Beyond Fear and Greed

Fear and greed, both tangible and intangible, real and imagined, compete to dominate human actions and behaviour. Greed takes people ahead, fear holds back. The first makes people aggressive, and the latter, submissive. Tragically, too many philosophical systems of the world rely on these two tendencies of the human mind to realise their perceived good.

The sagacity is to transcend these two instinctive behaviours of human beings. Our ancient seers showed the path. They invoked the essence of existence, the Brahm, the incorruptible essence permeating every phenomenon, as the prime guide of human agency. It is the point of both separation and union. When people realise the Truth, they overcome both fear and greed.

But life is life. The mantra is to cope with life without causing others pain as little as possible and to be good to others as much as possible. Contentment comes not from other ways.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Repurposing Human Life

Automation is tending to be optimum, and humanity's prime role of one serving the other is diminishing day by day. As communities have yet to redefine human roles and redesign life itself, there are severe disruptions everywhere, which are going to be graver with each passing day. Its negative outcome, as seen in the developed parts of the world, is the growing charm of socialist ideas and formations. The fact is that technological advances promise the best for human life and would bring conditions better than ever utopiated (the act of imaginative articulation of an ideal future world), but right now things are perilous. The world needs to overcome its imagination lag or deficit; the sooner it does, the better it will be.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Dark Factories and Sociology

Factories are dark as no human beings work there. Large carriers on roads do not have cabins or lights, as they are not driven by humans. These are only samples of happenings. Human beings are losing their role as producers, and most of them would have no jobs. These are going to cause humongous challenges for everyone and for everything. Social sciences, in general, and sociology in particular, need to be proactive and prescriptive rather than simply reactive and descriptive. Changes are in auto mode and in an unprecedented way; they need to be addressed, and the whole social setup needs to be remodelled to prevent crises which these changes entail.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

The Likely World Order

The world may be nearing the end of its transitional phase—from the conflictual bipolarity of the past to a negotiated duopolarity. This emerging order could prove even tighter and more constraining than the most difficult phases of the Cold War, unless the nations of the world act to prevent it.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Ideological Work

By nature, human beings tend to have a worldview. Here, I classify worldviews as achieved and received. The first is one that a human being consciously strives to develop: they study, observe, and engage with the world to understand the meanings and implications of events and phenomena. Thus, they possess a worldview, are aware of it and choose their actions accordingly.

The second type is what an overwhelming number of people have; they follow traditions and what they have been indoctrinated into. Generally, people do not realise that they live according to an ensemble of doctrines. Agencies, practices, and fellow human beings inculcate these doctrines, shaping their minds. Even the most liberal societies have such mechanisms. People follow them habitually, little realising that what they consider natural behaviour is often the working of a manufactured product, consciously designed with specific purposes.

Most people are either unable or lack the means or opportunity to develop their own worldview consciously. They tend to imbibe what is given to them. A more significant fact is that most people cannot have an independent, consciously curated worldview. This incapability—arising from orientation or circumstances—makes people subject to ideologies and their constituent doctrines, which provide ready-made plans for action and conduct.

Here, the point is that although an ideology may appear unquestionably good to its adherents, it may not necessarily be good for individual human beings, communities, or humanity at large. Those who can detect the doctrine behind every human action—biological or sociological—can devise benign ideologies and equip them with mechanisms to suppress or sideline malignant ones.

My concern here is to raise awareness of the ideological work institutions need to undertake.

Niraj Kumar Jha

I wish

I wish somebody had said this: that this land, which once shaped the intellectual direction of a large part of the world, can become a leading centre of knowledge again. Bihar was the heart of the Mauryan Empire under Asoka, one of the greatest empires of the world. His principles of governance and moral responsibility were recorded on stone and carried across Asia, even reaching the Greek world. Later, the Gupta Empire, known for prosperity, mathematics, astronomy, and cultural refinement, also had its centres here. This was the region of Aryabhata, of the development of the decimal system, of the flowering of classical literature and sculpture.

More importantly, Bihar was home to Nalanda and Vikramshila—international universities that attracted scholars from China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. This was a knowledge network long before the modern term existed.

The same foundation exists today. Bihar has a serious culture of education. Families with minimal means sell their land so their children can study. This is not symbolic; it is a functioning social value. This is the base of a knowledge economy.

With the right policy direction, Bihar can develop universities and research clusters that work at the frontiers of robotics, machine learning, IoT, AI, and the longer-term pursuit of AGI. In the same way that universities like UCLA played a key role in the research ecosystem that eventually fed into Silicon Valley, Bihar can build academic–industry innovation corridors. The talent exists. The willingness to learn exists. What is needed is institutional architecture and long-term planning.

Agriculture, too, can be modernised through precision technologies, data-driven crop systems, and value-added processing chains. Tourism has enormous untapped potential; Bodh Gaya, Nalanda, Rajgir, Vaishali, Pawapuri and Vikramshila are among the most significant sites in the global histories of Buddhism, Jainism, and Hindu philosophy.

Yet none of this was discussed in the recent elections. The public vision remains small. A region that once shaped knowledge across continents is encouraged to dream in terms of small, low-paying jobs, not because people lack ability, but because leadership has failed to speak of what is possible.

My wish is simple: that someone would have said we can build a knowledge economy here, one that researches, invents, and leads. That Bihar can become a centre of innovation again, just as it once was.

Niraj Kumar Jha

ज्ञानप्रकाशजी

प्रकाश क्या है, बताया जाता है
दिया, तेल, बाती, तीली को भी
जिससे रौशन होती हैं चीजें
उसी पर रौशनी डालते ज्ञानप्रकाशजी

 
नकझ

India: a Civilizational Home of Democracy

Where Democracy Grows from Culture, Not Conditions

This may appear exaggerated at first, but the truth is that Indian civilisation has been uniquely conducive to democracy, more so than any advanced liberal nation. India is one of the few civilisations where democracy took firm root despite the near absence of those conditions usually regarded as necessary for its rise: high literacy, industrial development, a strong middle class, or longstanding representative institutions. Yet democracy flourished here.

The Western sensibility of democracy evolved through long and often violent historical conflicts, religious wars, revolutions, and class struggles. Its political wisdom arose from balancing competing interests and keeping personal faith largely outside public institutions. In contrast, the Indic view begins with the principle of oneness, that all life is interconnected. It does not seek to defeat or overpower the other, but to remove only the thorns, to clear obstructions so that natural harmony may prevail. This civilizational disposition towards coexistence, dialogue, self-restraint, and sagacity forms the cultural soil in which Indian democracy could grow even without the usual structural prerequisites.

What sustained Indian democracy, therefore, was not merely constitutional design, but a cultural inheritance lived and exemplified by many of its leaders. Among them, Mahatma Gandhi stands as the most consequential. He translated these civilizational values into modern political methods: nonviolence, moral persuasion, and mass participation, showing that politics could be ethical without losing effectiveness and people-centred without descending into chaos.

Today, when many advanced democracies face eroding trust, polarisation, and institutional fatigue, India, despite its grievances and imperfections, still exhibits deep public faith in its democratic processes. Elections continue to energise millions, demonstrating that democracy here is not only a system of governance but a shared way of life rooted in cultural memory.

Yet democratic decline is never impossible. Democracy is a cultivated culture and an achieved moral discipline; it does not sustain itself automatically. If the commitment to fairness weakens, or if the institutions meant to safeguard public participation become ineffective or counterproductive, democratic life can deteriorate with surprising speed. The responsibility to preserve democracy, therefore, rests not only on governments and systems, but on the conscience, conduct, and vigilance of citizens themselves.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Democratic Heritage

Democracy is the crystallisation of refined human sensibilities and advanced cultural moorings. If it manages to flourish even amid conditions of social degradation and dehumanisation, it points to a deeply rooted civilizational strength; an unknown heritage is helping us. What is crucial now is the cultivation of genuine self-awareness, one that is practised thoughtfully and understood correctly.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Democracy Wins

The results of the Bihar election are still a few days away, but what is already clear is that democracy itself has won more people. The record voter turnout is a gratifying and welcome sign of citizens’ growing faith in democratic processes. What is now required is a deeper adoption and sincere practice of democratic values and norms, beginning with individual conduct and extending to national and even international affairs.

People must recognise the inherent dignity of every human being and treat one another with respect, irrespective of status or background. Fairness in all dealings forms the bedrock of democratic life. Each individual should understand that personal well-being can be meaningfully secured only when the larger public good is preserved and never compromised.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The World We Stand In

I find myself living in a world of the wildest extremes.
At one end, a breathless race of technology
where the earliest runners gather the richest rewards.
Great powers now command corporations
whose worth eclipses the GDP of most nations.
The future they forge stretches unevenly,
widening the distance between countries and classes,
and between ordinary lives
and the vast, opaque systems that hold them.
Those who cannot keep pace

are left standing at the edge of the path,
carrying the quiet of exclusion.
Yet I do not despair.
We can catch up.

At the other end rises a bewildering medievalism,
stirring with old blood, old fury, old unreason.
The chants roll like rough waves in the night.
The roars silence the murmurs of thought.
Voices clothed in the likeness of calm,
whether in disapproval or approval,
yes, even in approval,
reveal a trembling joy,
a dark pleasure that settles in the air like smoke.

With the benefit of hindsight
we can say that some of our founders foresaw this shadow.
We needed a constitutionalism with a known and proven history,
and a constitutional life that breathed in rhythm
with our conditions,
our sensitivity and traditions.

This is bewildering, and it is despairing.
Yet hope is not extinguished.
The democratic process has a tenacity of its own.

At the global level too,
the early makers of modernity
kept much of the world in a long half-light,
far from the ideals they apparently espoused.
But karma is patient.
And consequences return
to those who shaped the harm.

Yet, here, I am most despondent.
No light on the horizon.

For democracy to be real,
it must be a human undertaking in its fullest sense,
open to all.
It must be held by honest intention,
by a mind capable of clarity,
and by a sensitivity to dignity
that honours every life.

Niraj Kumar Jha