Home and Neighbourhood

Two institutions require thorough reconstruction, both in their functionality and their dignity: the home and the neighbourhood community. The demands of economic mobility have hollowed out even the communal life of villages. Families have fragmented; even conjugal relationships are under severe strain, while community life has become shallow and largely superficial. In their isolation and insecurity, people are losing their sense of worth, and with it not only the quality of social life but, more importantly, their sense of purpose in life. The restoration of these foundations calls for thoughtful and patient work of social reconstruction.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Whither Liberalism?

Strangely, when totalitarian regimes were writing their own obituaries in the late twentieth century, liberalism, instead of spreading and deepening, began to shrink and lose its substance. The picture is now all too clear. How and why did this happen?

I have shared my thoughts on this and received only a single response. I do not expect anyone else to answer. That very absence of expectation is, in itself, an explanation.

Niraj Kumar Jha

ज्ञान समाज

ज्ञान मानव की स्वाभाविक स्थिति है। ज्ञान कोई सिद्धि नहीं, बल्कि सत्य के प्रति अनवरत निष्ठा और आत्मपरीक्षण का यत्न है। जो व्यक्ति इस प्रवृत्ति से हीन है अथवा उससे बाधित है, वह अपनी स्वाभाविक स्थिति में नहीं है। ऐसी वैयक्तिक अस्वाभाविकता का समाज पर व्यापक प्रभाव पड़ता है और उसकी भारीता भारी संकट का कारण बन जाती है।

प्रश्न उठता है: ज्ञानी कौन है? ज्ञानी वह नहीं जो स्वयं को ज्ञान का स्वामी मानता है, बल्कि वह है जो संवेदनशील है; जो दूसरों की भावनाओं, पीड़ाओं और अनुभवों को अपने भीतर अनुभव कर सकता है।

सूत्र रूप में:

ज्ञान का लक्षण संवेदना है; अज्ञान का लक्षण अहंकार।

ज्ञानसार के कतिपय कथ्य :-

अयं निजः परो वेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।

उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्॥

- महा उपनिषद

अष्टादश पुराणेषु व्यासस्य वचनद्वयम्।

परोपकारः पुण्याय पापाय परपीडनम्॥

सर्वभूतेषु चात्मानं सर्वभूतानि चात्मनि।

यदा पश्यति भूतात्मा ब्रह्म संपद्यते तदा॥

- महाभारत

(जब मनुष्य सभी प्राणियों में अपने को और अपने में सभी प्राणियों को देखता है, तब वह ब्रह्मभाव को प्राप्त होता है।)

पोथी पढ़ि पढ़ि जग मुआ, पंडित भया न कोय।

ढाई आखर प्रेम का, पढ़े सो पंडित होय॥

- कबीर

परहित सरिस धरम नहि भाई।

परपीड़ा सम नहि अधमाई॥

- तुलसीदास

आज के समय में उपर्युक्त बातें अत्यंत कृत्रिम या अव्यावहारिक लग सकती हैं, किन्तु इतिहासकारों और बाह्य पर्यवेक्षकों के विवरण बताते हैं कि प्राचीन भारत में यह सामान्य जीवन का यथार्थ था। तथापि, यह स्थिति स्वतः निर्मित नहीं हुई थी; इसकी स्थापना और रक्षा के लिए ज्ञानियों तथा योद्धाओं ने अनीति और अन्याय के विरुद्ध सतत संघर्ष किया था।

नीरज कुमार झा

On Social Media Again

Social media has emerged as a colossal phenomenon. The way it is taking society along is a phenomenon in itself. It gives a voice to those who never had one before. Most surprisingly, it is now challenging the handiwork of intellectuals and ideologues who divided commoners into their fiefdoms of thought to secure their positions as high priests.
Commoners are not only speaking for themselves but are also seeing through these designs. Strangely, the intellectuals did not do so intentionally but instinctively. They themselves now need to re-educate themselves and learn to speak for the commoners in a true democratic spirit.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Unrecognised State of Molecular Dissonance

One way to describe the contemporary world is through the phrase "molecular dissonance". Wars continue to inflict colossal human tragedies. Internal instability has surfaced even in developed countries such as Great Britain. Institutions across societies appear increasingly strained, reactive, and uncertain in their purposes.

As I see it, a political system needs system-imaging minds capable of philosophising, reviewing, calibrating, and aligning its institutions and practices. Such minds must be able to anticipate, reckon with, and assume responsibility for the effects, aftereffects, and long-term consequences of actions. Otherwise, despite the best intentions of those at the helm, what emerges may be called molecular dissonance. What the world faces today is not merely a shortage of resources or technical expertise, but a dearth of such minds, coupled with an insufficient willingness to act upon their understanding. Let me reiterate by my coinage, system-imaging minds; I mean minds capable of mentally mapping the architecture of a system, visualising the interplay between its constituent parts and purposes, and distinguishing the functional from the dysfunctional before the latter matures into crisis. Such minds can anticipate how actions reverberate through interconnected structures and align interventions with the larger ends the system is meant to serve.

I define molecular dissonance as a condition in which the constituent elements of a complex system act without coherence with the larger purposes they are meant to serve. It manifests when decisions are taken in isolation, immediate incentives override systemic considerations, and institutions lose sight of the ends for which they exist. The result is an accumulation of small misalignments—between intention and outcome, rules and purposes, actions and consequences, individual interests and institutional responsibilities. Each act may appear rational or harmless in itself, yet together they generate dysfunction, erode trust, and weaken the integrity of the whole.

Molecular dissonance is therefore not the breakdown of a system through dramatic collapse, but its gradual corrosion through innumerable uncoordinated acts and inverted priorities among the very units that compose it. It is the pathology of systems that continue to function outwardly while progressively losing their internal coherence and fidelity to purpose.

Right now, this constitutes an acute crisis in the international system, in addition to the deliberate acts of domination and extraction pursued by some nations. The condition of the international order reflects the wider condition of the nation-states that compose it, most of which are themselves afflicted by this syndrome internally. They not only suffer its consequences but also feed and amplify the wider malady. The resulting international environment becomes increasingly fragile, less capable of pursuing common purposes, and more prone to reactive conduct, mistrust, and systemic drift.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Who Loves Democracy?

The 1990s marked the zenith of democracy's ascent in its relatively short modern history. Through liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation (LPG), democracy appeared to be moving toward its substantive realisation. It promised greater space for individuals and their enterprises, while deepening mutual exchange and interdependence across the world. Democracy seemed to be growing into its fullest expression.

But who truly loves democracy?

Entrenched powers organised a massive global hue and cry against this expanding order. For a time, neoliberalism was invoked as the explanation for virtually every conceivable problem. The world that emerged from that reaction is the one we inhabit today. Few realised then that if the age of LPG was to be reversed, geopolitics would inevitably fill the vacuum. The retreat from openness and interdependence would not usher in a better order; it would restore the older logic of power, rivalry, spheres of influence, and strategic competition, creating conditions conducive to authoritarianism and democratic decline. The return of geopolitics was not an aberration but the consequence of abandoning the trajectory that LPG had set in motion.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Thinking Justice

Justice, as an idea, a norm, or an enforceable principle, flourishes only in a culture of excellence. Such a culture values competence, responsibility, self-restraint, and the realisation of individual potential. Justice is both a product and a guardian of this culture.

At its most basic level, justice requires that wrongdoing be recognised as wrong, that the wrongdoer be held accountable, and that the victim receive restitution or redress. Yet where poverty, deprivation, disorder, and dependency become pervasive, injustice often ceases to appear exceptional. It comes to be accepted as the normal state of affairs, a fait accompli. In such circumstances, the delivery of justice is perceived not as a matter of right but as an act of benevolence, charity, generosity, or, worse still, chivalry.

What, then, is excellence? It is not merely exceptional achievement, nor is it simply the possession of wealth, status, or skill. Excellence is a state in which individuals and societies remain mindful of the potential of the human mind and consciously cultivate it. It is a social condition in which individuals are encouraged to realise their capacities while remaining bound by the obligation not to dominate, coerce, exploit, or harm others. Such a condition rests upon a deep respect for individuality, not merely as a matter of rights but as a recognition that each human being possesses a unique potential for thought, judgment, creativity, and self-realisation. The acceptance and appreciation of individuality are nurtured by literature, art, philosophy, and the broader life of the mind. These deepen human awareness, enlarge the moral imagination, and cultivate the capacity to recognise other persons as distinct centres of experience rather than as instruments, abstractions, or members of a category.

The consciousness of excellence and the level of prosperity go hand in hand. They sustain and reinforce one another. It is the cultivation of the mind that gives rise to prosperity, just as prosperity creates conditions conducive to the further cultivation of the mind. Conversely, a society that neglects the cultivation of the mind breeds poverty, while pervasive poverty leaves little room for such cultivation. The two thus stand in a reciprocal relationship, each strengthening or weakening the other.

Literature, art, and intellectual pursuits do not merely require patronage; they require a society that can afford, both materially and mentally, to look beyond the demands of immediate survival. A civilisation preoccupied entirely with subsistence struggles cannot readily make excellence a shared aspiration. Where the horizon of life is confined to mere survival, the higher cultivation of the mind becomes difficult to sustain, and with it the consciousness from which justice, responsibility, and individuality derive their strength.
Excellence may be understood most clearly when contrasted with decadence, which is the state of general poverty, squalor, disorder, indifference, and the erosion of duty and accountability. It is a condition in which a society ceases to value and reproduce excellence. Wrongdoing loses its moral distinctiveness and comes to be regarded as an inevitable feature of life. Under such conditions, the moral and institutional foundations of justice weaken, and public life gradually descends into cynicism and arbitrariness.

Ultimately, justice is sustained by a collective state of mind. It depends upon habits of thought and conduct that generate stability, predictability, trust, and accountability. These habits are neither automatic nor self-perpetuating. They require constant cultivation. Excellence is precisely this condition of cultivated awareness: a state in which people remain mindful of the potential of the mind, both in themselves and in others. When such awareness weakens, society drifts toward mindlessness. The ideas, norms, and practices that sustain justice are then gradually absorbed into that vast swamp of mindlessness, where neither excellence nor justice can long survive.

Historically, ideas of justice have often been formulated from the perspective of those who imagined society as requiring supervision from above. Justice was therefore conceived as a mechanism administered by a superior authority rather than as a culture cultivated by society itself. Yet a society not subjected to aggression or tyranny tends to develop norms, customs, and expectations that sustain cooperation, accountability, and mutual respect. In such circumstances, justice emerges less as an external imposition than as an internal achievement. Laws and institutions may preserve and articulate it, but its true source lies in the culture of excellence from which it arises.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Commoners Speak Now

Before social media, a relatively small number of people spoke in the name of commoners, often usurping their voices and even their sense of being. Post-colonialism examined how international power cliques, through their intellectual and institutional machinery, claimed to speak on behalf of the world's marginalised while simultaneously casting them in their own image. Yet many of the protagonists of post-colonial discourse were themselves carving out niches within Western academia, speaking in the name of the very people from whom they had become socially and materially distant.

The phenomenon is not confined to international politics or academia. It operated at every level of society, descending through institutions, communities, and even families. Someone would speak for another, define another, and gradually appropriate another's being. The power to represent often became the power to replace.

The social media landscape has opened the means of public expression to ordinary people. Millions now speak for themselves rather than through designated intermediaries. It is perhaps not surprising that, as direct voices proliferate, the lords of abstraction redouble their efforts at distraction.

Niraj Kumar Jha

For the Sake of True Vision

Let me suggest another way of distinguishing education from indoctrination, a theme I often return to. Education enables individuals to see reality as it is; indoctrination trains them to see doctrine as reality. The former cultivates the capacity to question, investigate, and revise one's beliefs in light of evidence. The latter demands conformity to predetermined truths and discourages independent judgment.

Many twentieth-century communist regimes resorted to what theocratic regimes have long attempted: a comprehensive capture of the human mind or the generation of a cognitive fog that obscures independent judgment. The aim was to absorb individuals into a grand order, subsuming their individuality while elevating a select few to a status approaching reverence or unquestionable authority.
What I have written is an abstraction—a pure type. Reality is rarely so neat. Even the most liberal order may carry traces of the same affliction; it is often a matter of extent rather than kind.

Let me reiterate here the Gayatri Mantra, an eternal prayer for true knowledge and the illumination of the human intellect:

ॐ भूर्भुवः स्वः ।
तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं
भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि ।
धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् ॥

"We meditate upon the adorable radiance of the divine Source. May that divine light illuminate and inspire our intellects."

The prayer does not ask for conformity, certainty, or submission. It asks for enlightened judgment. In that sense, it captures the spirit of education at its highest: not the acceptance of doctrine as reality, but the cultivation of the intellectual and moral faculties necessary to perceive reality with clarity.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Realism and Idealism

Realism and idealism are often seen as binaries. The fact is that neither is sufficient on its own, and both can become counterproductive when pursued in isolation. The practical and the possible must inform those seeking to realise idealistic aspirations. Such judgment emerges from careful historical and comparative study, from observing realities and mending one's ways accordingly; it does not arise from forcing historical events into preconceived imaginative constructs, reducing history to neat patterns, or adhering rigidly to predetermined outcomes and methods. Equally, crass realism erodes the trust, solidarity, and shared meaning that make collective life possible, culminating in a desolation that negates the very purpose it sought to serve.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Responsibility as Power

There is a famous Hollywood movie line: "With great power comes great responsibility." As it is often delivered, it appears to be a law of life, but it is, in fact, a moral dictum. Let me place it in proper perspective. Power is about owning responsibility; otherwise, it becomes merely a position of domination for personal aggrandisement.

Similarly, any privilege enjoyed at public cost must be justified by a commensurate contribution to the public good. Amidst general deprivation and squalor, any privilege derived from public resources or based on public property is an abominably undeserved entitlement. The passage of time often corrects such excesses.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Neo-imperialism

Let me clarify at the outset that what I am noting here about neo-imperialism is only my impression. I studied neo-imperialism as a Political Science student at a leading university in our country. The lessons on the subject were overwhelming to me at the time, but later I realised that the entire exercise was teleological. The most bizarre aspect was that Vladimir Lenin’s theory of imperialism, adapted from John A. Hobson, was taught almost as an axiomatic framework for understanding international affairs, even though it explained a pre-existing phenomenon as the outcome of a later-occurring development. Secondly, what it offered as a way out was the advocacy of an order that was feudal at its core, rooted in patronage and clientelism, though presented under the garb of modernity and in the name of liberation. Those who understood the rules of the game eventually defeated the erstwhile bosses of the world at their own game, and now those very bosses appear to be entreating the emergent powers for favour and accommodation. The lingering folly once again leaves us, if not at the receiving end, certainly not at the winning end.

Niraj Kumar Jha

साम्राज्य और एम्पाइअर

अनुवाद प्रायः भाषाओं के समांतर शब्दों के माध्यम से किया जाता है, किंतु ऐसे समांतर शब्द अनेक बार सभ्यताओं के मौलिक अंतर को ढक देते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए भारत में अब यह समझ एक सीमा तक विकसित हुई है कि ‘रीलिजन’ और ‘धर्म’ में मौलिक भेद है। इसी प्रकार ‘साम्राज्य’ और ‘एम्पाइअर’ (अथवा अन्य सभ्यताओं के समांतर शब्दों) के बीच भी मौलिक अंतर है, जिसे मेरी जानकारी के अनुसार अभी तक सामान्य बोध के क्षेत्र में पर्याप्त रूप से दृष्टिगत नहीं किया गया है।

भारतीय परिप्रेक्ष्य में साम्राज्य का मूल उद्देश्य धर्म का विस्तार, न्याय की स्थापना, शांति और संपर्क को निर्बाध बनाना तथा सामान्य समृद्धि के मार्गों को निष्कंटक करना था। यह व्यापक सामूहिक शक्ति का लोककल्याण और विपत्तियों के निवारण हेतु व्यवस्थित उपयोग था। चक्रवर्ती का ध्येय आदर्श और न्यायप्रिय धर्मराज के रूप में शस्त्र और शास्त्र, दोनों के माध्यम से संसार में धर्मचक्र की स्थापना करना था।

इसके विपरीत, एम्पाइअर प्रायः किसी व्यक्ति अथवा संगठित समूह की सर्वोच्चता और लिप्सा-पूर्ति के उद्देश्य से व्यापक स्तर पर लोगों के दमन और दोहन की व्यवस्था रहा है। निश्चय ही दोनों ही स्थितियों में अपवादों की बहुलता मिलती है, किंतु रामराज्य का आदर्श तथा अशोक और चंद्रगुप्त द्वितीय के साम्राज्य जैसे उदाहरण भारतीय अवधारणा की विशिष्टता को स्पष्ट करते हैं।

पुनश्च : उक्त संदर्भ में मेरा आग्रह है कि हिंदी में सम्प्रेषण के लिए ‘एम्पाइअर’ तथा ‘इम्पीरियलिज़्म’ शब्दों का यथावत प्रयोग किया जाए। उदाहरणार्थ, ‘ब्रिटिश एम्पाइअर’ और ‘ब्रिटिश एम्पाइअरवाद’ कहा जाए, न कि ‘ब्रिटिश साम्राज्य’ और ‘साम्राज्यवाद’।

नीरज कुमार झा 

Of Imperialism Without Garb

This is the failure of our times: naked imperialism has returned with vehemence. That it scarcely cares anymore for moral or ideological garb only deepens the irony and the misery of the age. Such phenomena are not natural calamities like outbreaks of viral disease, but consequences of human folly. At its first level, domination succeeds through the effective use of intellect without regard for those who bear the cost of its exercise. The deeper question, however, is why the rest fail to apply their minds to the affairs of the world and to their own lot. Human folly becomes more dangerous when the wicked command greater strategic intellect than the good command civic courage or moral clarity. The task, then, is not merely to condemn tyranny, but to overcome the mental and physical weaknesses among us commoners who seek neither unearned gain nor prosperity built upon the suffering of others.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Of Tyranny

 If a single person can disrupt and destabilise the whole world, it speaks not of the person but of the world.

Niraj Kumar Jha

For Prosperity and Power

The US delegation to the People's Republic of China affirms the obvious: the interest of big business is the national interest. The United States understands this and deploys its imperial might to promote its corporations. Here, it has come to negotiate with its greatest challenger in order to secure a smoother field of operation for them. I do not intend to criticise this reality, but to highlight what prudence demands.

A nation must ease the conditions of doing business at home to the optimum extent and promote its corporations' operations abroad. That is the path towards the intertwined goals of prosperity and power. At the next level, it must ensure that power and wealth remain fairly distributed within the country. The national ecosystem should enable widely held shareholder companies and cooperatives to rise into global corporations. It is fundamentally about the rule of law and fair, facilitative rules of the game.

Simultaneously, insofar as their rules permit, Indians must raise, and be allowed to raise, their stake in the shareholding of global companies to feasible and safe limits, and benefit from the operations of multinational giants.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Questioning What Passes for Poetry

Is poetry about expressions that do not make sense or that sit on the line which divides the sensible and the senseless, where they hint at some hidden meaning which even the one expressing it is not sure about? Is it about noumena that evoke the unknowable, which people only end up revering? Is it about getting lucid-sounding nouns for exotic flowers like daffodils or gendas (marigolds) and birds like flamingos or harils (yellow-footed pigeons) into the imagery? Is it about moral exhortations which the poets themselves never followed and which burden others who are not in a position to live accordingly? Is it about pretensions and fantasies? Is it lust painted as divine? Is it about wordsmithery: saying the very quotidian through dramatic expressions? Practitioners fashion their clothes and hair accordingly. These are strands of what is accepted as poetry, which sound lofty but diminish people's thought and agency.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Capitalism: Ideology or Human Condition?

Capitalism is often theorised as a later stage in human existence. Its historical origins are traced and presented as an outgrowth of civilisation, rather than as an essential aspect of human life itself. In reality, however, it evolved alongside civilisation from its very beginnings, when human beings first ceased to be merely subjects of nature and began to exercise some control over it. This became possible because of the unique biological capacities of human beings: a thinking mind and the extraordinary utility of their hands.

The moment human beings began striving for more than mere subsistence, they were already anticipating capitalism. When they domesticated animals, cultivated crops, harnessed fire, devised methods of channelling water, transported goods with the wheel, and increased mobility through the use of animals and carts, they created systems of production that generated surplus. From there emerged the need for exchange, storage, preservation, and accumulation.

Capital, therefore, has prehistoric origins and constitutes an unavoidable part of civilised life, even though the term itself was coined in modern times. Capitalism became dominant only when trade expanded in scale and production ceased to remain merely household-based or localised for immediate consumption.

Tragically, imaginative yet resentful theorists portrayed capitalism as a late and aberrational phenomenon. More tragically still, many accepted this view unquestioningly. In doing so, they disrupted human progress and strengthened forces hostile to human flourishing.

Popular dictionaries and textbooks commonly define capitalism as the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. Such definitions crudely portray private ownership as though it were unique to the modern age, and the profit motive as though it were a moral perversion that emerged only a few centuries ago. This is intellectual absurdity masquerading as epistemology. It is not a definition so much as an ideological position, one that diminishes human sagacity, agency, and the civilizational impulse itself.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

The Rule of Rules

There is the rule of law. Article 14 expresses it succinctly: “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” It signifies that law stands above individuals, offices, and power itself.

Then there is rule by law, where law becomes merely an instrument of power. The British governed India through laws as well, but those laws primarily served imperial control rather than justice.

A third condition increasingly draws attention: the rule of rules. Here, rules are applied and obeyed mechanically, without regard to their purpose, spirit, or consequences, or else abused for private advantage. Rules themselves begin to rule, detached from the social needs they were meant to serve. Some may temporarily benefit while others suffer, yet in the long run, everyone loses.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Philosophy, Science, and Engineering of Politics

A continuous realignment, a fine-tuning, is an unavoidable part of a constitutional system. The basic document, and the whole paraphernalia and ecosystem built upon it, together make the system. As it grows and tests itself against reality, it may deviate from the very constitutional spirit it is meant to bring into lived reality.

There may also be fundamental flaws that cause turbulence to persist, regardless of the remedial actions taken. Alongside this, there is the problem of a gradual loss of constitutional vision as the idea unfolds. As reality gathers its own momentum, the system may even come to negate the very idea that constitutionalism seeks to offer.

The story begins at the source, the original homeland of formal constitutionalism, the United States, where it was consciously adopted as a comprehensive project by men of considerable courage, competence, and judgment, drawing upon, curating, and cohering the finest prevailing wisdom. Constitutionalism, therefore, is not a self-executing equilibrium. It is a fragile and contingent achievement, constantly shaped and threatened by incentives, power structures, and institutional inertia.

The challenge, therefore, does not end with preservation. Constitutional wisdom itself is not final. As the system evolves and reality unfolds in ways not originally anticipated, that wisdom requires revision. The task, then, is not merely to restate principles but to infuse the revised understanding back into the system. This is where the engineering of the political becomes unavoidable: the reworking of instruments, the adjustment of institutional mechanisms, the recalibration of processes and linkages through which constitutional intent is realised. Without such translation, even renewed wisdom remains inert, and the system continues on the strength of outdated assumptions.

The philosophy, science, and engineering of politics can never sit back. The academics of politics must rise above banal description, resist the ritual invocation of received ideological lessons that are often inapplicable, and avoid reducing themselves to cheerleaders or professional mourners.

Niraj Kumar Jha

शब्दों की प्राण-रक्षा

हर शब्द प्रयत्न है,
अर्थ उसका जीवन है।
निष्प्राण न हों शब्द,
शब्दों को सींचना होता है।
सूखे-गिरे बिखरे शब्दों के ऊपर,
जीवन दुष्कर हो जाता है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Hierarchy in India: A Corrective Thesis

My thesis is that India was neither uniquely hierarchical nor rightly understood through the singular lens of hierarchy; it was uniquely theorised as such. The tendency of societies to reproduce status through family, occupation, marriage circles, inherited wealth, and social networks has been near-universal. Elsewhere, it appeared through aristocracy, serfdom, guild privilege, landed inheritance, racial exclusion, slavery, elite schooling, and closed class systems, often sustained by sharper legal barriers and more centralised coercion. Yet these were usually narrated as stages of history, regrettable episodes, or ordinary sociology. In the case of India, comparable tendencies were more insistently named, codified, and later foregrounded by colonial and modern discourse as though they disclosed the essence of an entire civilisation. What was widely human was thus rendered peculiarly Indian. What was widely human was thus rendered peculiarly Indian. Strangely, even many Indians collaborated in this project. I am inclined to attribute much of it to naivete, intellectual conditioning, or the prestige of imported frameworks rather than always to conscious malice, though some among them continue to be treated as patron saints of Indian scholarship.

A further distortion lay in imagining India itself as ordered through a single, neat, occupation-based pyramid. Much of the subcontinent was marked instead by complex and locally varied arrangements in which status was contextual, layered, and often criss-crossing rather than linear. Ritual esteem in one sphere could coexist with political weakness in another; those commanding land, arms, trade, wealth, or state power could outrank ritually honoured groups in practical life. Social standing shifted by region, dynasty, sect, economic role, and circumstance. The very meaning of the “superior” changed with the domain being considered. To compress this fluid and plural order into a rigid schema is to mistake a highly differentiated civilisation for a simplified abstraction.

My further contention is that India’s inequities, though real, were in many respects milder, more diffused, and less uniformly brutal than several forms of stratification elsewhere. Europe’s feudal bondage, inquisitions, religious wars, hereditary nobility, and imperial violence; the chattel slavery and racial orders of the Atlantic world; and other systems of state-backed domination often carried severities of another scale and texture. This is not to romanticise India, but to refuse the habit of flattening all hierarchies into one category while making India their chosen emblem.

Even this comparison remains incomplete, for Indian civilisation also preserved within itself recurrent correctives against social hardening. The meeting of Rama and Shabari in Ramcharitmanas, before the teaching of Navadha Bhakti, is among the clearest expressions of this spirit. There, birth, pedigree, and worldly station are quietly set aside before devotion. The ninefold path esteems humility, sincerity, remembrance, trust, self-restraint, and love of the divine, not inherited rank. Bhakti here is not an ornament added to hierarchy; it is a solvent of hierarchy. It reminds us that the most refined thing a human being can bear is not superiority, but inner elevation.

India should therefore be understood not as the singular home of hierarchy, but as the civilisation most insistently interpreted through that lens, despite the comparative mildness of many of its historical forms of stratification and despite the deep indigenous resources it sustained for transcending hierarchy altogether.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Silence or Speech

It is often said that silence is a mark of knowledge and gravity. One must keep in mind that it depends on the context. In our daily life, silence is practically stillness, a tendency to accept whatever is going on, whether good or bad.

One must speak and engage with others on public issues. Conversations help break the barriers that divide people, often at their own cost. Today, technology offers great opportunities for such conversations on public platforms, and they remain open-ended. It should be used to appreciate each other and positive acts, and to resist negativity.

The best way to curb negativity is often to ignore it. By negativity, I mean any condition, place, or association that negates or undermines a person or refuses to accept them as an equal. Some such situations are unavoidable and part of life. One has to live with them but not succumb to them. The effort should be to limit dependence on them. What is needed is a state of withdrawn engagement, being involved, but not overwhelmed.

Niraj Kumar Jha

सच की नियति

संघर्ष ही सच की नियति,
नहीं कभी रहा उसका ठाठ।
करुणा व प्रीत प्रकृति उसकी,
कैसे फैलाए वह जाल?

नीरज कुमार झा

शोधपद्धति-विज्ञान

पाँव देखो,
हैं कि नहीं?

 
नीरज कुमार झा

डकार भी नहीं लेता

अति बुद्धिसंपन्न होगा वह
जिसने पहचाना होगा
सबसे पहले
कि झूठ के पाँव नहीं होते।

यदि यह सच है कि
झूठ के पाँव नहीं होते,
तो फिर झूठ पहुँचता कैसे है
हर जगह?

झूठ के पाँव नहीं होते,
पर उसमें फरेब होता है।
वह सच की पीठ पर चढ़ जाता है,
यह कहकर
कि वही उसे ले जाएगा
सही जगह।

और इस तरह
झूठ पहुँच जाता है
हर जगह।

पहुँचकर जहाँ पहुँचना होता है उसे,
सच को बाहर
खूँटे से बाँधकर रखता है वह।

पाँव नहीं होते झूठ के,
पर उसका मुँह बड़ा होता है,
और पेट भी।
वह निगल जाता है
संघर्षरत सच की संपत्तियाँ—
मानवीय सरोकार,
उद्यमिता,
सृजनशीलता
और क्रांतियाँ।

डकार भी नहीं लेता।

नीरज कुमार झा

लोकधर्म

जनतंत्र को जन शक्ति देता है, और जनतंत्र जन को। जनतंत्र विषयक धर्म व्यापक धर्म के अटल विधान के ही रूप में कार्य करता है -

 
धर्म एव हतो हन्ति धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः ।
तस्माद् धर्मो न हन्तव्यो मा नो धर्मो हतोऽवधीत् ॥

जनतंत्र को पुष्ट करने निमित्त जन को सम्यक आचरण और उपक्रम अपनाने से पहले तंत्र के व्यवस्थित बोध को प्राप्त करना अभीष्ट है, अन्यथा ऐसे प्रयास विपरीत प्रभाव डाल सकते हैं। इसके लिए लोग प्रश्न करें, और जिनके लिए संभव हो, वे अध्ययन करें। यहाँ यह उल्लेख भी प्रासंगिक है कि वैश्विक संदर्भ में (अन्य सभ्यताओं की तुलना में) दृष्टिगत करने से यह स्पष्ट है कि भारतीय परंपराओं में मानवता और मानवीय गरिमा को अतुल्य रूप से श्रेष्ठ स्थान प्राप्त है, जिसका अध्ययन सम्यक बोध प्राप्ति हेतु ठोस आधार प्रदान करता है।

 
नीरज कुमार झा

Ideological Biology

Most people get their identity and ego fused with a certain ideology, and the lives they lead accordingly shape their physicality too. It is almost like biological growth. As geography shapes one’s physique and mentality, so the ideological milieu becomes biological.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Development or Humanisation?

Development often proceeds like a directed, almost dictatorial campaign where people are treated as cogs in a giant wheel. Even their participation is mechanical, fixed and pre-designed. It becomes more of a formality than something truly substantive.

What should be pursued instead is the humanisation of human beings. Development, as a goal, often ends up relocating or using people. The real need is to unleash the potential of each individual so that everyone can become a substantial human being.

The challenge is that human potential remains culturally and politically constrained. People need to be unchained to realise their humanity.

The task begins with pedagogy. Pupils must be cultivated with a sense of service and learn to value basic public work such as cleaning shared spaces, caring for the sick, and respecting other living beings and nature. At the final stage of education, they should undergo compulsory internships in places of intense humane work like hospitals, nursing homes, and municipal services.

They must also develop fellowship, rise above jealousy, appreciate others’ achievements, and strive to excel with humility. At the same time, they should be trained to stand on their own, be courageous, adventurous, and willing to take risks.

Human substantialization also requires the freedom to do what is worth doing. It means maximising autonomy and safety for all. A free market is a basic and substantive means of achieving this. The market is not a site of predation, as is often propagated, but the most efficient process through which people serve one another.

The government has a clear role: to ensure safety, protect property, and enforce obligations. The government, to be true to its purpose, must function as it is: a collective agency that fairly manages the commons.

If such pedagogy and practice shape public life, development will follow as a byproduct. It would mean clean living spaces, an unpolluted environment, undisturbed natural landscapes, comfortable and aesthetic habitats, safe surroundings, and reliable, humane public services like healthcare.

Niraj Kumar Jha

निदान

गणित के शिक्षक ने विद्यार्थी से कहा कि उसका उत्तर गलत है; सही उत्तर 4 है, जबकि उसने 2 लिखा है। विद्यार्थी ने अपने उत्तर में 2 जोड़ दिया और बोला—“लीजिए सर, अब उत्तर सही हो गया।”

पानी और उर्वरक के अभाव में फसल पीली पड़ने लगी। किसान ने पौधों को  हरा रंग दिया।

कमरे में छत से पानी टपक रहा था। मकान मालिक ने फर्श पर पानी बहने के लिए नाली बनवा ली।

नकझ

Time for United People

The obvious bottom line is that this is only a phase in a long-drawn process of build-ups, manoeuvres, and counter-manoeuvres for global supremacy, control over resources, and leverage in global exchanges. The real concern is their intensity and starkness at this moment, such that the international system, built over half a millennium in an excruciatingly slow fashion, appears to be collapsing. The suffering of people around the world is a bitter reality of life. The world now critically needs united people for peace and fair play in affairs internationally and within nations. It is only wishful thinking at present, but there is no mistake in saying that we need greater unity and a firmer resolve as a nation to navigate the stormy seas of international politics.

Niraj Kumar Jha

वैश्विक वैचारिक तन्तुजाल

वैश्विक संगठित शक्तियों का वर्चस्व, दमन और दोहन जिन तंत्रों पर टिका है, उनका पोषण करने वाला वैचारिक तंतु-जाल सामान्य व्यक्तियों की मानसिकता में आविष्ट होकर क्रियाशील रहता है। स्वयं को निरीह मानकर आरोपित आचरण का स्वाभाविक रूप से पालन करने वाले व्यक्तियों का समूह ही अंततः उस व्यवस्था का यौगिक अवयव बन जाता है। यह तंत्र इतना सूक्ष्म रूप से कार्य करता है कि वही निर्धारित करता है कि सामान्य व्यक्ति किन व्यक्ति-भूमिकाओं, दृश्यों और वस्तुओं की सराहना करे और किनका तिरस्कार। स्वयं, स्वजनों और समस्थित व्यक्तियों के प्रति तिरस्कार इस पराजयी प्रवृत्ति का प्राथमिक लक्षण है।

नीरज कुमार झा

भारतीयता

माता-पिता और गुरुओं के प्रति अनन्य सम्मान मानवीयता का आधारभूत लक्षण है। यह पुरानी सी लगने वाली बात ही भारतीयता के अस्तित्व और अस्मिता का पोषक और रक्षक रही है।

नीरज कुमार झा

राह दिखाते हैं गांधी

शांति के गीत में हैं गांधी

प्रतिरोध के प्रयास में हैं गांधी

मानव की हो धरती

राह दिखाते हैं गांधी

नीरज कुमार झा

Boots on the Ground

They are not “boots on the ground.”
They are human beings in the killing fields.
Anxious.
They feel pain when injured.
They have kin and friends
who feel that pain in their loss.

And those to be “booted”
are human beings too.

Humanity can span the distances to the Moon and Venus,
Yet cannot overcome the chasms within.
It can look inside an atom,
Yet cannot see another human as human.

A person can connect, face-to-face,
with another anywhere on the planet,
Yet fails to see the other as human.

Why?

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Unspoken Objective

What they leave unsaid is that war itself is the objective.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Silence of the Sane

Madness grips the world, as it did in earlier times, but the absurdity at this stage of human advancement is astounding. It has recurred before, but it remained scattered and sporadic; it is now overarching. It is so disproportionately enormous and strange that it shocks all potential voices of sanity into bewilderment and silence. The voices we hear often partake in the mayhem rather than de-escalate or contain the mindlessness.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Justice without the Veil of Ignorance

The veil of ignorance grounds a flawed conception of justice. It cannot function without introducing a mechanism for control and delivery, and thereby limiting freedoms which democracy is meant to institutionalise.

Second, the idea assumes that individuals are inherently selfish and uncaring, yet paradoxically expects these very individuals to design mechanisms that better serve the most disadvantaged.
Third, a free society is marked by high mobility: opportunities are widely available, and people are generally able to make use of them.

Fourth, secure and free individuals tend, in general, to care for the disadvantaged voluntarily.
Fifth, in a democracy, the disadvantaged are neither voiceless nor powerless. They articulate demands that are often heeded, and at times, under populist pressures, they receive benefits even without explicitly asking.

A Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme with embedded health insurance and education vouchers would address both long-term deprivation and temporary shocks, as well as the need for fantastic ideas.

 
The crux of the matter is that a free market generates constant social churn; the bottom is not a fixed condition, and, on average, people tend to move upward over time. As a country develops, manual labour or socially devalued jobs often command higher wages than lower-tier white-collar work. More broadly, as prosperity becomes widespread, people tend to look after those left behind without a theoretical mandate.

Niraj Kumar Jha

धर्मराष्ट्र भारत का संदेश

उद्दीप्त प्रज्ञा से उद्भूत
विवेक से सतत परीक्षित
धर्म वही है

 
सत्यान्वेषक
सत्यानुरागी
सत्यानुयायी
संवेदना से पूर्ण
स्वतंत्र चेतना से युक्त
जीव-अजीव के प्रति श्रद्धावनत
धर्मप्राण वही है

 
नकारात्मकता चिह्नित करने को उद्यत
न्याय का पक्षधर
दुर्जनों के प्रतिकार को सन्नद्ध
जो सज्जनहितैषी है
धार्मिक वही है

अंधकार के विरूद्ध अभियान है धर्म
अंधत्व से त्राण है धर्म
जिसकी दृष्टि निर्दोष
मस्तिष्क सजग निष्कलुष
धर्ममार्ग यात्री वही है

 
धर्मानुरूप हों
आस्था के वचन
उपासना की पद्धतियाँ
भारत का संदेश यही है

 
नीरज कुमार झा

ज्ञान : कतिपय स्पष्टीकरण

ज्ञान तभी ज्ञान है, जब उसे धारण किया जाए; यह भंडारण हेतु मात्र वस्तु नहीं है। ज्ञान आचरण में परिलक्षित प्रवृत्तियाँ हैं; सम्प्रेषण की निपुणता ज्ञान-अज्ञान से निरपेक्ष एक कौशल है। ज्ञान संवेदना और सौंदर्यबोध है; यह प्रभुता, धन या यश की प्राप्ति की युक्ति नहीं है। ज्ञान पीड़ा, वंचना, निरर्थकता, नीरसता, अन्याय और संघर्षों के शमन हेतु विज्ञान का संधान है; यह अन्यीकरण की योजना के द्वारा शोषण, दोहन और परपीड़न का उपक्रम नहीं है। ज्ञान, सहानुभूति और स्वानुभूति की क्षमता है; नाटकीय प्रदर्शन या मंचन में दक्षता इसके इतर एक कला है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Technology: The Most Real and Effective Equaliser of Human Beings

If we read human history with care, one of the most powerful forces shaping equality among human beings has been technology. Travel through the past, and inequality appears harsher, more rigid, and more brutal.

The first point I want to make is this: a scientific approach, though developed over time, aligns more closely with human curiosity than mere believing; history, in many ways, reflects this. Technology, as the usable form of scientific knowledge and endeavour, is a human extension and perhaps the most powerful medium of human liberation. Liberation, after all, is about human beings becoming more human.

It is true that technology gives an edge to its discoverers and early users and often remains concentrated for a time. Yet it rarely stays confined. Over time, its usage spreads, adapts, and resists complete monopolisation.

Take mobile phones with all their embedded features. They are among the most powerful instruments of empowerment ever placed in the hands of ordinary people. One only needs to pause and reflect to see this clearly.

One may even think of democratic elections as a kind of social technology, structured methods that make the idea of democracy workable at scale.

The reason for writing this post is that perhaps the most significant technology to enter common use today is artificial intelligence. It has the potential to reduce certain forms of intellectual and creative inequality among human beings by lowering barriers that once seemed immovable. With the help of AI, one can develop ideas into coherent writing, access background without excessive effort, and attempt creative expression such as poetry, art, and more that earlier felt out of reach.

At present, AI may still hallucinate, but with a little discernment, that can be navigated. Even now, it offers valuable ideas and information that might otherwise remain inaccessible.

This could facilitate another surge in democratic participation and expression, though its direction will depend entirely on how it is used.

The key takeaway, however, is this: common people must value science and technology, adopt them with eagerness, and demand more of them. There must be a wider awareness that science is not external to human life but an essential part of being human, and it must be pursued with greater seriousness and energy. This is good not only for the individual, but also for the community, the nation, and humanity at large. At the same time, people must remain conscious of its flipside, and actively think, discuss, and debate how its risks and distortions can be mitigated.

Internationally, the present moment may appear dismal; in reality, it is exposing hidden patterns and long-standing imbalances. It may well be the darker phase that precedes a new dawn. In such a phase, humanity can overcome its imaginative lag and move towards a new world that technology has already begun to foreground.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Why do wars occur?

Why do wars occur?
Human beings bear the duty to seek an answer.

From their primitive life in jungles,
much has changed.
At every stage of evolution,
they were not what they were before.

Sages spoke of peace,
saints sacrificed themselves to bring sanity,
tomes of literature have long upheld
peace and harmony.

Yet wars return,
again and again.

Thousands, hundreds of thousands perish.
Countless others suffer unspeakable agony.
Nuclear blasts have seared entire cities.
Napalm has burned human beings alive.

And yet they are forgotten soon after they occur.
Even when war rages in its full fury,
we do not heed the screams of pain
or the cries of loss.
War games, sovereignty, and economics
remain our chief concerns.

We must ask why people turn aggressive,
what others do
when such designs are in the making.

We must not reduce our answer to reasons alone.
We must ask how we have evolved,
how we see.
what impresses us, and what we fail to see.
how we behave,
what we value, what we cherish.

Have we ever thought of our human self,
or is that the missing link we ignored all along?

Niraj Kumar Jha

Understanding an Unfolding Phenomenon

An unfolding phenomenon, if understood only through externalities such as the name it goes by, the label it carries, or how it is propagated, branded, marketed, supported, or opposed, fails to reveal its real import. Rather, it should be understood by how it actually unfolds, how it affects people within its fold and beyond, how others shape or respond to it in making what it is, the ecosystem in which it operates, and the motives and conduct of its office bearers and followers, both within their particular collective contexts and in their private capacities.

A label is a matter of choice, often serving mere identification; substance, by contrast, consists of real persons in action, processes, or things with tangible consequences. In the case of social phenomena, this substance is also dynamic, manifesting and operating differently across persons and contexts. Here, I am reminded of a doha by Kabir:
रंगी को नारंगी कहे, मूल तत्व को खोय।
चलती को गाड़ी कहे, देख कबीर रोय॥
(Rangi ko narangi kahe, mool tatva ko khoy; chalti ko gaadi kahe, dekh Kabira roy.)

This confusion persists in public discourse as well. In many cases, Indian social science scholarship complicates matters by superimposing ideologically loaded, foreign-origin terms, concepts, and categories onto Indian conditions. These are frequently ill-suited even for description, let alone analysis or theorisation; the use of the term religion for dharma, and concepts such as secularism, communalism, fascism, or the binaries of right and left, are stark examples.

It also demands a self-assessment of one’s own role, whether as a viewer, a participant, or an affected individual.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Earning Humanity

Humanity comes through training. A human being is born as a biological entity, but becoming human requires cultivation; humanity does not simply come to people; it has to be acquired. Humanity is an evolutionary achievement of the species, yet it remains external to individuals as mere biological beings. Every generation must therefore earn its humanity anew, and the human condition at any time depends greatly on the care and quality devoted to education.

People must be trained even in basic capacities: how to see, how to listen, and how to review and process what they gather through their senses. Without training, perception remains elusive, and judgment easily falls into error. The good of humanity rests on how well a society trains itself at any given time.

Humanity must allow its members to be human in a substantive sense. This requires arrangements for a pedagogy that trains people to say neti, neti to deconstruct what they experience and reconstruct it into an intelligible order for their imaginational training project.

This is the lesson of our times: the toxic fumes around us choke not only our nostrils but also our conscience.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Civilisations?

Barbarism could never truly be relegated to the past. It is a travesty of humankind’s evolution that the most barbaric practices have often been refined and dressed up as civilisation. One is left with the lingering suspicion that what we call civilisations are civilised only in name, the term itself masking enduring geographies of barbarity. Century after century, as human knowledge expanded, brutality too became more methodical and efficient.

The great wars of the twentieth century witnessed what was called “carpet bombing,” a cruel euphemism that concealed the agonising deaths of millions. Strangely, the very nations that speak of human rights, environmental protection, gender justice, and free trade now exult in human slaughter.

The conflicts of today are rarely battles between good and evil. In motives and deeds alike, greed, grievances, perverse hedonism, and supremacism are so entangled that truth is pushed out of nearly every sphere of human striving. Through acts of aggression and injustice, the present generation places humanity in grave danger and sows a legacy that will haunt generations to come.

Niraj Kumar Jha

In the Name of Humanity

Natural resources are for the whole of humanity; a nation or corporation acts only as a trustee. To choose to destroy them is an affront to the whole of humanity. The environment, too, is now strained beyond its capacity to sustain human life; wantonly harming it is a serious crime against humanity.

Likewise, the dignity and autonomy of every person represent the dignity of humanity as a whole. Any violation of that dignity diminishes us all. Even an individual does not have the free choice to demean their own humanity. A person who deliberately demeans his or her humanity demeans humanity itself. Such a proclivity should not be acceptable to fellow human beings.

Nowadays, agencies meant to speak for humanity are either defunct or silenced. In such a situation, individual members of humanity must find ways to express their anguish and to contribute to the good of humanity as a whole.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Lost in Information

We are in the age of information glut. It is a downpour from every side. And, frighteningly, we still do not know what is happening to real people in different corners of the world. The information overflow, instead of bringing clarity, creates a fog around us and envelops our consciousness. We are too much absorbed in some particular things and not in most other things, and are also oblivious to the general.

The world is connected seamlessly, but we have lost connectivity, the human connection, and, more disturbingly, we have lost the sense of interconnection. The absurdities of the age are many. When chatbots inform and explain things better than any human being, or even an assembly of scholars, and when that knowledge is easily accessible to anyone, people nevertheless appear dumber and more disoriented. There appears to be a disjointedness in people in what they think, what they speak, and the way they act.

Even seemingly wise people, when confronted with a problem or a question, tend to reason it away as unavoidable or inevitable. Aggression, resistance, and surrender appear indistinguishable. People relay, but they do not relate. Most people prefer to pronounce rather than converse and to denounce rather than engage. I always suspect people, even those with high credentials and standing, whether they mean what they say, whether they know what they articulate, and whether they stand for what they proclaim.

Some people do things without a care, with serious repercussions; the Dunning–Kruger effect appears endemic, while others are mortally afraid of doing even the right things. Information excess numbs the faculty of judgment, and overexposure weakens the agency even of the sagacious; the rest is then left to their baser instincts, which may turn either predatory or submissive.

Queer times. I wish I were alone in experiencing things around me.

Niraj Kumar Jha

A Fair Order: Heed Humanity’s Cries

Nations must reunite to build an order that is fair to all. Order protects; disorder spares none. Even a large and seemingly powerful nation can be reduced to ruin within days. The core of an apparently almighty state may rot from within, consuming both the innocent and the vile.

For this reason, nations must urgently work toward a fair, rules-based international order. The process must begin at home: states should design their own systems around fairness as a primary principle. An autonomous and responsible human individual is the best guarantee of any durable order. Only then will nations be capable of advancing a just and stable global order.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Living Civilization

A civilisation lives through its people. A flourishing civilisation retains its core values, takes pride in the deeds of its ancestors, preserves its legacies in art, literature, culture, and architecture, and continually renews itself with time in order to remain resilient and relevant. At the most basic level, a civilisation requires its people to remain alive to it, to be engaged with its traditions, enthusiastic about its future, and mindful that its inheritance is shared by all. It must cultivate a sense of belonging so that no section of society feels excluded or alienated from the civilizational whole.

History also reminds us that civilisations are not immortal. Many lands that once hosted great civilisations now bear little trace of the values, institutions, or material achievements of their past. Some survive only in fragments, in ruins, texts, and memories, while in other places, tradition and modernity stand at cross purposes rather than working in harmony. Civilisations decline or perish in many ways, through their own follies and internal decay, or by being weakened and sometimes destroyed by external aggressors. Dead civilisations serve as reminders that civilizational continuity cannot be taken for granted.

A true sense of civilisation must reside in every individual, accompanied by a critical awareness of both its strengths and its weaknesses. Blind reverence does not serve the cause of civilizational continuity. Reflection and honest appraisal are essential.

We Indians may take pride in belonging to one of the world’s most ancient living civilisations. Yet pride must be accompanied by vigilance, an awareness of past mistakes and a readiness to respond to the exigencies of changing times. Every generation carries a responsibility toward its civilisation, a duty owed to the ancestors who built it and an obligation to the descendants who will inherit it. Each generation must therefore preserve what is valuable, correct what is flawed, and carry the civilisation forward.

A civilisation may display dazzling grandeur to the observer, but it is also inherently vulnerable. Its survival ultimately depends on the consciousness, effort, and stewardship of its people.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Politics for Folks

Politics affects everyday life, regardless of the level at which it operates: local, regional, national, or international. Therefore, politics at any level, and especially international politics, must be a matter of general concern. The state of international politics has always been anarchic, but the present times appear unprecedented when considered in light of humankind's evolutionary stage.

What emerges from this scenario is that national power becomes critical for a nation’s well-being, security, and territorial integrity. Every nation must therefore have a balancing strategy not only against its immediate rivals but also against the world's most powerful countries. Otherwise, a stronger nation may dictate terms, occupy territory, forcibly extract natural resources, or compel others to pay tribute. Tragically, this remains the reality of the world today.

Among the factors that determine national power, technology is the most critical, with artificial intelligence in particular becoming decisive. Technological superiority has always influenced the outcome of conflicts, and today, with the flick of buttons, a country can overwhelm others through AI and autonomous, automated, intercommunicating machines.

However, something more human and more fundamental lies beneath this: how people live together within a polity. It concerns the quality of collective life and the management of common affairs. When people live in unity and harmony, with a shared sense of purpose, a nation becomes difficult to defeat. This depends on rationality, fairness, and mutual care. It also explains how even smaller nations can possess a strength that appears disproportionate to their geography, resources, and demography.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Soulful Poetry for Humanity

I once wrote a chapter compiling the political ideas contained in Goswami Tulsidas’ rendition of the saga of Shri Ram. Much later, I came to see that any effort to grasp such an epochal song through theory reduces it to what it was never meant to be. A work born of inward surrender cannot be contained within conceptual frames. Humanity needs soulful poetry more than theory, not because theory is without value, but because poetry speaks from a depth where the self does not assert itself. The great souls who immerse themselves in singing the essence of life serve humanity more profoundly than any theoretician, for they do not explain life; they become its voice.

Poetry may also cause irreparable harm unless poets become poetry itself, without any desire for glory or even the inward satisfaction of having created. The way it may be rendered is as it was by the Goswami. His songs flow from his heart as an outpouring of gratitude toward the Creator and of reverence for every being and thing in creation, permeated by unbounded love, without any sense of pride, vanity, or self-assertion. Such poets do not stand above their creation; rather, they sing as human beings in such inward anonymity that no creator remains separate from the song. Only then does poetry elevate rather than intoxicate. When we recite Goswami’s Ramcharit, we immerse ourselves in divinity, discover our own soul in its literary genius, and hear a voice so free of self that it awakens the human within us.

Niraj Kumar Jha