मत बनो परावर्तक।
नहीं अधूरे, नहीं अंधेरे में तुम।
अमोल कृति हो तुम उसकी,
तुम भी दीपक हो
उसकी बनाई दुनिया में।
नहीं अधूरे, नहीं अंधेरे में तुम।
अमोल कृति हो तुम उसकी,
तुम भी दीपक हो
उसकी बनाई दुनिया में।
नीरज कुमार झा
मंगलवार, 30 सितंबर 2025
जीवन का मूल्य
तुम पतंगे नहीं हो,
नीरज कुमार झा
वह रोशनी भी नहीं है।
अंतस में दीपक जलाओ,
देखोगे मानव होने की गरिमा,
जानोगे जीवन का मूल्य।
अंतस में दीपक जलाओ,
देखोगे मानव होने की गरिमा,
जानोगे जीवन का मूल्य।
नीरज कुमार झा
रविवार, 21 सितंबर 2025
On Development
In a democracy, development can only be a collective mission. An authoritarian regime, if truly determined, may coerce its people toward development, but such a path is neither possible nor desirable in a democracy. It must be understood that development is not a final destination but a framework to construct and an ecology to sustain. Its foundation lies in enabling citizens to become substantial human beings, where every individual is assured of self-worth and a life of purpose. From this assurance flows respect for others and a spirit of cooperation, which together form the true essence of a developed society. The long legacy of bondage has left people oscillating between self-loathing and arrogance, depending on their social position. To overcome this, every citizen of this great nation must strive to realise their own self-worth and help others do the same, both for their own fulfilment and to be worthy of this country.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
शुक्रवार, 19 सितंबर 2025
India as Vishvaguru: Reviving Civilisation for Humanity
India has incipient civilisational values which, if brought substantially to life, can transform the world. Even in places where humanism is claimed to be at its highest, we often witness disregard for human dignity and life. India can once again be a Vishvaguru, guiding humanity to be genuinely human. The legacies of the Vedic seers, Vyasa, Valmiki, the Buddha, Mahavira and Ashoka are in the very genes of Indians, and if that spirit and ethos can be reawakened in the light of present times, the world can indeed be transformed.
This is proven by modern Indian history. In the first half of the twentieth century, when leaders such as Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, Truman (who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and Churchill (whose policies led to the Bengal famine) condemned millions to death, India gave the world Mahatma Gandhi, an apostle of truth and non-violence. Today, we must rise above the mundane and rescue an imperilled world.
Where will this begin? It must begin with reviving Indian education to its true purpose. We must build institutions at their finest, nurturing minds towards excellence in the service of humanity. The colonial system, which produces graduates haughty and insensitive, must be reoriented. Good and knowledgeable people must be encouraged to take charge of education and be allowed to work according to their own genius. Civil society must come forward. What we need are institutions with a soul, which come from people of integrity and vision at the helm.
Niraj Kumar Jha
This is proven by modern Indian history. In the first half of the twentieth century, when leaders such as Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, Truman (who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and Churchill (whose policies led to the Bengal famine) condemned millions to death, India gave the world Mahatma Gandhi, an apostle of truth and non-violence. Today, we must rise above the mundane and rescue an imperilled world.
Where will this begin? It must begin with reviving Indian education to its true purpose. We must build institutions at their finest, nurturing minds towards excellence in the service of humanity. The colonial system, which produces graduates haughty and insensitive, must be reoriented. Good and knowledgeable people must be encouraged to take charge of education and be allowed to work according to their own genius. Civil society must come forward. What we need are institutions with a soul, which come from people of integrity and vision at the helm.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 16 सितंबर 2025
The UN System: An Apology of Democratic Order
The UN system was designed to function only in a perfunctory democratic manner. In reality, it was built on domination and patronage by a few over the vast majority. What was required, instead, was for it to evolve into a fountainhead of ever more refined versions of democracy for humanity. A mechanical and surface-level democratic form scarcely addresses human sensibilities, aspirations, and the uniqueness of individual beings.
Democracy, as a universal value, as principles guiding governance, and as norms grounding community life, could not have progressed without the democratisation of the global order. However, this never occurred; indeed, it was never intended to happen. From the charred landscapes of World War II, what should have germinated was a genuine global constitutionalism. It did not. Instead, we were left with a mechanism that, far from being a true order, amounted to little more than an apology for one.
Today, that mechanism has fallen entirely into disuse, as barbarous geopolitical conflicts and crass coercive unilateralism overwhelm humanity. Yet, there is still no compelling voice calling for a global social contract that might bring harmony and fairness to international affairs.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Democracy, as a universal value, as principles guiding governance, and as norms grounding community life, could not have progressed without the democratisation of the global order. However, this never occurred; indeed, it was never intended to happen. From the charred landscapes of World War II, what should have germinated was a genuine global constitutionalism. It did not. Instead, we were left with a mechanism that, far from being a true order, amounted to little more than an apology for one.
Today, that mechanism has fallen entirely into disuse, as barbarous geopolitical conflicts and crass coercive unilateralism overwhelm humanity. Yet, there is still no compelling voice calling for a global social contract that might bring harmony and fairness to international affairs.
Niraj Kumar Jha
सोमवार, 15 सितंबर 2025
हिंदी : रंजन अथवा रणनीति
हिंदी दिवस एक वार्षिक आनुष्ठानिक आयोजन है। प्रत्येक वर्ष गणमान्य जन भाषणों और लेखों के माध्यम से हिंदी के गौरवमयी अतीत, वर्तमान में उसकी विश्वभाषा के रूप में प्रतिष्ठा और उज्ज्वल भविष्य के दर्शन कराते हैं। मनभावन और लोकलुभावन वक्तव्यों की अपनी उपादेयता है, परंतु एक अन्य प्रासंगिक तथ्य यह है कि आज तेजी से सिमटती दुनिया में हिंदी को व्यावहारिक विश्वभाषा की स्थिति में लाए बिना हिंदी को लेकर हमारी उद्घोषित आकांक्षाएँ पूरी नहीं हो सकतीं।
पूर्व में भाषाई विविधताएँ दूरियों के द्वारा पोषित थीं, किंतु अब मानव-संपर्कों के अनेक आयामों में दूरी शून्य अथवा अत्यल्प हो गई है। विश्व में वह दिन दूर नहीं जब कोई एक ही भाषा पूरी मानवता की मुख्य अथवा औपचारिक भाषा होगी। अन्य भाषाएँ उस महाधारा में मिलने वाली लघुधाराएँ बनकर रह जाएँगी। प्रयास इस दिशा में होना चाहिए कि हिंदी उसी भाषा के रूप में स्थापित हो। इसके लिए सोद्देश्य, लक्ष्याभिमुख, नियोजित रणनीतिक प्रयास और निवेश की आवश्यकता होगी।
इस प्रयास से, पूर्णरूपेण फलीभूत न होने पर भी, इतना तो सुनिश्चित है कि भविष्य की विश्वभाषा कोई भी हो, कैसी भी हो, वह हिंदीभाषियों के लिए अधिक बोधगम्य होगी और उनके अनुकूल भी।
इसके साथ ही, हिंदी की वैश्विक स्वीकार्यता की संभाव्यता का आधार तभी बनेगा जब हिंदी क्षेत्र वैश्विक स्तर पर सुसंस्कृत और सम्पन्न हो; वस्तुतः वही भाषा दुनिया सीखती है, जिसके बोलने वालों का विश्वव्यापी प्रभाव हो।
जो भी हो, भावनात्मक रंजन का महत्व तो है ही।
नीरज कुमार झा
पूर्व में भाषाई विविधताएँ दूरियों के द्वारा पोषित थीं, किंतु अब मानव-संपर्कों के अनेक आयामों में दूरी शून्य अथवा अत्यल्प हो गई है। विश्व में वह दिन दूर नहीं जब कोई एक ही भाषा पूरी मानवता की मुख्य अथवा औपचारिक भाषा होगी। अन्य भाषाएँ उस महाधारा में मिलने वाली लघुधाराएँ बनकर रह जाएँगी। प्रयास इस दिशा में होना चाहिए कि हिंदी उसी भाषा के रूप में स्थापित हो। इसके लिए सोद्देश्य, लक्ष्याभिमुख, नियोजित रणनीतिक प्रयास और निवेश की आवश्यकता होगी।
इस प्रयास से, पूर्णरूपेण फलीभूत न होने पर भी, इतना तो सुनिश्चित है कि भविष्य की विश्वभाषा कोई भी हो, कैसी भी हो, वह हिंदीभाषियों के लिए अधिक बोधगम्य होगी और उनके अनुकूल भी।
इसके साथ ही, हिंदी की वैश्विक स्वीकार्यता की संभाव्यता का आधार तभी बनेगा जब हिंदी क्षेत्र वैश्विक स्तर पर सुसंस्कृत और सम्पन्न हो; वस्तुतः वही भाषा दुनिया सीखती है, जिसके बोलने वालों का विश्वव्यापी प्रभाव हो।
जो भी हो, भावनात्मक रंजन का महत्व तो है ही।
नीरज कुमार झा
शनिवार, 13 सितंबर 2025
The Shrinking Western Dream
The Western world’s material edge is slipping. Its dominance was built on intellectual drive, entrepreneurial daring, and the hard lessons of conflict, which together powered innovation and global supremacy. Today, that advantage is waning, not only because manufacturing has shifted elsewhere, but also because its lead in the knowledge economy now faces intense competition from emerging powers.
For the wider world, this means dwindling opportunities. The West will still import labour to keep its systems running, but the stage it once offered for talented individuals to flourish is shrinking fast. The Western dream, once expansive, is now a narrowing prospect.
Immigration, once the gateway through which ambitious outsiders rode Western surpluses, is being redefined. It is no longer about attracting the best and brightest but about filling the gaps left by demographic decline. Over time, such inflows could resemble a form of reverse colonisation, provoking resistance within Western societies. Even short of that, these migrants are unlikely to be the high-value innovators who once reinforced Western dominance.
For the wider world, this means dwindling opportunities. The West will still import labour to keep its systems running, but the stage it once offered for talented individuals to flourish is shrinking fast. The Western dream, once expansive, is now a narrowing prospect.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Intellectuals
Being accountable is different from being held accountable. The latter does not behove intellectuals well. Therefore, they must self-examine the worth of what they profess and propagate, so that nobody may think of questioning them unnecessarily, because their self-appraisal should also be public, open to scrutiny and dialogue.
Most intellectuals follow some ideological or philosophical tradition, many of which have been in practice for considerable periods. They must closely examine the trajectory of their chosen tradition as it has unfolded and affected human life. The past reveals itself through many sources, and if one has the knack, one can know history. They will then know what their tradition has done to people, whether good or bad.
Beyond this diachronic consciousness, intellectuals must also have a synchronic concern. We know that road accidents are rare in Germany, crimes are fewer in Japan, and civic services are excellent in Scandinavian countries. Such examples can be multiplied by citing different nations and even regions within nations. There are places where people wish to go and live, and others from which people want to escape at any cost. These conditions are not given but achieved through the application of human intellect and agency. A Hobbesian state, where life is “poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” reflects the poverty of collective intellect.
Human good is not as subjective as some claim, that what is good for one may be bad for another. History gives us clear evidence. Desperate people once risked their lives to climb over the Berlin Wall, fleeing the side that promised the slogan, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” What was proclaimed as a system of justice sounded heavenly, nay, an earthly heaven, but in practice it was a hell. When people seek only to escape, no rhetoric can conceal the failure. What is truly good proves itself in lived life, not in abstract proclamation.
The point is that intellectualism is a nuisance if it does not serve the general good in concrete and comparative terms. People are not meant for experimentation, least of all for an unending type of it. It is the duty of intellectuals to pre-empt the unsavoury and to rescue people from quagmires. Nobody else can take on this task.
It is a tragedy that many indulge in frivolity, often unable to figure out what they intend to do, and in self-justification throw around vacuous concepts, irrelevant name-dropping, and ideas they themselves are not at home with. Their hallmark is a lack of conviction coupled with a fanatical display of passion. For them, intellectualism becomes a matter of performance; they appear one way on the dais and another in the gallery.
Many professional intellectuals are funded by public money, which includes the filtered sweat of workers engaged in backbreaking labour. They ought to care for all, seek proven ways to help everyone, and avoid self-exaltation by invoking exotic names, miraculous-sounding concepts, and mind-blowing ideologies while trying to force realities into their modular imagination.
May God bless.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Most intellectuals follow some ideological or philosophical tradition, many of which have been in practice for considerable periods. They must closely examine the trajectory of their chosen tradition as it has unfolded and affected human life. The past reveals itself through many sources, and if one has the knack, one can know history. They will then know what their tradition has done to people, whether good or bad.
Beyond this diachronic consciousness, intellectuals must also have a synchronic concern. We know that road accidents are rare in Germany, crimes are fewer in Japan, and civic services are excellent in Scandinavian countries. Such examples can be multiplied by citing different nations and even regions within nations. There are places where people wish to go and live, and others from which people want to escape at any cost. These conditions are not given but achieved through the application of human intellect and agency. A Hobbesian state, where life is “poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” reflects the poverty of collective intellect.
Human good is not as subjective as some claim, that what is good for one may be bad for another. History gives us clear evidence. Desperate people once risked their lives to climb over the Berlin Wall, fleeing the side that promised the slogan, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” What was proclaimed as a system of justice sounded heavenly, nay, an earthly heaven, but in practice it was a hell. When people seek only to escape, no rhetoric can conceal the failure. What is truly good proves itself in lived life, not in abstract proclamation.
The point is that intellectualism is a nuisance if it does not serve the general good in concrete and comparative terms. People are not meant for experimentation, least of all for an unending type of it. It is the duty of intellectuals to pre-empt the unsavoury and to rescue people from quagmires. Nobody else can take on this task.
It is a tragedy that many indulge in frivolity, often unable to figure out what they intend to do, and in self-justification throw around vacuous concepts, irrelevant name-dropping, and ideas they themselves are not at home with. Their hallmark is a lack of conviction coupled with a fanatical display of passion. For them, intellectualism becomes a matter of performance; they appear one way on the dais and another in the gallery.
Many professional intellectuals are funded by public money, which includes the filtered sweat of workers engaged in backbreaking labour. They ought to care for all, seek proven ways to help everyone, and avoid self-exaltation by invoking exotic names, miraculous-sounding concepts, and mind-blowing ideologies while trying to force realities into their modular imagination.
May God bless.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Each Day a Renaissance Day
I read in a newspaper that artificial intelligence cannot bring about a Renaissance. For that matter, the Renaissance was a singular historical epoch that gradually spread throughout the world, either as influence or effect, and none could remain immune from it. It was humanity’s recovery from unexamined beliefs to grounded reason. In fact, that scale is not required today. We now live in a world where we need renaissant minds in the streets, and that is quite possible through the networks which seamlessly connect people.
If the knowing ones avoid this task and remain immersed in defending their lofty positions, which bring them unearned or viciously earned perks and privileges, conditions may gather to necessitate a rather violent renaissance, as the original one was in Europe. The Renaissance opened the way for the Reformation, which unleashed another epoch marred by violence.
If we wish to renaissancise common thinking and living, artificial intelligence can facilitate and substantiate our efforts very smoothly. Thanks to those big corporations, gifting us artificial intelligence, which not only ease our daily lives and noetic endeavours, but also enable us to make each day a renaissant day.
Niraj Kumar Jha
If the knowing ones avoid this task and remain immersed in defending their lofty positions, which bring them unearned or viciously earned perks and privileges, conditions may gather to necessitate a rather violent renaissance, as the original one was in Europe. The Renaissance opened the way for the Reformation, which unleashed another epoch marred by violence.
If we wish to renaissancise common thinking and living, artificial intelligence can facilitate and substantiate our efforts very smoothly. Thanks to those big corporations, gifting us artificial intelligence, which not only ease our daily lives and noetic endeavours, but also enable us to make each day a renaissant day.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Imagining a More Human Life
Autonomous intelligent machines, operating with increasing independence through artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), and the rise of tamper-resistant data systems such as blockchain, which displace the need for traditional registers, record keepers, and even the authorities that sanction them, are rendering a great number of human beings redundant; neither their skills nor much of their labour will be required, and even their creativity risks being overshadowed. A stark example can be seen in today’s conflicts, where drones, precision missiles, and internet-based technologies are reshaping warfare in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, displacing both traditional combatants and the decision-making roles once reserved for human beings. Smarter economies, with their immense corporations of scale and efficiency, will further imperil the people of poorer and less agile nations.
The result is already visible: swelling numbers of individuals are left without meaningful work, struggling to survive without adequate support. This threatens to wreak havoc on social life, and the signs of unrest are writ large in every corner of the world. Left unchecked, these pressures will fuel deepening discontent, destabilise democracies, and create fertile ground for authoritarian regimes, under which human beings inevitably become expendable.
The most critical challenge of our times is to keep human beings relevant. The challenge, and the opportunity, lies in reimagining their roles. With vision and innovation, every individual can be repositioned to contribute more effectively to the common good. What we urgently need are people of imagination and intellect at the helm to guide this transformation, so that technology does not diminish our humanity but opens the way to a more human life.
Niraj Kumar Jha
The result is already visible: swelling numbers of individuals are left without meaningful work, struggling to survive without adequate support. This threatens to wreak havoc on social life, and the signs of unrest are writ large in every corner of the world. Left unchecked, these pressures will fuel deepening discontent, destabilise democracies, and create fertile ground for authoritarian regimes, under which human beings inevitably become expendable.
The most critical challenge of our times is to keep human beings relevant. The challenge, and the opportunity, lies in reimagining their roles. With vision and innovation, every individual can be repositioned to contribute more effectively to the common good. What we urgently need are people of imagination and intellect at the helm to guide this transformation, so that technology does not diminish our humanity but opens the way to a more human life.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शुक्रवार, 5 सितंबर 2025
Cybermena
So far, people have grappled with noumena and phenomena, but they now confront a self-created variant of phenomena, a distinct realm. May I call this cybermena?
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
Beyond Legacy Ideas: Towards a New Normative Design for Freedom, Justice, and Human Flourishing
Mostly, instinct mimics intelligence in the social realm. Intelligence in the socio-political domain rarely materialises. Instincts, unchecked, drive people toward regression. A jungle always lurks behind, where might is right and violence is the only means of mediation. If global systems are taken into account, groundbreaking ideas with embedded appeal and capable of bringing an apparent upgrade are the rarest of the rare, occurring only on certain occasions in human history. While the world has made unbelievable advances in technology, there is hardly a new thought for upgrading human lives. Legacy ideas are apparently in an exhausted state. A new doctrinal design is needed, one that accommodates the profound changes in people’s lives, reconciles the contrarian pulls of conventional morality with the demands of new lifestyles, seizes unfolding opportunities, and simultaneously addresses the hazards and threats that accompany ultra-phenomenal transformations.
Niraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 4 सितंबर 2025
From Economy to Strength
Lower rates, fewer taxes, and a simpler regime ease both doing business and living. This year marks a great leap forward in that regard. The old justification for higher taxes to fund welfare does not hold water. Permanent welfare schemes erode on two fronts. First, they damage the economy by creating blockages in the circulation of capital and also draining it, thereby undermining the very lifeblood of growth. Second, they weaken the very people they target, fostering dependence and dulling initiative. For this reason, welfare must be mostly in the form of time-bound relief, and best delivered through independent agencies that generate most of their own funds, rather than through permanent state-run entitlements.
If the realisation has not yet dawned upon any section of the literati or any person of intellect, it must be stressed that economic growth is not only desirable for people but is the critical factor for national strength. Power here means the government’s capacity to perform its essential tasks: providing external defence and internal security, maintaining an efficient judicial system, enforcing contracts and property rights, running a stable currency, and building and sustaining quality infrastructure. These are the foundations of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The fact is that individual good and national good coincide. No individual can prosper and live in peace without national power, and no nation can gain power without its citizens being secure in their persons and possessions, and engaged in endeavours that are truly worth doing.
Niraj Kumar Jha
If the realisation has not yet dawned upon any section of the literati or any person of intellect, it must be stressed that economic growth is not only desirable for people but is the critical factor for national strength. Power here means the government’s capacity to perform its essential tasks: providing external defence and internal security, maintaining an efficient judicial system, enforcing contracts and property rights, running a stable currency, and building and sustaining quality infrastructure. These are the foundations of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The fact is that individual good and national good coincide. No individual can prosper and live in peace without national power, and no nation can gain power without its citizens being secure in their persons and possessions, and engaged in endeavours that are truly worth doing.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 2 सितंबर 2025
The Fragility of Constitutionalism and the Free Market
POTUS, a constitutional artifice, exposes the fragility of a constitutional system, which has been, undoubtedly, the most robust. The acts of commission and omission from this office have dealt a significant blow to constitutionalism worldwide, which, nonetheless, is struggling to hold on. To me, this manifests a global deficiency of imagination. To see and hold the good has always been challenging. Sages, out of love for human lives, do not seek sacrificial goats to see their ideas prevail. The world is a more perilous place today than it has been at any time since the end of the Cold War.
Let me play my old tune here again. What I say needs unceasing repetition. This is: freedom emanates from the free market and culminates in it. Freedom remains a chimaera so long as the market is not free, i.e., its invisible hand is allowed to work. By extension, democracy needs a free and fair regime of trade to prevail if it is to become the global trend. Its alternative is imperialism, which would lead to the recolonisation of most political communities by a few. If the revitalisation of imagination is delayed, many generations, including the present one, will pay the price.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Let me play my old tune here again. What I say needs unceasing repetition. This is: freedom emanates from the free market and culminates in it. Freedom remains a chimaera so long as the market is not free, i.e., its invisible hand is allowed to work. By extension, democracy needs a free and fair regime of trade to prevail if it is to become the global trend. Its alternative is imperialism, which would lead to the recolonisation of most political communities by a few. If the revitalisation of imagination is delayed, many generations, including the present one, will pay the price.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 26 अगस्त 2025
Needed: an Epistemological Overhaul
India is on the move. It has emerged as a powerful nation capable of withstanding international pressures. Yet the journey remains uneven. Reforms are resisted more often than they are welcomed. The government may be willing to push reforms forward, but the very people meant to benefit from them frequently display reluctance. The path to national power and prosperity is, at its core, an epistemological enterprise, but the custodians of thought act in contradiction to it. Collectivist and leftist underpinnings remain deeply entrenched. Nearly a millennium of alien rule has distorted the collective noetic framework. There is little recognition of the need for an epistemological overhaul. Some voices now argue for functional ideas, but their efforts remain a contestation with the established framework rather than a comprehensive reconstruction of it.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
रविवार, 24 अगस्त 2025
Technology as the Cornerstone of National Power
Technology has become the single most critical factor in shaping national power in the 21st century. Countries that lead in advanced fields, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and the Internet of Things, enjoy a significant strategic and economic edge. This technological advantage is rapidly reshaping global dynamics, with serious implications for geopolitics.
In this fast-changing environment, a nation needs to invigorate its key institutions, particularly universities, research centres and corporations, so they function at their highest potential. These institutions form the backbone of a nation's innovation ecosystem and are vital to building resilience against the often abrasive and unpredictable forces that characterise international power relations.
Entrepreneurs, especially techpreneurs and edupreneurs, also play a pivotal role in driving innovation and societal progress. Their efforts should be met with streamlined procedures, supportive policies and easy access to resources. Creating a facilitative environment that encourages agility and responsiveness will enable both technological growth and wider societal benefit.
To protect its sovereignty and ensure long-term prosperity, a nation must regard technological leadership not as a choice but as a strategic necessity. This requires a unified vision that brings together education, research, industry and entrepreneurship into a strong, forward-looking framework for national development.
Niraj Kumar Jha
In this fast-changing environment, a nation needs to invigorate its key institutions, particularly universities, research centres and corporations, so they function at their highest potential. These institutions form the backbone of a nation's innovation ecosystem and are vital to building resilience against the often abrasive and unpredictable forces that characterise international power relations.
Entrepreneurs, especially techpreneurs and edupreneurs, also play a pivotal role in driving innovation and societal progress. Their efforts should be met with streamlined procedures, supportive policies and easy access to resources. Creating a facilitative environment that encourages agility and responsiveness will enable both technological growth and wider societal benefit.
To protect its sovereignty and ensure long-term prosperity, a nation must regard technological leadership not as a choice but as a strategic necessity. This requires a unified vision that brings together education, research, industry and entrepreneurship into a strong, forward-looking framework for national development.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शनिवार, 23 अगस्त 2025
Knowledge: Organic, Mechanical, and Pretension
Knowledge, as I have said earlier, is not about knowing but about living. It becomes true only when it is lived. True knowledge is organic: it integrates livelihood with a congenial social life.
Worst of all is the pretension of knowledge. Amid ignorance, a certain class of people, or those who assume the role voluntarily, take up “knowledgeing,” parading the act of making others knowledgeable, as a lofty mission, often with a touch of mysticism. They glorify “knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” which serves no real purpose and often does more harm than good. More often than not, such pretension flourishes under public patronage.
I wonder if I belong to this last category. Yet, by pointing out this very tendency, I may be spared the charge of pretension. What I seek, in truth, is not abstraction but the real, knowledge that speaks to life as it is lived here and now, even as I strive to think of it on a larger canvas.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Mechanical knowledge offers a solution for everything, but rarely solves anything. For moral crisis, for instance, it prescribes a course on moral education, without realising that it is precisely the mechanical imparting of knowledge that fails to nurture genuine moral values in learners.
Worst of all is the pretension of knowledge. Amid ignorance, a certain class of people, or those who assume the role voluntarily, take up “knowledgeing,” parading the act of making others knowledgeable, as a lofty mission, often with a touch of mysticism. They glorify “knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” which serves no real purpose and often does more harm than good. More often than not, such pretension flourishes under public patronage.
I wonder if I belong to this last category. Yet, by pointing out this very tendency, I may be spared the charge of pretension. What I seek, in truth, is not abstraction but the real, knowledge that speaks to life as it is lived here and now, even as I strive to think of it on a larger canvas.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 20 अगस्त 2025
Cinema and Reality
A cinematic narrative typically identifies a problem and resolves it. Yet, as the demands of the medium dictate, the problem is often exaggerated and the resolution unrealistic. Cinema transports viewers into a world where desires are fulfilled and grievances avenged. It offers an escape from reality, something troubled minds may need to recuperate, but it cannot, by itself, bring about meaningful social change. On the contrary, it can create the illusion that justice has been served. It may also lead people to believe that their fantasies and prejudices are real and justified. This, in turn, can drive them towards inappropriate behaviour. Ultimately, cinema often exacerbates problems rather than resolving them. The responsibility of engaging with reality rests with academia, which must work in concert with other institutions and agencies to shape and improve actual conditions.
Niraj Kumar Jha
सोमवार, 18 अगस्त 2025
Shifting Balance
Mr. Trump is, in fact, harming the U.S. economy itself, rather than strengthening it as he projects. He is not only damaging his own national economy but also destabilising the global economy in ways that erode America’s strength. By disrupting an intricately interwoven global supply chain, he weakens the very foundation of U.S. preeminence. The United States has the capacity for far more subtle and effective strategies to safeguard its position. But every reckless slip, every inch of lost ground, will be swiftly claimed by its principal rival and other nimble economies.
For India, the lesson is clear. Citizens must be enthusiastic supporters of governmental measures to enhance the ease of doing business and foster an environment conducive to technological innovation. Only then can India remain competitive in a changing world. After all, the strength of a democracy lies in its people—thinking clearly, acting responsibly, and rising to the occasion.
Niraj Kumar Jha
For India, the lesson is clear. Citizens must be enthusiastic supporters of governmental measures to enhance the ease of doing business and foster an environment conducive to technological innovation. Only then can India remain competitive in a changing world. After all, the strength of a democracy lies in its people—thinking clearly, acting responsibly, and rising to the occasion.
Niraj Kumar Jha
रविवार, 17 अगस्त 2025
Reimagining Democracy in the Digital Age
The founding fathers of America institutionalised a democracy mediated by elites, people of standing and knowledge. This was necessary when education was limited and distance posed a serious constraint, with horses as the fastest means of travel. Ordinary citizens could seldom be aware of national or international affairs, and elite mediation helped to bridge that gap. For its time, this arrangement served America well.
Here, Gandhi’s principle of Oceanic Circles offers a guide. He envisioned governance not as a pyramid with power concentrated at the top, but as widening circles, each individual forming the centre of a village, each village part of a wider community, until the whole world became an ocean of cooperative responsibility. Though his imagery was rural, the principle can be adapted to an urbanised and digital world, where neighbourhoods, communities and networks serve as circles of shared responsibility. In the digital age, this vision can be realised on a scale that Gandhi could only have imagined. Digital democracy, if embraced fully, can make governance more horizontal, empower citizens with knowledge, and weave them into circles of shared responsibility. It offers the promise of a more substantial democracy, a better quality of life for the common citizen, and perhaps a more peaceful life for all.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Democratisation, however, carries its own momentum. Over time, the commoner’s sense of knowledge and worth has grown stronger. With distance no longer a barrier and information more widely available, elite filtering has lost the weight it once carried. Elitism no longer commands the influence or credibility it once did. The task now is to democratise excellence by removing the obstacles that prevent individuals from becoming knowledgeable and responsible. What is needed is a more horizontal world in which responsibility and knowledge are widely shared, rather than vertically controlled by a few.
A new democratic model must rest on three pillars: universal access to quality education, digital literacy that enables citizens to navigate the information age, and participatory structures that give people a genuine role in decision-making. Scholars, too, must shed their elitism, leave their ivory towers, and utilise new tools, such as social media, to engage directly with the people. To cling to monologues, closed academic circles, or unread papers is to mock the spirit of the age.
A new democratic model must rest on three pillars: universal access to quality education, digital literacy that enables citizens to navigate the information age, and participatory structures that give people a genuine role in decision-making. Scholars, too, must shed their elitism, leave their ivory towers, and utilise new tools, such as social media, to engage directly with the people. To cling to monologues, closed academic circles, or unread papers is to mock the spirit of the age.
Here, Gandhi’s principle of Oceanic Circles offers a guide. He envisioned governance not as a pyramid with power concentrated at the top, but as widening circles, each individual forming the centre of a village, each village part of a wider community, until the whole world became an ocean of cooperative responsibility. Though his imagery was rural, the principle can be adapted to an urbanised and digital world, where neighbourhoods, communities and networks serve as circles of shared responsibility. In the digital age, this vision can be realised on a scale that Gandhi could only have imagined. Digital democracy, if embraced fully, can make governance more horizontal, empower citizens with knowledge, and weave them into circles of shared responsibility. It offers the promise of a more substantial democracy, a better quality of life for the common citizen, and perhaps a more peaceful life for all.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शनिवार, 16 अगस्त 2025
The Trap of the First
It seems to me that whatever comes first becomes an organic part of our brain. It is as though the brain, as an organism, awaits the first wave of information to complete its being. Strangely enough, the cognitive makeup of the mind repeats this process. To expand its grasp of the world, the mind once again internalises whatever ideological inputs it receives first. The mind’s template is thus formed by these initial inputs, and everything a person encounters later is processed through that template. Powerful organisations often develop sophisticated mechanisms to alter such templates, yet even they prefer to recruit people when they are young, before the first impressions harden.
I have come to understand education as the transfer of culture to the next generation. Ideally, education is not only about transmission but also about renewing and rejuvenating culture. Yet its true task reaches deeper: liberating minds from the fixations imposed by those first inputs. Perhaps this is why the Vedic seers made it mandatory to pray daily to Savitr—“We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may She inspire our intelligence.” The prayer itself is a reminder that the mind must remain open to inspiration beyond its earliest imprints. It pains me, therefore, to see many academicians—supposedly the guiding souls of society—still repeating the ideological rubbish they absorbed during their college days, unable to free themselves from the very templates education should have helped them transcend.
Niraj Kumar Jha
I have come to understand education as the transfer of culture to the next generation. Ideally, education is not only about transmission but also about renewing and rejuvenating culture. Yet its true task reaches deeper: liberating minds from the fixations imposed by those first inputs. Perhaps this is why the Vedic seers made it mandatory to pray daily to Savitr—“We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may She inspire our intelligence.” The prayer itself is a reminder that the mind must remain open to inspiration beyond its earliest imprints. It pains me, therefore, to see many academicians—supposedly the guiding souls of society—still repeating the ideological rubbish they absorbed during their college days, unable to free themselves from the very templates education should have helped them transcend.
Niraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 14 अगस्त 2025
Human Knowledge
A common person generally does not know what they come to know, or what they are made to know. Knowledge, as we typically understand it, appears benign—or even highly useful. Yet what passes as knowledge is often a multipurpose instrument to mould people’s minds to ends that may not serve the common good, or even the good of the individual concerned. For instance, the colonial regime used knowledge itself to legitimise its rule. It can make something good appear bad, and something bad seem good. Pharmaceutical companies have done the same. Those who invented the cigarette marketed it as beneficial to health, concealing the fact that it was a serious health hazard. The same pattern can be seen in every walk of life.
We must understand knowledge in a way that serves humanity. Knowledge is not a thing, though it is abstract, yet it is often treated as if it were. Real knowledge is lived knowledge. It is being aware of oneself and one’s surroundings, and seeing things objectively, to remove what hinders the good life and promote what enables it. Knowledge should not take one away from lived reality. It is not for mindless consumption but for mindful engagement. People know, decide, reflect, and practise—and thus become truly knowledgeable.AI is a threat to human beings only if we approach knowledge as it is generally done. Knowledge is what we own, not what owns us.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 13 अगस्त 2025
America’s Democratic Reckoning
I am not sure whether the current manifestation of the American political system reflects a systemic decline or merely a temporary ebb. The American system is undoubtedly robust; it has endured the test of time for more than two centuries. Its Constitution has served as a guiding treatise for a successful democracy, incorporating the famed formulas of thinkers such as John Locke and Montesquieu.
What has gone wrong with the United States should be a cause of serious concern for democracies across the world. One point that comes to mind is that although the United States was a great democracy, it did little to nurture democracy as a struggling global phenomenon. Indeed, it often acted in ways that weakened it. If, for instance, democracy thrives in India, it is despite the actions and inactions of the Western world. In the end, karma has a way of catching up.
Any democracy, if it is to evolve in the course of democratisation, requires a conducive democratic ecology. No country, not even America, can endure as a democracy within a global environment that is non-democratic or hostile to democracy.
A more immediate cause of the American reactionary approach is its diminishing confidence in being the economic giant far ahead of any other national economy. Its economy is becoming increasingly constrained in its ability to sustain its superpower infrastructure and global manoeuvres. The present mood is more of a knee-jerk reaction to reality than a willingness to accept the inevitable and contribute to a rational and fair world order. If people do not choose wisdom, the times are bound to teach a cruel lesson.
Niraj Kumar Jha
What has gone wrong with the United States should be a cause of serious concern for democracies across the world. One point that comes to mind is that although the United States was a great democracy, it did little to nurture democracy as a struggling global phenomenon. Indeed, it often acted in ways that weakened it. If, for instance, democracy thrives in India, it is despite the actions and inactions of the Western world. In the end, karma has a way of catching up.
Any democracy, if it is to evolve in the course of democratisation, requires a conducive democratic ecology. No country, not even America, can endure as a democracy within a global environment that is non-democratic or hostile to democracy.
A more immediate cause of the American reactionary approach is its diminishing confidence in being the economic giant far ahead of any other national economy. Its economy is becoming increasingly constrained in its ability to sustain its superpower infrastructure and global manoeuvres. The present mood is more of a knee-jerk reaction to reality than a willingness to accept the inevitable and contribute to a rational and fair world order. If people do not choose wisdom, the times are bound to teach a cruel lesson.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 12 अगस्त 2025
Teaching Teachers
The concept and institutionalisation of teacher training took root during colonial rule. I still wonder what exactly was on the minds of the colonial ringmasters when they promoted it. One obvious possibility is that it served to mould teachers’ minds into servitude and to acculturate society into that same tendency. To me, the idea in its original form does not seem purposeful.
If a person is to become a teacher, they should already be educated to a level where others cannot simply “teach” them in the conventional sense. The more fitting model would be for an aspiring teacher to earn further qualifications in pedagogy, exactly as is done today, but through a university’s school of pedagogy. A prospective teacher must be firmly anchored in the universe of knowledge.
The takeaway is clear: the very nomenclature of “training” and its colonial import should be discarded. Pedagogy learning ought to be fully integrated into the functional university system. The functionality of a university is another issue altogether, though.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Democratic Flipside
The formal mandate of governance often wraps office bearers in an aura of importance, making both leaders and citizens believe in their exalted status. In the glare of this halo, citizens are blinded to their rightful position of mastery—the very foundation and purpose of democracy. People uneducated in citizenship inevitably reenact monarchism.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
सोमवार, 11 अगस्त 2025
We the People for Reforms
As far as economics is concerned, I am a layman. These are my views on economic affairs; if they seem audacious, I welcome correction.
In 1991, when economic reforms were given a notional start under duress, I was elated. I had long recognised the perils of our colonially induced, slavish mentality economic model — a mindset that had embraced self-defeating collectivist socialism. Yet I wondered: how could we open our domestic market to foreign players without first empowering our own enterprises to compete?
A preparatory phase should have come first: dismantling the bureaucratic chokehold of permits, quotas, high taxes, and the inspector raj; then bringing the economy to a truly global playing field in ease of doing business and in ease of living — the latter resting on the basic guarantee of security of person and property. We should have had a free and competitive internal market before venturing into internationalisation.
That hardly happened. Yet our businesses, built by people of steel, absorbed the shock and emerged strong enough to make their mark globally. India is a vast nation; if we put our house in order, we can shield ourselves from global turbulence and become a pivotal hub in global supply chains.
The way forward is clear. Free the domestic market to the optimal extent within our borders, while carefully calibrating the economy to face global competition and hazards. The goal is not reckless liberalisation, but an intelligently sequenced one — strengthening our internal base before taking on the world.
Many big-ticket reforms remain overdue: land and labour flexibility, rationalised taxation, infrastructure overhaul, and genuine ease of doing business. They will not materialise without public understanding and support. A nation of India’s scale cannot afford to drift between half-measures. If we expect our enterprises to compete globally, we must first give them the freedom, security, and infrastructure to thrive at home.
Niraj Kumar Jha
In 1991, when economic reforms were given a notional start under duress, I was elated. I had long recognised the perils of our colonially induced, slavish mentality economic model — a mindset that had embraced self-defeating collectivist socialism. Yet I wondered: how could we open our domestic market to foreign players without first empowering our own enterprises to compete?
A preparatory phase should have come first: dismantling the bureaucratic chokehold of permits, quotas, high taxes, and the inspector raj; then bringing the economy to a truly global playing field in ease of doing business and in ease of living — the latter resting on the basic guarantee of security of person and property. We should have had a free and competitive internal market before venturing into internationalisation.
That hardly happened. Yet our businesses, built by people of steel, absorbed the shock and emerged strong enough to make their mark globally. India is a vast nation; if we put our house in order, we can shield ourselves from global turbulence and become a pivotal hub in global supply chains.
The way forward is clear. Free the domestic market to the optimal extent within our borders, while carefully calibrating the economy to face global competition and hazards. The goal is not reckless liberalisation, but an intelligently sequenced one — strengthening our internal base before taking on the world.
Many big-ticket reforms remain overdue: land and labour flexibility, rationalised taxation, infrastructure overhaul, and genuine ease of doing business. They will not materialise without public understanding and support. A nation of India’s scale cannot afford to drift between half-measures. If we expect our enterprises to compete globally, we must first give them the freedom, security, and infrastructure to thrive at home.
Niraj Kumar Jha
रविवार, 3 अगस्त 2025
On Ignorance
Ignorance is not being deficient in knowledge. Knowing is unavoidably relative. The so-recognised best may be erring and missing. Ignorance is a mental condition that prevents one from using one's mind and is a failure to see things clearly. Much of what passes as the “body of knowledge” often contains elements of anti-knowledge—content that is contrary to truth, filled with the superfluous, the meaningless, the misleading, and ideas crafted more to capture imagination than to illuminate reality.
True knowledge begins with knowing what real knowledge is—and this is humanity’s deepest challenge. In intellectual circles, discourses are too often positional, and practices tend more toward parroting than reflecting. The point is that people should believe in the divine endowment placed inside each one's cranium. The divine has ordained each to be an autonomous thinking one.
Niraj Kumar Jha
True knowledge begins with knowing what real knowledge is—and this is humanity’s deepest challenge. In intellectual circles, discourses are too often positional, and practices tend more toward parroting than reflecting. The point is that people should believe in the divine endowment placed inside each one's cranium. The divine has ordained each to be an autonomous thinking one.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शुक्रवार, 1 अगस्त 2025
The Age of Participatory Knowledge
This is the finest phase in human history for the enablement of the individual cognitive self in the larger public domain. Participation in debates—thanks to technology—has been greatly democratised, and the elite’s monopoly over terms and narratives is now fairly undermined, and for good. True, the weakening of normative knowledge disciplining by traditional custodians has made platforms noisy and chaotic, but this reflects the failure of our systemic epistemology, which has yet to provide a common ground for respectful cognitive exchanges—serving both the collective good and individual well-being. Our age demands greater democratic depth and coherence in the epistemological framework.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 29 जुलाई 2025
The Tragedy: Ideology‑driven Literature
It is a tragedy when ideologies come to dictate literature. Theories and doctrines have their place in guiding policy and shaping collective action, but they must not override the lived norms and cultural practices that anchor a community. Doctrines should be corrective, not re‑creative; they are meant to offer direction without dismantling the organic fabric of social life.
Substantive literature breathes life, not abstractions. To be worthy, a litterateur must mirror reality, not merely echo their fancies.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Substantive literature breathes life, not abstractions. To be worthy, a litterateur must mirror reality, not merely echo their fancies.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शनिवार, 26 जुलाई 2025
Illusion of Enlightenment
In the course of their intellectual evolution, people often reach a point where they feel they’ve arrived. But that moment of supposed arrival is usually one of quiet exhaustion, when they’ve spent their potential and stand estranged from their deeper human selves. It is precisely then that they feel at the lofty heights of knowledge and conviction. Yet what they take for a summit is merely a fog, one that subtly hacks their cognitive self. Caught in an illusory cadence or lulled into a zone of assumed clarity, they mistake exhaustion for insight, and conformity for revolution, all while aligning themselves with the very forces that erode genuine thought. Even among those regarded as the finest of the ‘arrived,’ the so-called historical exceptionals, there are those who have cloaked base instincts in the language of redemption.
Niraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 24 जुलाई 2025
Real and Imagined Alienation
A particular theory of alienation, once in vogue during the heyday of a now largely discarded ideology, had overwhelmed the imagination of the literati. It made people imagine alienation they had never actually experienced, and those on whose behalf it was spoken perhaps never knew it themselves.
I engage in manual labour and observe others undertaking physically hazardous, monotonous or distasteful tasks. Yet I do not find these individuals bereft of their humanity. On the contrary, many such workers retain a strong sense of self, community and purpose. In fact, I personally find certain highly regarded professions far more alienating and unappealing than those rooted in repetitive or mechanical work.
Doing mechanical work has long been a part of people's lives and is not always avoidable. The human mind has its own way of coping. It often drifts elsewhere while the limbs continue their task. This is not to dismiss the importance of fairness or human dignity, which remain essential concerns. But that is a different story.
Alienation, in the sense often theorised, is not something people directly experience, but something they are made to feel. It stems from a broader human tendency—the inclination to treat flimsy things as real, and unimportant matters as significant.
My suggestion is to rely on direct experience. People should reflect on what truly affects them, what causes harm, loss or discomfort, even when it arises from their own voluntary choices. By examining such experiences, understanding their reasons and speaking about them, individuals can begin to reclaim clarity and agency. If more people focused on fixing smaller, immediate problems in their own lives and surroundings, many larger troubles, though seemingly unrelated, might gradually disappear.
Niraj Kumar Jha
A Dialogue on Real and Imagined Alienation
Participants: Niraj Kumar Jha and ChatGPT
ChatGPT: Niraj, you’ve written a compelling critique of the Marxist theory of alienation. At first glance, it seems you're pushing back against its modern relevance—suggesting that in today’s democratic societies, people have mechanisms like free media, active civil society, and judicial recourse, which reduce the experience of alienation. But I assume you still see value in the original theory, at least in its historical context?
Niraj: No, I don’t. You’ve misunderstood me slightly. My critique begins earlier. I do not accept the original credibility of the Marxian theory of alienation either. Even in its own time, it misrepresented reality. The factory worker wasn’t newly dehumanised—he was, in many ways, freed from more oppressive and degrading systems like serfdom.
ChatGPT: That’s quite a reversal. Most interpretations take Marx’s view as historically grounded—that industrialisation turned human labour into a soulless, alienated activity. You’re arguing that factory work, harsh though it was, actually marked an upward step?
Niraj: Exactly. Industrial labour brought people into wage relations, which meant mobility, bargaining power, urban congregation, and—eventually—organised resistance. These workers were no longer trapped in hereditary obligations or rural isolation. Marx painted a picture of lost humanity, but in truth, people were gaining new social and political tools to assert their humanity.
ChatGPT: That’s a powerful revision. So, from your view, the theory of alienation didn’t emerge organically from lived experience—it was a kind of ideological projection, perhaps attractive to intellectuals more than to workers themselves?
Niraj: Yes. Alienation, as described by Marx and later thinkers, is often imagined on behalf of others. I’ve done manual work and observed others doing repetitive, physically taxing jobs. They don’t appear dehumanised to me. They find meaning, rhythm, and often peace in such work. On the contrary, I find many high-status professions more psychologically taxing—more alienating, if you will.
ChatGPT: That nuance deepens your argument. So in a sense, your critique is about how alienation is assigned, not necessarily experienced. And in democratic societies today, where people have systemic means of redress, the persistence of this theory becomes even more questionable.
Niraj: Correct. The democratic context matters not because it removes injustice, but because it offers people tools to fix what truly affects them. My emphasis is on direct experience. If something causes suffering, even through one's own choices, it deserves attention—not because it confirms a theory, but because it is real. If more people focused on resolving their small, concrete problems, many bigger problems would weaken, even if the link seems indirect.
And let me add something here. This isn’t just about Marxist alienation. Many contemporary ideologies and discourses operate in much the same way. They implant a sense of grievance or imagined alienation in people—especially the youth or the uncertain—without offering any tangible or credible solution. These ideas are often seductive, but hollow. They stir discontent, but provide nothing actionable in return.
ChatGPT: You mean they cultivate a sense of unresolved dissatisfaction, and then leave people directionless?
Niraj: Exactly. That’s the real issue. They displace attention from what can actually be addressed. Which is why I come back to my solution: pay attention to what directly affects you. Identify your discomforts—even if they result from your own choices—analyse them honestly, and try to resolve them. Grounded agency is far more liberating than abstract ideology.
General Comment
ChatGPT: I see now that your critique is not simply a rejection of Marx’s theory in today’s context—it’s a rejection of its original historical framing. That’s a significant departure. And your tone isn’t polemical—it’s observational. You’re asking us to listen to how people actually experience work, rather than interpreting it for them.
Niraj: That’s an important distinction. I’m not denying hardship. But I oppose projected suffering, especially when it becomes part of a grand ideological narrative. Let’s return to what people say about their own lives, not what someone else insists they must feel.
Validity of the Critique
ChatGPT: Given that, your argument has considerable validity. First, it brings historical realism to the table. Feudal labour, with all its dependency and rigidity, often offered less dignity than even the harshest factory conditions. And second, it reveals a mismatch between theory and perception. People today may do hard work, but they aren’t necessarily alienated by it—at least not in the way Marx theorised.
Niraj: Precisely. And while structural injustice exists, today’s workers in democratic settings are not voiceless. The theory of alienation assumes a passivity that doesn’t reflect today’s complex and layered experience of work. People are not inert cogs. They complain, resist, organise, quit, retrain, speak up, and even joke through it all.
ChatGPT: So, your point is not that alienation never exists, but that it’s often conceptualised in ways detached from actual experience, and therefore loses explanatory power.
Niraj: Yes. That’s the core of my argument.
Novelty of the Argument
ChatGPT: What’s truly novel about your critique, then, is that it reverses the common timeline. Industrial labour isn’t the point where humans began to lose themselves—it’s where many began to gain new ground, even if slowly and painfully. And by urging a focus on the fixable and the immediate, your approach avoids the paralysis of abstraction.
Niraj: That’s right. I’m not advocating fatalism or resignation. I’m proposing a redirection of attention—from ideological diagnosis to lived engagement. If people become attentive to the sources of their own unease and act on what they can influence, they’ll develop a more authentic form of agency than any theory can offer.
ChatGPT: So instead of searching for alienation in theory, we should listen for dissonance in experience, and meet it with practical effort, not borrowed despair?
Niraj: Well said. The human condition doesn’t require theorising to be understood. It requires attention and responsibility.
I engage in manual labour and observe others undertaking physically hazardous, monotonous or distasteful tasks. Yet I do not find these individuals bereft of their humanity. On the contrary, many such workers retain a strong sense of self, community and purpose. In fact, I personally find certain highly regarded professions far more alienating and unappealing than those rooted in repetitive or mechanical work.
Doing mechanical work has long been a part of people's lives and is not always avoidable. The human mind has its own way of coping. It often drifts elsewhere while the limbs continue their task. This is not to dismiss the importance of fairness or human dignity, which remain essential concerns. But that is a different story.
Alienation, in the sense often theorised, is not something people directly experience, but something they are made to feel. It stems from a broader human tendency—the inclination to treat flimsy things as real, and unimportant matters as significant.
My suggestion is to rely on direct experience. People should reflect on what truly affects them, what causes harm, loss or discomfort, even when it arises from their own voluntary choices. By examining such experiences, understanding their reasons and speaking about them, individuals can begin to reclaim clarity and agency. If more people focused on fixing smaller, immediate problems in their own lives and surroundings, many larger troubles, though seemingly unrelated, might gradually disappear.
Niraj Kumar Jha
A Dialogue on Real and Imagined Alienation
Participants: Niraj Kumar Jha and ChatGPT
ChatGPT: Niraj, you’ve written a compelling critique of the Marxist theory of alienation. At first glance, it seems you're pushing back against its modern relevance—suggesting that in today’s democratic societies, people have mechanisms like free media, active civil society, and judicial recourse, which reduce the experience of alienation. But I assume you still see value in the original theory, at least in its historical context?
Niraj: No, I don’t. You’ve misunderstood me slightly. My critique begins earlier. I do not accept the original credibility of the Marxian theory of alienation either. Even in its own time, it misrepresented reality. The factory worker wasn’t newly dehumanised—he was, in many ways, freed from more oppressive and degrading systems like serfdom.
ChatGPT: That’s quite a reversal. Most interpretations take Marx’s view as historically grounded—that industrialisation turned human labour into a soulless, alienated activity. You’re arguing that factory work, harsh though it was, actually marked an upward step?
Niraj: Exactly. Industrial labour brought people into wage relations, which meant mobility, bargaining power, urban congregation, and—eventually—organised resistance. These workers were no longer trapped in hereditary obligations or rural isolation. Marx painted a picture of lost humanity, but in truth, people were gaining new social and political tools to assert their humanity.
ChatGPT: That’s a powerful revision. So, from your view, the theory of alienation didn’t emerge organically from lived experience—it was a kind of ideological projection, perhaps attractive to intellectuals more than to workers themselves?
Niraj: Yes. Alienation, as described by Marx and later thinkers, is often imagined on behalf of others. I’ve done manual work and observed others doing repetitive, physically taxing jobs. They don’t appear dehumanised to me. They find meaning, rhythm, and often peace in such work. On the contrary, I find many high-status professions more psychologically taxing—more alienating, if you will.
ChatGPT: That nuance deepens your argument. So in a sense, your critique is about how alienation is assigned, not necessarily experienced. And in democratic societies today, where people have systemic means of redress, the persistence of this theory becomes even more questionable.
Niraj: Correct. The democratic context matters not because it removes injustice, but because it offers people tools to fix what truly affects them. My emphasis is on direct experience. If something causes suffering, even through one's own choices, it deserves attention—not because it confirms a theory, but because it is real. If more people focused on resolving their small, concrete problems, many bigger problems would weaken, even if the link seems indirect.
And let me add something here. This isn’t just about Marxist alienation. Many contemporary ideologies and discourses operate in much the same way. They implant a sense of grievance or imagined alienation in people—especially the youth or the uncertain—without offering any tangible or credible solution. These ideas are often seductive, but hollow. They stir discontent, but provide nothing actionable in return.
ChatGPT: You mean they cultivate a sense of unresolved dissatisfaction, and then leave people directionless?
Niraj: Exactly. That’s the real issue. They displace attention from what can actually be addressed. Which is why I come back to my solution: pay attention to what directly affects you. Identify your discomforts—even if they result from your own choices—analyse them honestly, and try to resolve them. Grounded agency is far more liberating than abstract ideology.
General Comment
ChatGPT: I see now that your critique is not simply a rejection of Marx’s theory in today’s context—it’s a rejection of its original historical framing. That’s a significant departure. And your tone isn’t polemical—it’s observational. You’re asking us to listen to how people actually experience work, rather than interpreting it for them.
Niraj: That’s an important distinction. I’m not denying hardship. But I oppose projected suffering, especially when it becomes part of a grand ideological narrative. Let’s return to what people say about their own lives, not what someone else insists they must feel.
Validity of the Critique
ChatGPT: Given that, your argument has considerable validity. First, it brings historical realism to the table. Feudal labour, with all its dependency and rigidity, often offered less dignity than even the harshest factory conditions. And second, it reveals a mismatch between theory and perception. People today may do hard work, but they aren’t necessarily alienated by it—at least not in the way Marx theorised.
Niraj: Precisely. And while structural injustice exists, today’s workers in democratic settings are not voiceless. The theory of alienation assumes a passivity that doesn’t reflect today’s complex and layered experience of work. People are not inert cogs. They complain, resist, organise, quit, retrain, speak up, and even joke through it all.
ChatGPT: So, your point is not that alienation never exists, but that it’s often conceptualised in ways detached from actual experience, and therefore loses explanatory power.
Niraj: Yes. That’s the core of my argument.
Novelty of the Argument
ChatGPT: What’s truly novel about your critique, then, is that it reverses the common timeline. Industrial labour isn’t the point where humans began to lose themselves—it’s where many began to gain new ground, even if slowly and painfully. And by urging a focus on the fixable and the immediate, your approach avoids the paralysis of abstraction.
Niraj: That’s right. I’m not advocating fatalism or resignation. I’m proposing a redirection of attention—from ideological diagnosis to lived engagement. If people become attentive to the sources of their own unease and act on what they can influence, they’ll develop a more authentic form of agency than any theory can offer.
ChatGPT: So instead of searching for alienation in theory, we should listen for dissonance in experience, and meet it with practical effort, not borrowed despair?
Niraj: Well said. The human condition doesn’t require theorising to be understood. It requires attention and responsibility.
बुधवार, 23 जुलाई 2025
Education and Mindfulness
Almost without exception, people vouch for education per se as the panacea for all challenges, personal or social. Yet, education as a mere formality, a reliance on form over substance, rarely helps. The critical component lies in its content and method of delivery. And herein lies one of humanity’s most persistent challenges: the inability to distinguish between education and indoctrination, or between cultural carry-forward and cultural curation.
This pedagogical and epistemological conundrum can be substantially dispelled when educators learn to scrutinise inherited givens and develop the knack for identifying and nurturing possibilities. At its core, education is about enabling minds so that individuals genuinely own their minds rather than unknowingly letting others control them.
Regrettably, courses on pedagogy and epistemology themselves often turn out to be abstruse, dispiriting, rigid, and nearly unworkable. Instead of enabling learning, they inhibit it. To be an educator, then, is to assume a sui generis role, one that demands responsibility, imagination, and presence. This calls for serious attention.
Niraj Kumar Jha
This pedagogical and epistemological conundrum can be substantially dispelled when educators learn to scrutinise inherited givens and develop the knack for identifying and nurturing possibilities. At its core, education is about enabling minds so that individuals genuinely own their minds rather than unknowingly letting others control them.
Regrettably, courses on pedagogy and epistemology themselves often turn out to be abstruse, dispiriting, rigid, and nearly unworkable. Instead of enabling learning, they inhibit it. To be an educator, then, is to assume a sui generis role, one that demands responsibility, imagination, and presence. This calls for serious attention.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 22 जुलाई 2025
Capitalism and the Question of Social and Ecological Ethics
A widespread misconception persists: that capitalism inherently erodes both social and ecological ethics. This view, however, warrants careful reconsideration. In fact, capitalism originated within a distinct ethical framework, deeply influenced by religious values, as Max Weber famously noted in his account of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Moreover, anecdotal evidence and contemporary observation suggest that developed capitalist societies often exhibit comparatively high levels of civic virtue. In the marketplace itself, ethical conduct is indispensable: economic exchange depends on trust, mutual accountability, and adherence to established norms. The idea that capitalism thrives on deceit overlooks the fact that bad actors are exceptions, not representatives of the system. Crooks and tricksters exist in every domain of life.
Crucially, capitalism is not a singular culture but a mechanism—one that operates across varied cultural landscapes. As a mechanism, capitalism requires certain embedded ethical practices, such as honesty, enforceable contracts, and trust among participants, for it to function efficiently. Yet, it remains just that: a mechanism. Its outcomes depend heavily on the societal, cultural, and institutional settings in which it is deployed. If a culture upholds vegetarianism, markets will predominantly cater to vegetarian demands. If a society values environmental stewardship, capitalism responds by supplying sustainable technologies and green alternatives. Conversely, if a culture sanctions exploitation, capitalism will likely facilitate it as well.
In this light, capitalism does contain its own operational ethics, but it largely mirrors the ethical and cultural orientations of the society it serves. The real question, then, is not whether capitalism corrupts ethics, but how societies choose to enable, guide, or restrain the mechanism it represents.
A parallel critique often levelled alongside capitalism is that the blind pursuit of nominal GDP growth contributes to the overexploitation of natural resources and the degradation of social values. But this concern, too, rests on a misunderstanding. Nominal GDP is not an ideological force—it is a neutral, comprehensive, and secular metric of economic activity. Far from being an engine of ethical erosion, it captures the breadth of legitimate human enterprise. Everything from producing solar panels to conducting yoga classes, from organic farming to education services, contributes to GDP. A teacher running a private tuition centre or a therapist charging for mental health counselling ethically adds to GDP, just as much as a factory producing goods.
Critics sometimes argue that a race for higher GDP leads nations to prioritise quantity over quality or to disregard environmental sustainability. Yet, once again, this overlooks the role of cultural values and public policy. A society with robust environmental norms and social safeguards will channel its GDP growth through green industries, ethical labour practices, and inclusive institutions. Nordic countries, for example, continue to post strong GDP growth while maintaining high standards of environmental care and social welfare. The metric itself is not the problem; rather, it is the societal framework that interprets and guides economic growth that truly matters.
GDP, in essence, reflects what society chooses to value and produce. If those values are ethical and sustainable, then growth amplifies them. If they are extractive or unjust, growth may well deepen the harm, but that is a failure of governance and culture, not of the metric or the capitalist mechanism.
In sum, both capitalism and GDP growth are often mischaracterised as inherently corrosive. In reality, they are tools, embedded within and shaped by the prevailing cultural, moral, and institutional structures. Rather than condemning these tools outright, the challenge is to infuse them with the ethical vision and civic responsibility we expect from any healthy society.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Moreover, anecdotal evidence and contemporary observation suggest that developed capitalist societies often exhibit comparatively high levels of civic virtue. In the marketplace itself, ethical conduct is indispensable: economic exchange depends on trust, mutual accountability, and adherence to established norms. The idea that capitalism thrives on deceit overlooks the fact that bad actors are exceptions, not representatives of the system. Crooks and tricksters exist in every domain of life.
Crucially, capitalism is not a singular culture but a mechanism—one that operates across varied cultural landscapes. As a mechanism, capitalism requires certain embedded ethical practices, such as honesty, enforceable contracts, and trust among participants, for it to function efficiently. Yet, it remains just that: a mechanism. Its outcomes depend heavily on the societal, cultural, and institutional settings in which it is deployed. If a culture upholds vegetarianism, markets will predominantly cater to vegetarian demands. If a society values environmental stewardship, capitalism responds by supplying sustainable technologies and green alternatives. Conversely, if a culture sanctions exploitation, capitalism will likely facilitate it as well.
In this light, capitalism does contain its own operational ethics, but it largely mirrors the ethical and cultural orientations of the society it serves. The real question, then, is not whether capitalism corrupts ethics, but how societies choose to enable, guide, or restrain the mechanism it represents.
A parallel critique often levelled alongside capitalism is that the blind pursuit of nominal GDP growth contributes to the overexploitation of natural resources and the degradation of social values. But this concern, too, rests on a misunderstanding. Nominal GDP is not an ideological force—it is a neutral, comprehensive, and secular metric of economic activity. Far from being an engine of ethical erosion, it captures the breadth of legitimate human enterprise. Everything from producing solar panels to conducting yoga classes, from organic farming to education services, contributes to GDP. A teacher running a private tuition centre or a therapist charging for mental health counselling ethically adds to GDP, just as much as a factory producing goods.
Critics sometimes argue that a race for higher GDP leads nations to prioritise quantity over quality or to disregard environmental sustainability. Yet, once again, this overlooks the role of cultural values and public policy. A society with robust environmental norms and social safeguards will channel its GDP growth through green industries, ethical labour practices, and inclusive institutions. Nordic countries, for example, continue to post strong GDP growth while maintaining high standards of environmental care and social welfare. The metric itself is not the problem; rather, it is the societal framework that interprets and guides economic growth that truly matters.
GDP, in essence, reflects what society chooses to value and produce. If those values are ethical and sustainable, then growth amplifies them. If they are extractive or unjust, growth may well deepen the harm, but that is a failure of governance and culture, not of the metric or the capitalist mechanism.
In sum, both capitalism and GDP growth are often mischaracterised as inherently corrosive. In reality, they are tools, embedded within and shaped by the prevailing cultural, moral, and institutional structures. Rather than condemning these tools outright, the challenge is to infuse them with the ethical vision and civic responsibility we expect from any healthy society.
Niraj Kumar Jha
A Cosmopolis
A great nation must be home to several cosmopolises. A true cosmopolis is not merely a dense sprawl of population concentrated around government headquarters, transport junctions, and supply depots. It is a global cultural hub and economic powerhouse—a city-state in spirit, if not in form, ideally governed with a degree of autonomy.
Such cities must represent the highest expression of human civility and capability. They are places where travellers or immigrants feel at home, secure, and empowered to give their best. A genuine cosmopolis attracts the finest minds and talents from across the world. Naturally, many high-net-worth households dwell in such places—but the wealth and opulence that characterise them must stem from enterprise, intellect, and honest labour, not from cunning or extraction.
Such a city does not come into being by chance; it is shaped by individuals of exceptional vision and unwavering dedication. A cosmopolis is not simply constructed—it is willed into existence by human excellence.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Such cities must represent the highest expression of human civility and capability. They are places where travellers or immigrants feel at home, secure, and empowered to give their best. A genuine cosmopolis attracts the finest minds and talents from across the world. Naturally, many high-net-worth households dwell in such places—but the wealth and opulence that characterise them must stem from enterprise, intellect, and honest labour, not from cunning or extraction.
Such a city does not come into being by chance; it is shaped by individuals of exceptional vision and unwavering dedication. A cosmopolis is not simply constructed—it is willed into existence by human excellence.
Niraj Kumar Jha
रविवार, 13 जुलाई 2025
For a Human Order
A rule-based international order is becoming increasingly remote in the collective human imagination. Today, it is disruption, subterfuge, manipulation, subversion, and the naked use of force that rule the roost. These are not subtle or hidden; they are deliberate, open, and stark. This human regression at our current stage of civilizational evolution, despite miraculous feats of scientific and technological ingenuity, is deeply troubling. It represents a profound failure of human imagination in the most critical area of all: human coexistence. Meanwhile, vested and entrenched interests have succeeded spectacularly in preserving their advantages.
The well-being of the human race depends on an international order rooted in cooperation and fair play. Yet such hope seems elusive in the foreseeable future. Why has humanity arrived at this impasse?
First is the most obvious reason: the lack of genuine intent among those in power to build a fair and inclusive order. Had the intent existed, India, the world’s largest democracy and most populous nation, would already hold a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Instead, the lag in democratisation of global institutions has only grown more severe.
Secondly, even well-intentioned regulatory efforts like the World Trade Organisation faltered under the weight of over-ambition and the refusal of powerful states to compromise.
Thirdly, there was a failure to launch a fair, sympathetic, and empathetic epistemic mission, one aimed at addressing the culture-based cognitive biases that afflict people in every part of the world. Any stable order depends on cultivating a shared epistemic consciousness, which is essential even beyond the question of global governance.
India’s aspirational generation is now poised to reclaim its rightful place. It needs, as do the citizens of every country, a world founded on cooperation and harmony. India today is a much more powerful country, and it has both the opportunity and the responsibility to help guide the world toward this better future.
For this to happen, every citizen must do their utmost to strengthen India’s power and influence. The best way to do this is by performing one’s dharma; that is, one’s chosen work and social duty, with devotion and integrity. Only through such collective effort can India realise its potential and help build the just, cooperative global order the world so desperately needs.
Niraj Kumar Jha
The well-being of the human race depends on an international order rooted in cooperation and fair play. Yet such hope seems elusive in the foreseeable future. Why has humanity arrived at this impasse?
First is the most obvious reason: the lack of genuine intent among those in power to build a fair and inclusive order. Had the intent existed, India, the world’s largest democracy and most populous nation, would already hold a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Instead, the lag in democratisation of global institutions has only grown more severe.
Secondly, even well-intentioned regulatory efforts like the World Trade Organisation faltered under the weight of over-ambition and the refusal of powerful states to compromise.
Thirdly, there was a failure to launch a fair, sympathetic, and empathetic epistemic mission, one aimed at addressing the culture-based cognitive biases that afflict people in every part of the world. Any stable order depends on cultivating a shared epistemic consciousness, which is essential even beyond the question of global governance.
India’s aspirational generation is now poised to reclaim its rightful place. It needs, as do the citizens of every country, a world founded on cooperation and harmony. India today is a much more powerful country, and it has both the opportunity and the responsibility to help guide the world toward this better future.
For this to happen, every citizen must do their utmost to strengthen India’s power and influence. The best way to do this is by performing one’s dharma; that is, one’s chosen work and social duty, with devotion and integrity. Only through such collective effort can India realise its potential and help build the just, cooperative global order the world so desperately needs.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शनिवार, 12 जुलाई 2025
Inequality or Deprivation
Recently, many noted intellectuals have raised concerns about rising inequality globally and within individual nation-states. However, this concern is grossly misplaced. The real issue is not inequality as such, but deprivation.
The collective responsibility is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity and motivation to earn a livelihood, and no one is left without food, clothing, shelter, medical care, security, and some means of enjoying life. Beyond this, it should not matter who owns how much.
Inequality is a natural condition—it will reappear in other forms even if suppressed in one. In fact, inequality can be functional. It often means that capital is concentrated in more capable hands. Greater capital in such hands typically leads to more investment, more businesses, and more opportunities for others to earn a dignified living.
It is human worth in general that translates into capitalism, and that in turn guarantees that each individual has the chance to realise their own worth. By valuing initiative, skill, and enterprise, capitalism channels human potential into productive activity, creating wealth and opportunities that benefit society as a whole.
Even in a seemingly full-blooded capitalist order, if some people remain deprived, it means the market is manipulated. This should be addressed with a two-pronged strategy. First, the manipulation is to be eliminated. Additionally, community life should be strengthened through community enterprises, encouraging people to form cooperatives to do business together, support one another, and offer services to others.
Niraj Kumar Jha
The collective responsibility is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity and motivation to earn a livelihood, and no one is left without food, clothing, shelter, medical care, security, and some means of enjoying life. Beyond this, it should not matter who owns how much.
Inequality is a natural condition—it will reappear in other forms even if suppressed in one. In fact, inequality can be functional. It often means that capital is concentrated in more capable hands. Greater capital in such hands typically leads to more investment, more businesses, and more opportunities for others to earn a dignified living.
It is human worth in general that translates into capitalism, and that in turn guarantees that each individual has the chance to realise their own worth. By valuing initiative, skill, and enterprise, capitalism channels human potential into productive activity, creating wealth and opportunities that benefit society as a whole.
Even in a seemingly full-blooded capitalist order, if some people remain deprived, it means the market is manipulated. This should be addressed with a two-pronged strategy. First, the manipulation is to be eliminated. Additionally, community life should be strengthened through community enterprises, encouraging people to form cooperatives to do business together, support one another, and offer services to others.
Niraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 10 जुलाई 2025
The Futile Quest for Light
Troubled by the vices that haunt the world,
they curse what is good.
Weakened by their own vices and timidity,
they do not have faith in virtue;
instead they trust faint or imagined
goodness in the wicked.
They try to highlight flaws in the righteous,
virtues among the wicked.
Without dispelling the darkness within,
they search for light in vain,
dimming the hope
that might have lit their own lives
and those of others.
Niraj Kumar Jha
they curse what is good.
Weakened by their own vices and timidity,
they do not have faith in virtue;
instead they trust faint or imagined
goodness in the wicked.
They try to highlight flaws in the righteous,
virtues among the wicked.
Without dispelling the darkness within,
they search for light in vain,
dimming the hope
that might have lit their own lives
and those of others.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 9 जुलाई 2025
Morality and the Necessity of Systems
Morality sustains society, but for morality to prevail, appropriate systems must be in place. Functional system-building is the result of rigorous cerebral exercise informed by proven scientific inputs. Opinions alone cannot substitute for this systemic thinking, nor can grand ideological constructs, even when supported by data-driven justifications, nor borrowed systemic frameworks. Three issues need serious consideration here. First, excessive variation in opinions within a community signals the absence of a scientific approach to life. Second, no matter how fantastic an ideological construct may be, it can draw facts and data from the storehouse of social records to justify its fanciful promise. Third, a systemic framework (not a particular institution or mechanism) evolving somewhere else may not work, as cultures are rigidly conditioned and cannot be subjected to an alien system at will. The critical point is that a community needs systemic thinkers and a serious, public-spirited education system to make their work acceptable. For resolving social problems, invoking morality alone is almost fruitless. Morality requires its own supporting framework to gain traction.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
रविवार, 6 जुलाई 2025
युगारम्भक ज्ञानमीमांसा
समकालीन वैश्विक व्ययस्था की आवश्यकता एक विश्वव्यापी ज्ञानमीमांसात्मक विमर्श की है। यह समय मानवता के सम्पूर्ण इतिहास के पर्यवेक्षण का है। सत्य और मानवीयता के नाम पर मानवता को आक्रांत किए जाने की परिघटनाओं को उद्घाटित किए जाने का समय आ गया है। यही मीमांसा सत्य मानवीय बोध का आधार बनेगी।
उक्त लेख की समकालीन प्रासंगिकता यह है कि नवीन प्रौद्योगिकियों ने मानवता के मध्य भौगोलिक और भाषाई अंतर को पाट दिया है, और साथ ही, विभिन्न सांस्कृतिक वर्षों में स्थित जनों को अन्य संस्कृतियों को देखने और समझने का अवसर दिया है। आज का समांतर आंकिक क्षेत्र ज्ञानमीमांसा को सांस्कृतिक और सभ्यतागगत सीमाओं से मुक्ति का अवसर देता है। यह सभ्यता के विकास का युगांतकारी दौर है।
बड़ी चुनौती हालाँकि कल्पबंधों की गुत्थियों को खोलना होगा। कालांतर में इच्छानुकूल वैचारीकियों का प्रभाव आनुवंशिक हो गया है और ये मस्तिष्क की बोध उत्तकों की आधार संचालक चेतना बन चुकीं हैं। ये कल्पबंध वातमूल्य उत्पन्न करते हैं और जीवन की प्रत्यक्ष परिस्थितियों का सामना कर रहे लोगों की गरिमा को नकारते हुए उनकी विपत्तियों को वर्द्धित करते हैं।
इस युगीन विमर्श का अधिकारी भारतवर्ष ही है। इसकी चेतना में अन्यीकरण की प्रवृत्ति की सैद्धांतिक और व्यावहारिक अनुपस्थिति ऐतिहासिक रूप से रही है और यह इसे इस योग्य बनाती है और दायित्व भी देती है।
टीप : कल्पबंध, आंकिक, और वातमूल्य संभवतः इस पाठ में सर्वप्रथम प्रयुक्त शब्द हैं और इसी में इनके अर्थ समाहित हैं।
नीरज कुमार झा
उक्त लेख की समकालीन प्रासंगिकता यह है कि नवीन प्रौद्योगिकियों ने मानवता के मध्य भौगोलिक और भाषाई अंतर को पाट दिया है, और साथ ही, विभिन्न सांस्कृतिक वर्षों में स्थित जनों को अन्य संस्कृतियों को देखने और समझने का अवसर दिया है। आज का समांतर आंकिक क्षेत्र ज्ञानमीमांसा को सांस्कृतिक और सभ्यतागगत सीमाओं से मुक्ति का अवसर देता है। यह सभ्यता के विकास का युगांतकारी दौर है।
बड़ी चुनौती हालाँकि कल्पबंधों की गुत्थियों को खोलना होगा। कालांतर में इच्छानुकूल वैचारीकियों का प्रभाव आनुवंशिक हो गया है और ये मस्तिष्क की बोध उत्तकों की आधार संचालक चेतना बन चुकीं हैं। ये कल्पबंध वातमूल्य उत्पन्न करते हैं और जीवन की प्रत्यक्ष परिस्थितियों का सामना कर रहे लोगों की गरिमा को नकारते हुए उनकी विपत्तियों को वर्द्धित करते हैं।
इस युगीन विमर्श का अधिकारी भारतवर्ष ही है। इसकी चेतना में अन्यीकरण की प्रवृत्ति की सैद्धांतिक और व्यावहारिक अनुपस्थिति ऐतिहासिक रूप से रही है और यह इसे इस योग्य बनाती है और दायित्व भी देती है।
टीप : कल्पबंध, आंकिक, और वातमूल्य संभवतः इस पाठ में सर्वप्रथम प्रयुक्त शब्द हैं और इसी में इनके अर्थ समाहित हैं।
नीरज कुमार झा
Three Monkeys Revisited
Just as not every food is good for physical health, not every expression or depiction is good for people's cognitive health. Everyone should work to suppress harmful narratives and promote beneficial ones. Media professionals, whether involved in information or entertainment, need to be especially cautious. These services should promote the humanisation of every individual.
Admittedly, such presentations may not seem sensational, glorious, or glamorous—qualities often sought for broader market appeal. But each person should at least reflect on what truly works for them and what does not, as members of a larger community.
One must have this etched in their mind: the community affects your personal well-being heavily, irrespective of your personal status.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Admittedly, such presentations may not seem sensational, glorious, or glamorous—qualities often sought for broader market appeal. But each person should at least reflect on what truly works for them and what does not, as members of a larger community.
One must have this etched in their mind: the community affects your personal well-being heavily, irrespective of your personal status.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 2 जुलाई 2025
विचार और वार्तालाप
व्यक्तियों द्वारा अच्छे विचारों का प्रेषण समाजहित के लिए आवश्यक है। सुधीजन इसे समझते हैं और ऐसा करते भी हैं, लेकिन विचारों से भी अधिक महत्वपूर्ण है उन्हें लेकर किया जाने वाला रचनात्मक वार्तालाप। वार्तालाप ही विचारों के सम्प्रेषण का प्रभावी माध्यम है, पर यह दुष्कर भी है। अधिकतर लोग निश्चित विचारों का उपयोग अपने जीवन की परिस्थितियों से समझौते, अवसरों को भुनाने, महत्वाकांक्षाओं के पोषण या अहं की पुष्टि के लिए करते हैं। ऐसे विचारों पर विश्लेषण या टीका-टिप्पणी उन्हें स्वीकार नहीं होती।
नीरज कुमार झा
नीरज कुमार झा
उक्ति और युक्ति
सद्जीवन को सुनिश्चित करने के लिए संरचनात्मक निर्माण और पारिस्थितिक अनुकूलन की आवश्यकता होती है। युक्तियों के बिना सूक्तियाँ चरितार्थ नहीं होतीं। भावनाएँ विज्ञान और तकनीकी के माध्यम से ही साकार हो सकती हैं।
नीरज कुमार झा
नीरज कुमार झा
रविवार, 29 जून 2025
शनिवार, 28 जून 2025
On Freedom and its Absence
What it means to be slavish, and what it means to be free, are not questions that ordinarily arise—unless they are raised with the intent of mobilisation. Over time, such conditions become normalised, slipping below the threshold of awareness.
At the macro level, historically speaking, it took Indians a couple of generations to even recognise that they were not free—that they lived under slavish conditions. At the micro level, it is even more difficult to perceive such a state. How does one know whether they are truly free? This is a question that demands a long discourse, but I shall attempt to touch upon it briefly.
Freedom rests on shared understandings that leave everyone unobstructed in leading a life of dignity, where the sanctity of one’s person, family, home, and privacy is habitually respected. Even in public spaces, one does not feel anything other than an equal, nor that others are elevated at the cost of one’s own degradation. Freedom means living without fear of being wronged, provided one has not wronged others.
It is the optimisation of security and certainty in life—the right to act and speak as one chooses, without being subject to the whims, fancies, or interests of others against one’s will. All of this culminates in a life free from want and unwarranted interference. Such is the state of freedom.
Slavishness means living with the constant fear of being wronged, even when one has done no wrong. It is the erosion of security and certainty in life, where one’s actions and words are curtailed, or forced to serve the whims, fancies, or interests of others against one’s will. Such a state results in lives marked by want, anxiety, and constant, unwelcome interference. This is the condition of being unfree.
Niraj Kumar Jha
At the macro level, historically speaking, it took Indians a couple of generations to even recognise that they were not free—that they lived under slavish conditions. At the micro level, it is even more difficult to perceive such a state. How does one know whether they are truly free? This is a question that demands a long discourse, but I shall attempt to touch upon it briefly.
Freedom rests on shared understandings that leave everyone unobstructed in leading a life of dignity, where the sanctity of one’s person, family, home, and privacy is habitually respected. Even in public spaces, one does not feel anything other than an equal, nor that others are elevated at the cost of one’s own degradation. Freedom means living without fear of being wronged, provided one has not wronged others.
It is the optimisation of security and certainty in life—the right to act and speak as one chooses, without being subject to the whims, fancies, or interests of others against one’s will. All of this culminates in a life free from want and unwarranted interference. Such is the state of freedom.
Slavishness means living with the constant fear of being wronged, even when one has done no wrong. It is the erosion of security and certainty in life, where one’s actions and words are curtailed, or forced to serve the whims, fancies, or interests of others against one’s will. Such a state results in lives marked by want, anxiety, and constant, unwelcome interference. This is the condition of being unfree.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शुक्रवार, 27 जून 2025
Capital
Capital is not like a mineral deposit; it is a construct of the mind and a devised mechanism. The state of being developed is this understanding and such a drive.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Postcolonialism Unfolding
The school of postcolonialism sought to expose both the soft and hard infrastructures of imperialist designs that operated at the expense of the decolonised. However, their abstruse works failed to gain traction even in academic circles, let alone among the broader literati. People often speak of the lingering, debilitating effects of colonialism on their faculties and agency, but they have struggled to arrive at a workable idea to overcome the problem. More often than not, they ended up reinforcing precisely what they sought to eliminate, simply because they did not know how to dismantle it. Yet, of late, new technologies and new-age entrepreneurs are achieving exactly that—without any such explicit intention.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 25 जून 2025
OM
Nations must reunite—for justice, for order, for peace and harmony in the world. An Order Movement (OM) is the urgent necessity of our time. The prevailing chaos exacts a brutal cost—in lives lost and in the depth of human suffering.
Niraj Kumar Jha
ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः (Om, May all be happy)
ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु
मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत्॥
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः॥
The time has come for humanity to de-indoctrinate itself from all ideologies and reset its being to the Kalyan Mantra.
Om, May all be happy,
May all be free from illness.
May all see what is auspicious,
May no one suffer.
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
Niraj Kumar Jha
सोमवार, 23 जून 2025
स्थितिपोषण अथवा मनभावन
समकालीन समाचारों के प्रस्तुतीकरण की स्थिति इतिहासकारिता तथा अन्य समाज विज्ञानों के उपागमों की प्रकृति के साथ मानविकी क्षेत्रांतर्गत सृजन के रुझानों को समझने का अवसर देता है। पूर्व मे भी ऐसा ही था; विमर्श के स्वरूप और स्रोतों के विस्तार से बातें स्पष्ट हो रही हैं।
नीरज कुमार झा
नीरज कुमार झा
रविवार, 22 जून 2025
From Muscle to Machine: The Evolution of Thought
Social media has affected human psychology and social behaviour, and I believe that, on balance, this impact has been for the better. Now, with the growing use of chatbots, their inputs are also beginning to shape human thoughts and conduct. In this context, the role of public intellectuals becomes more challenging, as they need to find ways to counter mainstream and mechanised values and practices that risk overwhelming discerning and refined tastes and choices.
In fact, in earlier times, the problem was even more severe, as ideologies that mobilised men-at-arms could impose a particular way of life, eliminating opposition and overriding existing norms and mores. Now, the earlier overreach and excesses are either normalised or no longer menace society as they once did. Still, caution remains critically important.
Niraj Kumar Jha
In fact, in earlier times, the problem was even more severe, as ideologies that mobilised men-at-arms could impose a particular way of life, eliminating opposition and overriding existing norms and mores. Now, the earlier overreach and excesses are either normalised or no longer menace society as they once did. Still, caution remains critically important.
Niraj Kumar Jha
शनिवार, 21 जून 2025
The Public and the Private
Being public and productive are two essential features of political affairs. The political domain is public, and its purpose is to be productive. Private is private, whether it is the domain or its outcome. It comes under public scrutiny only when it forcefully involves others or affects them adversely. A healthy society devises tests for determining their domain and constraining their overreach. Evil is the result of their careless overlap. In a medieval context, or from such a perspective, the adherence to this division appears anomalous or even outrageous. It is a state of affairs reached after crossing a threshold of development, but if a mechanism for progressive differentiation between domains is not in place, it severely impedes development.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 18 जून 2025
The Eyes of the Mind
The eyes of the mind — mostly, it is they that override what one’s eyeballs directly face. They may magnify, reduce, mould, or distort an image. A good education helps one see things and events in nearly exact proportions, even cutting through the décor and drama of their presentation.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 17 जून 2025
The Humanity Predicament
The withering of norms guiding international affairs leaves the present generation of humankind highly vulnerable. The reason is that even a fake idea of the commonality of interest among the people of the world has gone missing. This happened because humanity's progress towards the common good was gradually blocked, which had gained momentum in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Niraj Kumar Jhaधर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः
व्यक्ति के अधर्म का दुष्परिणाम उसके स्वयं के लिए तो होता ही है; उस परिवेश का भी होता है, जिसमें वह जीवनयापन करता है। दूषित परिवेश के दुष्परिणाम का वह स्वयं भी भागीदार होता है और उसके सगे-संबंधी भी। एक व्यक्ति का धर्मपालन सभी के हित में है और किसी का अधर्म सभी का अहित है।
जीवन का ध्येय धर्म है और इसकी सफलता धर्मपालन की प्रवृत्ति और सामर्थ्य है।
धर्म अज्ञेय और ज्ञेय का पारिस्थितिकी की मर्यादा के साथ व्यक्ति की पूर्णता और सामुदायिक सावयवता हेतु समन्वय जनित बोध और तदनुरूप आचरण है।
नीरज कुमार झा
धर्म अज्ञेय और ज्ञेय का पारिस्थितिकी की मर्यादा के साथ व्यक्ति की पूर्णता और सामुदायिक सावयवता हेतु समन्वय जनित बोध और तदनुरूप आचरण है।
नीरज कुमार झा
रविवार, 15 जून 2025
The Challenge: A Human Epistemology
Every working epistemology has a civilizational base, though it is evolving in nature. Civilisations are the largest human communities below the level of the human community as a whole. They are historical products. It is very difficult—indeed, almost negligible in practical terms—for any epistemological project or approach to make sense of what drives another. What is an aberration for one may be the mainstay of another. Alternatively, one can only accept as legitimate whatever the other does, recognizing it as the fixity of civilizational conditions. I strongly believe that post-Enlightenment epistemology in Europe does little to account for the innate nature of religion, which once dominated their lives. This is only an example. At the same time, a civilisation also engenders ideologies, whose origins may lie in both earthy and ethereal premises, often with cross-civilizational reach. Notwithstanding this, a global human project to identify good and evil from an ethno-neutral perspective is still missing. Can we take up this challenge?
Niraj Kumar Jha
शुक्रवार, 6 जून 2025
समझ का फेर
समझदारी की बातें समझदारों के ही समझ में आती है। यही हकीकत है। यह उम्मीद की जा सकती है कि इससे समझदारी का दायरा मामूली रूप से बढ़ता होगा। यह उम्मीद हालाँकि अहम नहीं है। महत्वपूर्ण यह है कि ऐसी बातों से समझदारों को अपनी समझ पर भरोसा बना रहता है।
यह तथ्य यहाँ ध्यातव्य है कि समझदारी सामाजिक स्थिति सापेक्ष है, लेकिन आधुनिक परिवेश में जहाँ व्यापक घटनाओं और घटनाक्रमों, वैश्विक परिघटनाओं सहित, का प्रभाव किसी के भी जीवन पर तत्क्षण और गंभीर रूप से पड़ता है और, दूसरी तरफ, जहाँ नागरिकों के रूप में प्रत्येक का नगण्य ही सही लेकिन कुछ प्रभाव है, इन घटनाओं और परिघटनाओं की मुखर समझ सभी से वांछनीय है।
यहाँ यह भी रेखांकित करना आवश्यक है कि अपने को पूरे तौर से समझदार समझना निस्संदेह भ्रम है। समझदारी समझ की कमियों को निरंतर दूर करना और बढ़ाना है। सर्वमंगल की कामना से इस तरह की बातें करना भी समझदारी के दायरे में आता है।
नीरज कुमार झा
यह तथ्य यहाँ ध्यातव्य है कि समझदारी सामाजिक स्थिति सापेक्ष है, लेकिन आधुनिक परिवेश में जहाँ व्यापक घटनाओं और घटनाक्रमों, वैश्विक परिघटनाओं सहित, का प्रभाव किसी के भी जीवन पर तत्क्षण और गंभीर रूप से पड़ता है और, दूसरी तरफ, जहाँ नागरिकों के रूप में प्रत्येक का नगण्य ही सही लेकिन कुछ प्रभाव है, इन घटनाओं और परिघटनाओं की मुखर समझ सभी से वांछनीय है।
यहाँ यह भी रेखांकित करना आवश्यक है कि अपने को पूरे तौर से समझदार समझना निस्संदेह भ्रम है। समझदारी समझ की कमियों को निरंतर दूर करना और बढ़ाना है। सर्वमंगल की कामना से इस तरह की बातें करना भी समझदारी के दायरे में आता है।
नीरज कुमार झा
गुरुवार, 5 जून 2025
Education is about...
Among many things, education is about learning what to value and what to ignore. People must learn to appreciate—and even deprecate—ideas or events tactically, for their own good and for the social good. Without such discernment, people may end up valuing totally absurd and even weird things, paying premium prices and handing over parts of their selfhood in the process.
Worthwhile things and events contribute to the substantialisation of the humanity of a person. These recognise the dignity of a person, enhance their self-worth, and, in turn, ensure social progress. Sometimes, a person may enjoy not being oneself; that is fine. But that should be a momentary break, not a full-time occupation.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Worthwhile things and events contribute to the substantialisation of the humanity of a person. These recognise the dignity of a person, enhance their self-worth, and, in turn, ensure social progress. Sometimes, a person may enjoy not being oneself; that is fine. But that should be a momentary break, not a full-time occupation.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Dated Templates and the Dilemma of Our Times
People stalled globalisation—some deliberately, most naively—midway through the last quarter of the previous century and the first quarter of the present one, just as it was reshaping the international order. It was the reengineering of the mechanisms put in place after the World Wars and paved the way for global prosperity. It was a composite of liberalised national economies and international economic transactions.
Today, the fact remains that, thanks to new technologies, the world is more interconnected than ever, beneath the surface of hyper-nationalism. Yet, as this reality remains denied, there is no suitable template to map the fractured global ecosystem. As a result, people generate corrupted scripts and cry out against a chaos of their own making.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Today, the fact remains that, thanks to new technologies, the world is more interconnected than ever, beneath the surface of hyper-nationalism. Yet, as this reality remains denied, there is no suitable template to map the fractured global ecosystem. As a result, people generate corrupted scripts and cry out against a chaos of their own making.
Niraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 29 मई 2025
Universities for National Strength
Impactful higher education requires single-campus universities—ideally designed as townships—that conduct research and training across all major fields of knowledge. These institutions must be built on binding conventions that uphold rational inquiry, excellence, and the public good as enduring principles, regardless of changing circumstances.
In today’s global context, higher education must make a dedicated effort to strengthen national power. A strong, capable nation is best positioned to make a lasting and positive contribution to the advancement of humanity.
In this context, it is a fact that the role of native big corporations is vital for national power. Large-scale corporations, through their constant pursuit of efficiency and innovation, churn people's potential into agency; therefore, higher education must contribute to this goal. Higher education must repurpose itself strategically to foster the spirit of entrepreneurship and impart the necessary skills for various roles in corporations. To add another point: in this era of fierce international competition and conflicts, having formal entities incorporating the functions of both universities and business corporations would give a clear edge to the nation.
To support this vision, training in sciences, technology, and engineering must be rigorous, hands-on, and outcome-oriented. Institutions of higher learning must be well-resourced and foster a focused and positive academic environment. Achieving excellence requires individuals to fully dedicate themselves to their chosen fields.
Niraj Kumar Jha
In today’s global context, higher education must make a dedicated effort to strengthen national power. A strong, capable nation is best positioned to make a lasting and positive contribution to the advancement of humanity.
In this context, it is a fact that the role of native big corporations is vital for national power. Large-scale corporations, through their constant pursuit of efficiency and innovation, churn people's potential into agency; therefore, higher education must contribute to this goal. Higher education must repurpose itself strategically to foster the spirit of entrepreneurship and impart the necessary skills for various roles in corporations. To add another point: in this era of fierce international competition and conflicts, having formal entities incorporating the functions of both universities and business corporations would give a clear edge to the nation.
To support this vision, training in sciences, technology, and engineering must be rigorous, hands-on, and outcome-oriented. Institutions of higher learning must be well-resourced and foster a focused and positive academic environment. Achieving excellence requires individuals to fully dedicate themselves to their chosen fields.
Niraj Kumar Jha
सोमवार, 26 मई 2025
The Role of Teachers
In this age of chatbots—tools that can access the vast ocean of knowledge and curate it to respond to prompts—what, then, remains of the role of a teacher, or more precisely, a human teacher? One might exclaim, “Very little!” But that is far from the truth.
People will always seek living practitioners of knowledge—real, human guides who can offer support and mentorship. Learners of all kinds need an informed, compassionate human presence—someone who can personally appreciate their efforts and, when needed, lovingly correct them. Encouragement and discipline have always been, and will continue to be, inherently human responsibilities.
The key is that teachers must become even more humane in their approach, redefining their roles to help shape a better world and actively resist the drift toward irrelevance in an increasingly automated age. In doing so, they reclaim their indispensable place as nurturers of wisdom, character, and emotional understanding—dimensions that machines cannot authentically replicate.
At the same time, societies and communities must strive to recruit the very best individuals into the teaching profession. There is no better way to harness the benefits of advancing technologies while also mitigating their potential harms.
Niraj Kumar Jha
People will always seek living practitioners of knowledge—real, human guides who can offer support and mentorship. Learners of all kinds need an informed, compassionate human presence—someone who can personally appreciate their efforts and, when needed, lovingly correct them. Encouragement and discipline have always been, and will continue to be, inherently human responsibilities.
The key is that teachers must become even more humane in their approach, redefining their roles to help shape a better world and actively resist the drift toward irrelevance in an increasingly automated age. In doing so, they reclaim their indispensable place as nurturers of wisdom, character, and emotional understanding—dimensions that machines cannot authentically replicate.
At the same time, societies and communities must strive to recruit the very best individuals into the teaching profession. There is no better way to harness the benefits of advancing technologies while also mitigating their potential harms.
Niraj Kumar Jha
India’s Rise: Another Milestone Achieved
India's emergence as the fourth-largest economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP is a definitive milestone in India's journey to its deserved position. Nominal GDP rankings are a key indicator of a nation's international stature and economic influence. India has the potential to rank among the world’s wealthiest countries even in terms of per capita GDP.
The country's prolonged poverty can be largely attributed to centuries of foreign rule and the collectivist or leftist policies that followed independence. However, the gradual retreat from collectivism has yielded remarkable results. The endemic poverty that plagued India until the 1990s is, for the most part, a thing of the past.In today's world, where homeland economics and aggressive economic nationalism dominate international relations, major economies are making concerted efforts to assert their interests globally. The lesson is clear: every citizen must play a role in advancing the national power. One meaningful way to do this is by supporting sound and forward-looking ideas and policies.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 20 मई 2025
Truthfulness
Truthfulness is a civilizational virtue ingrained in human beings. A civilisation, not every civilisation, does this in degrees to people who live within its fold. It does this to people, but not all people become capable of knowing and upholding truthfulness. At this level, in an enabling ambience made of civilisation, truthfulness is an endeavour of a social unit like a family, a community, or an individual.
Biological human beings can upgrade themselves into truthful human beings through elaborate arrangements and personal efforts.
Working truths at the existential level within a civilizational fold are very personal affairs. First, a person is mentored and makes efforts to be a knower of truths, and then that turns out to be a very simple virtue: a person knows from their heart what is a truth. A heart speaks the truth if the mind is sufficiently trained.
Finally, truthfulness is a behavioural trait. A truthful person cares.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Biological human beings can upgrade themselves into truthful human beings through elaborate arrangements and personal efforts.
Working truths at the existential level within a civilizational fold are very personal affairs. First, a person is mentored and makes efforts to be a knower of truths, and then that turns out to be a very simple virtue: a person knows from their heart what is a truth. A heart speaks the truth if the mind is sufficiently trained.
Finally, truthfulness is a behavioural trait. A truthful person cares.
Niraj Kumar Jha
सोमवार, 5 मई 2025
True Wisdom
How people conceive ideas and actions as wise or ignorant is culturally determined, ideologically imposed, or driven by power. Science often subserves social trends instead of guiding them. If one understands this, one would know that wisdom and ignorance are not like light and darkness. Ignorance is not the absence of wisdom; both have their respective social foundations, nurturing ecologies, and they coexist. They inhabit the same space. As there is nothing intrinsically worthwhile or worthless about either, they are not only in a conflictual relationship of domination and defiance but also in one of cooperation and co-option.
What is the takeaway from this predicament? True wisdom begins with self-scrutiny—examining all ideas with empathy, and then taking a stand, only if required. One who calls another foolish may themselves be mistaken, merely asserting a position of superiority. Wisdom is not about dismissing someone as a fool or something as foolish, but about uncovering the causes and conditions that place people in such states. True wisdom does not allow people to become devils, thereby forcing good people into mortal combat with them later. That is not wisdom. Wisdom lies in preventing evil, not in fighting it.
The message: If you are truly wise, you do not find a fool.
— Niraj Kumar Jha
What is the takeaway from this predicament? True wisdom begins with self-scrutiny—examining all ideas with empathy, and then taking a stand, only if required. One who calls another foolish may themselves be mistaken, merely asserting a position of superiority. Wisdom is not about dismissing someone as a fool or something as foolish, but about uncovering the causes and conditions that place people in such states. True wisdom does not allow people to become devils, thereby forcing good people into mortal combat with them later. That is not wisdom. Wisdom lies in preventing evil, not in fighting it.
The message: If you are truly wise, you do not find a fool.
— Niraj Kumar Jha
शुक्रवार, 2 मई 2025
औपनिवेशिक ज्ञानमीमांसा का निदान
औपनिवेशीकरण मात्र जन और जमीन को विजित करना ही नहीं बल्कि फायदे में रहते हुए आधिपत्य को सुरक्षित रखना भी था। खर्च कम और अधिक लाभ के लिए उन्होंने रणनीतिक ज्ञानमीमांसा का उपयोग किया।
उपनिवेशवाद एक ज्ञानमीमांसात्मक परियोजना थी, जो साम्राज्यवादी हितसाधन, दूसरे शब्दों में, दाससेवा का सुख, रोमांचकारी क्रियाकलापों, और धनप्राप्ति के लिए दासों में दासत्व को लेकर गर्व, स्वामी के प्रति श्रद्धा और उनपर निर्भरता का भाव और स्थितियाँ निर्मित करता था।
दंड, वंचना और क्षुद्र पुरस्कारों का प्रयोग करते हुए उन्होंने ज्ञानमीमांसा और प्रणालियों का ऐसा इंद्रजाल बुना जिससे लोगों की ज्ञान दृष्टि बाधित हो गई और उनका मस्तिष्क अज्ञान जनित छवियों से आच्छादित रहने लगा। उन्हें इसमें अधिक सफलता इसलिए भी मिली कि लोग पूर्व से ही आधिपत्य में रह रहे थे।
इस स्थिति से मुक्ति का सतही प्रयास उस दलदल में गहरे फँसना है। इसके लिए स्वतंत्र और सशक्त ज्ञानमीमांसात्मक संयंत्र विकसित करने की आवश्यकता है।
नीरज कुमार झा
उपनिवेशवाद एक ज्ञानमीमांसात्मक परियोजना थी, जो साम्राज्यवादी हितसाधन, दूसरे शब्दों में, दाससेवा का सुख, रोमांचकारी क्रियाकलापों, और धनप्राप्ति के लिए दासों में दासत्व को लेकर गर्व, स्वामी के प्रति श्रद्धा और उनपर निर्भरता का भाव और स्थितियाँ निर्मित करता था।
दंड, वंचना और क्षुद्र पुरस्कारों का प्रयोग करते हुए उन्होंने ज्ञानमीमांसा और प्रणालियों का ऐसा इंद्रजाल बुना जिससे लोगों की ज्ञान दृष्टि बाधित हो गई और उनका मस्तिष्क अज्ञान जनित छवियों से आच्छादित रहने लगा। उन्हें इसमें अधिक सफलता इसलिए भी मिली कि लोग पूर्व से ही आधिपत्य में रह रहे थे।
इस स्थिति से मुक्ति का सतही प्रयास उस दलदल में गहरे फँसना है। इसके लिए स्वतंत्र और सशक्त ज्ञानमीमांसात्मक संयंत्र विकसित करने की आवश्यकता है।
नीरज कुमार झा
शनिवार, 26 अप्रैल 2025
AI Biases
If somebody wishes to converse with a knowledgeable person, chatbots offer a vastly superior virtual alternative. It curates the collective human knowledge for the person in conversation. I often check the authenticity and novelty of my thoughts with chatbots. These do not disappoint, but what I decipher is that these chatbots have their biases and may corroborate the biases of the users, as their prompts entail users' biases. They tend to be culturally inclined and favour the mainstream. It is as expected.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
The Ecosystem of Wisdom and Idiocy
Human beings inhabit a cultural ecosystem, and that ecosystem determines the thoughts and actions of human beings as wise or idiotic. Such conflicting ecosystems often coexist in a region, but it is the primary acculturation that places people in a particular ecosystem. Generally, a person is a slave to their ecosystem. This is the reason why most people treat others as idiots.
A person with historical and sociological education and scientific vision may break free from such ecotraps, but would be subject to the judgments of those who remain trapped. It is the trickiest pedagogical and academic challenge.
Niraj Kumar Jha
A person with historical and sociological education and scientific vision may break free from such ecotraps, but would be subject to the judgments of those who remain trapped. It is the trickiest pedagogical and academic challenge.
Niraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 24 अप्रैल 2025
बर्बरता और सभ्यता
बर्बरता की प्रकृति नृशंस आक्रामकता है। सभ्यता की शक्ति विवेक, शोध, योजना, और प्रणाली है। किसी भी समस्या से निरंतर संघर्ष के स्थान पर इसके स्थायी निदान की युक्ति पर विचार करना ही विकल्प है। यह भी ध्यान रहे कि सभ्यता का मूल संवेदना है।
नीरज कुमार झा
नीरज कुमार झा
शुक्रवार, 18 अप्रैल 2025
The SWOT of Times
Like other times but very unlike other times in terms of immensality of impactfulness, these times offer or suffer from conditions of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; the irony is that people view these selectively, mostly the negatives and hardly the positives, depending on their identity and position. Besides, many trending matters defy these categorisations. In this age, the mass media is genuinely mass and democratic through people's massive participation in discourses on social media, and this media brings forth all the injustices of earlier times and continuing oddities to the fore. This includes many fundamentals and fundamentalisms coming under scrutiny and questioning. The old commanding heights and hierarchies of intellectualism are completely broken. Nobody now trusts those ivory towers, and that is for solid reasons. At the same time, a comprehensive and constructive vision considering every dimension of time is nowhere to be seen, and, more worryingly, nobody seems to care.
Let us pray:
oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ
tat savitur vareṇyaṃ
bhargo devasya dhīmahi
dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt
– Ṛgveda 03.062.10
"We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may She inspire our intelligence." (S. Radhakrishnan)
Let us get inspired to infuse some wisdom into the times.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Let us pray:
oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ
tat savitur vareṇyaṃ
bhargo devasya dhīmahi
dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt
– Ṛgveda 03.062.10
"We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may She inspire our intelligence." (S. Radhakrishnan)
Let us get inspired to infuse some wisdom into the times.
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 16 अप्रैल 2025
Conceptualising Pseudo-solution
Pseudo-solutions provide a temporary relief or illusion of relief. Troubled people often land up in the next level of problem or get only illusionary relief.
NIraj Kumar Jha
NIraj Kumar Jha
गुरुवार, 10 अप्रैल 2025
The New Order Set In
The Trump administration compels the world towards a settlement within a few weeks in office, which the GATT and its outcome, the WTO, could not do despite decades of negotiations. The unleashed would entail many successive phases that will require a complete overhaul of not only the international trade regime in totality but also domestic adjustments accordingly by all nations. A new international order set in.
Niraj Kumar Jha
Niraj Kumar Jha
बुधवार, 9 अप्रैल 2025
Artificial Intellectualism and General Dumbness
Online-sourced intellectualism and creativity worsen general dumbness. This is a pandemic-proportion crisis. Its direct fallout is a decline in morality. Intellect gained through the practice of the mind induces moral behaviour. This is under severe threat.
There is a way out: humanise the social structure and relations. And invent social purposes for positive, mind-driven human actions.
Niraj Kumar Jha
There is a way out: humanise the social structure and relations. And invent social purposes for positive, mind-driven human actions.
Niraj Kumar Jha
मंगलवार, 8 अप्रैल 2025
Birth Pangs of a New Order
Humanity fails to manage its successes. It created a virtual world with artificial intelligence and automated mechanisms for doing things. It eliminated distance in live communication and drudgery and fog in data processing. All are meant to serve human beings, but they are making most human beings irrelevant. The new demands the unity of humankind to reclaim its humanity.
The current international upheavals manifest the redundancy of old methods and mechanisms which continue to hold.
Humanity is failing itself by not engaging and negotiating to ease the birth of the new order. It will happen, but with a lot of pain.
Niraj Kumar Jha
सदस्यता लें
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