as these tools may have a better understanding of the targetted person than the concerned person's understanding of self. Perhaps, Harari misses the point that the same information technology also makes the human mind in general far smarter than it was earlier. It would be quite difficult to control some people's minds for any considerable period. The internet is not a highway; it is a network fed from multiple autonomous nodes and a person has access to and is accessible to many sources and players. A person may know from various sources and check its veracity from readily available references. For instance, the much-derided so-called 'WhatsApp University' made people acutely aware of the probability of falsity of the matters which circulate in the public domain. Earlier it was an impossibility. Minds once hacked could remain hacked even for centuries and over vast geographical expanses. The mind hackers, who contrive for usurping people's persons and their possessions for their majesty and gratification, now face more difficult times.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Respectfulness

 I see respect, a marker of civil conduct, to exist only in mutuality and in relations of equality. Otherwise, it is veneration on the part of one and patronisation on the part of the other. Social ecology is such that a gentle person's innate conduct in terms of respect for others is often taken as a sign of subservience. 

It is a state of the post-occupational phase of a people that lurking threat or greedy expectations only brings manners in a person's conduct. 

Culture having undergone very prolonged subjugation and oppression needs great repairment, but for that, it is necessary to create a consciousness of the impairment first and intellectual skills to repair that simultaneously. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Democracy in India

Democracy in India is a natural evolution of its civilization. As a civilization, it always recognised and balanced the ideas of individual autonomy and collective good on one hand and mundane and heavenly concerns on the other. 

Indic civilization traditions remain a great source of global good. It is a natural base of democracy, whereas, in other places where it came into existence, it was a reaction of people to the autocracies who under evolving capitalism, as it induced humanism and engendered individuals, got their agency and dignity. In other words, Western democracy is a product of capitalism, which in turn was a product of religious reforms. Their democracy is a modern artefact; our's is a makeover of ancient legacies. 

Democracy is on an unshakeable foundation in India as the past cannot be undone (Preserving the same under most trying circumstances remains one of the gloriest legacies of that past.). And, it is growing stronger day by day. At the same time, it has ever been struggling, and the struggle also increasingly getting intense on a daily basis against the heavens and utopia-induced illusions. And as it is, it is an elusive struggle. It requires a fine mix of courage and canniness,  intangible and intangible means to overcome the menaces. India is doing just fine and can do better with quality education and better ease of doing business. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Vocabulary of Poverty

A marker of poverty or perhaps also one of its causative factors is the paucity in terms of the number of words in circulation in a community. The poverty of vocabulary goes together with material poverty and also moral impoverishment.

Some may ask people to memorise more word meanings hoping this would help them individually as well as collectively in the light of the above passage.

What anyway explains the richness of words used in a community. It depends on whether the community is unconstrained and action-oriented or restrained and resigned to fate.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Science Facts

For the first time in history, science facts race ahead of science fictions. They also surpass all previous imaginations of possibilities or even fantasies, most of the extra-natural stuff included. The rapidity with which new technologies become a mass utility is also astounding. At first, knowing about any new technology or application causes the same thrill or unease that an immersed reading of science fiction can cause. At the same time, the frequency with which new things are arriving the surprise element is also diminishing. Things become history by the weekend. 

All these are so exciting and assuring. Any new technology in the end helps commoners and gentle folks more, though initially, the power does try to appropriate the new in order to strengthen its position but thanks to capitalism it is becoming difficult day by day. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

अभिव्यक्ति का अधिकार

एक दृष्टि से अभिव्यक्ति के अधिकार की उपलब्धता अभिव्यक्ति की सर्वजनीन क्रियाशीलता का गौण पहलू है। अभिव्यक्ति विद्याओं की साधना है, और उनका साधन भी। स्मरणीय है कि अभिव्यक्ति यह पशुत्व की दीनता से मनुष्यता के सुख की ओर परिष्कार का हेतु है। मानवजीव होने का दायित्व है अभिव्यक्ति को सार्थक और सशक्त बनाने हेतु प्रयासरत रहना। यदि सर्वजन में ज्ञान और सम्प्रेषण की निपुणता से युक्त अभिव्यक्तियों  की व्यापकता होगी  तो वहाँ अभिव्यक्ति ही नहीं, अन्य अधिकारों की स्थिति भी प्रायः स्वपरवर्तनीय होगी।  अभिव्यक्ति का अधिकार, संभावित अन्य के अतिरिक्त, मुख्यतया अभिव्यक्ति में अंतर्निहित तथ्यपरकता, तार्किकता और सत्यनिष्ठा एवं इसके निष्पादन की कला पर निर्भर करती है। 

नीरज कुमार झा 

Mechanised Imagining

 Long ago, cooking got mechanised with the controlled use of fire, transporting with the use of the wheel, or killing with the use of a spike. Now, imagining gets mechanised. It is a natural trajectory and an advancement. Let us learn to handle it better. 

What is the brouhaha about then? New technology disrupts the power equations. Gunpowder decimated feudalism in Europe. Gunpowder is a technology and every technology is a gunpowder threatening the entrenched forces. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Science of Lies

A liar, I see, does not treat their lies as lies. While lying, a liar believes that they are speaking only truths.

There is another set of people who readily believe a liar and their lies as truthful despite having the intellectual capability and resources for knowing what is true or untrue, and worse, despite knowing what is true or untrue.  

How to make sense of this phenomenon?   

This is utter helplessness or utter dependence on others for such fundamental things as survival, which make people truthful liars or truthful believers in lies. This is a result of either a non-existent collective self or a misconstrued collective agency. 

Social sciences are a vital necessity for human beings as they are connected-organisational species. Remaining unorganised or disorganised puts a community in peril. And, they must know that they are not fighting their ignorances and ignoramuses alone, but, more dangerously, they face a play of pseudosciences and such 'scientists'. 

Niraj Kumar Jha