Ṛta and Dharma

Dharma is about knowing and calibrating one's conduct according to the ṛta, the universal law sustaining all and making existence possible. As human beings are not passive constituents of what exists, their actions must discern what sustains and what does not. It is about seeing reality as a whole, to the extent that its interconnections are decipherable, but from the vantage point of the immediate and the now. Keep in mind that the microcosm and the whole are interconnected and cannot be understood in isolation. Dharma is about moving back and forth between the big and the small. It may happen that all are doing their jobs right, but the ship sinks. Various permutations and combinations can cause a ship to sail or sink. The ṛta of human affairs informs us that all are responsible and, therefore, all must try to see things both as a bird and as a worm, and find synchrony between one's immediate dharma and the larger dharma. Beyond one's contingent dharma, one must fulfil one's human dharma by making an effort to know the larger truth and give space to the larger truth to unfold. In human affairs, ṛta does not enforce itself; its realisation depends on human dharma.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Intelligence: Super or Artificial?

It is not “super,” but a comprehensive and autonomous knowledge-processing system, and basically remains a human extension. The very word “artificial” indicates that it is a human creation, something that does not exist naturally but is brought into existence through human knowledge, ingenuity, and action. Artificial intelligence is therefore an exclusively human phenomenon: it arises from the uniquely human capacity to transcend the biological through knowledge, tools, and technology. Calling it “super” is like surrendering to an extension of ourselves and mistaking its power for superiority. Human extensions are meant to serve human safety, flourishing, and each member's autonomy. Yet poor common intelligence has produced a history in which extensions have come to dominate their creators. We must therefore be wary of this possibility.

Niraj Kumar Jha

सत्सभ्यता हेतु तन-धर्म

कहते हैं गांधीजी,
धर्म अर्जन का है,
धन परहित का हेतु हो।
धर्म मन का है,
आचार संवेदना का हो।

कर्म-धर्म से भी ऊपर
कहा और जीया उन्होंने।
वह तन का धर्म है,
रोटी के लिए कम से कम
स्वयं करे मानव श्रम।

वस्त्र-आभूषण और सौष्ठव,
अपनी जगह हैं,
इनसे सब के इतर
शरीर की भी अपनी
प्रतिष्ठा है।

उसका धर्म है,
साफ-सफाई रखना 

और मेहनत करना।

कहते हैं गांधीजी,
साफ-सफाई स्वयं रखो,
सेवा और उत्पादन हेतु
शरीर से उतना श्रम अवश्य करो
जितना मूल्य तुम्हारे
भोजन का हो।

बता गए हैं गांधीजी,
तन-धर्म का पालन भी
बहुत जरूरी है
सत्सभ्यता के पोषण हेतु।

नीरज कुमार झा

The Vocation of Political Theory

Is it about digging out the thoughts of the past? Is it an exercise in esotericism? Is it about speaking of cities of castles suspended in mid-air? Is it talking about exotic-sounding terms and concepts? Is it about shaping and polishing folk-tales? Partly yes, but only as side hustles.

One must bear in mind that political theory is primarily about humanity: municipal affairs figure in it, but they are not its substance. One must not forget the world's interconnectedness and how humanity as a whole affects the denizens of any location, or even those flying high above the ground at any moment, through its epistemological predilections and acts of omission and commission. Theory must address the big questions of the times and must offer something doable for humanity.

Its other side is much more micro: an individual's cognitive toolset and how they do and should conduct themselves. These are the two nodes that must be the primary concern of practitioners of the theory.

In between come the people practitioners encounter in their day-to-day lives. Their thrills and travails must be accounted for, and their implications must be understood. Determining the deeper realities behind them and finding ways to minimise their difficulties in tangible ways must be among the purposes of theory. Fashioning it as ethnic, mysterious, modular, barren, historical-accounting, demolitionist, or agentic-neutral is to undo theory.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Next Generation of Reforms

Businesses got some semblance of what they needed to function as the lifeblood of society in 1991, when not doing so had brought everything to a halt. It was then that the consequences of mistaken, ideologically driven policies had brought the economy to the bottom of an abyss, leaving it with no choice but to climb back to sanity, with the World Bank imposing the conditions for doing so.

Reforms continued haltingly, with forward and backward movement, and only to the extent that doing so did not lead to a major crisis. And yet, the reforms transformed living standards, accelerated the growth of the national economy, and contributed to the rise in national power and prestige. People old enough, and with a sound memory, can compare the times and know this. The fact remains, however, and it is a worrisome predicament, that there was no public support when reforms first forced themselves upon us, nor was there much public support for them later.

Now, the challenge from not doing enough is truly critical. Today, the greatest challenge is to withstand technological, trade and productivity competition internationally, while building leverage in terms of military and diplomatic prowess to protect national interests. Those who have an edge are relentlessly seeking to extend it further, by fair and foul means. The European nations, once masters of much of the globe, are, for instance, themselves reeling under pressure as they struggle to match the accumulated strength of the old superpower and the kinetic energy of the challenger. How to make the economy competitive is the moot question, and we can avoid it only at our peril.

Citizens must create an ambience supportive of the next generation of reforms so they can drive political parties and governments to talk about and pursue them. All must focus on aiding and supporting reforms, that is, on making it easier to do business sustainably.
Frivolity in our talk and actions may land us in dire straits.

Niraj Kumar Jha

To a Hot Peace

G2 - Cold War to Hot Peace! As the world may move from the Cold War to a hot peace, it must prepare for frostbites from heatwaves.

NKJ

Profit for Social Good

Profiteering is obviously not, but profit is a perfectly legitimate motive. Those who deny its legitimacy often aid, though inadvertently, the devils in their devilry. It is but natural; for instance, poets who sing of the transcendental also have a belly, and they cannot but help themselves by bargaining for a fee, though without recognising the incongruity between the two acts.

Shri Dhirendra Shastri told an interviewer very candidly, and quite rightly, on the issue of babas (holy men) commercialising their holiness: “I deliver moral discourses and receive offerings and spend the same for the needy.” This is perfectly fine.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Life or Scripted Drama?

Capitalism has never been an ideology. It has been, to use a phrase which its very opponent used to define freedom, the recognition of necessity. People recognised what was evolving and useful and articulated it; that, in turn, evolved as humanism, with liberalism as its cognitive script, constituted by democracy in the political sphere and capitalism in the economic domain.

Capitalism does not seek to extract particular human traits from human beings, nor does it question their innate humanity. It rests on the belief, or rather the truism, that human beings are free-willed, autonomous entities and are not meant to act according to a scripted drama. On this basis, they seek harmony of interests.

The irony, and indeed the ontological crisis, afflicting humanity despite its having discovered itself, that is to say, despite its coming to humanism, is that it fancies collectivism as a solution to the crises it often faces. For any problem, it seeks a reversal to the form from which it has evolved. The DNA often works against accumulated knowledge. The educated need to recognise that.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Ends and Their Means

Ends and their means are not simple affairs in public life. In public affairs, everyone is inescapably a participant, notwithstanding the distinction between activity and passivity, and everyone receives, in one form or another, whatever public affairs produce, whether pleasing or painful. Yet people hardly take note of the pains of common affairs, as those pains affect people in common, and they tend to take pleasures for granted, as though they were happening on their own.

The intellectual construction of collective ends is, in fact, a critical human need. Wicked people take benefit from weak, faulty, ill-organised, deficient, or manipulated conduct of public affairs that follows from misconceived or mistaken public ends. Their success can then convert their perversion into what they present as personal life goals for others, often within an idealistic framework. The earlier imperial and colonial authoritarian order provides an instructive instance. Its administration of public affairs essentially worked at the subjects' expense and for the benefit of the ruling people and their agencies. Yet the very positions and roles that were instruments of subjecting and imperilling the subjects became enviable possessions for aspiring people from among the subjects themselves, who came to regard attaining such positions as proud accomplishments of life. These roles could include even menial, hazardous, and degrading forms of service to the ruling power. This is only one instance. By the way, Mahatma Gandhi, in contrast, presented a thought for the reclamation of human worth.

Political Science is a far more serious intellectual engagement than what many of its practitioners make of it by merely regurgitating concepts and theories gathered from global history and presenting them fancifully as chapters of knowledge or, worse, though not relevant here, by inventing inconsequential but fanciful ideas merely for self-celebration. Let me elaborate on the first part of what I have just said.

A history chapter on the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, for instance, may conceal far more than it reveals. It can resemble a cinema that glorifies violence and makes violence thrilling while skipping the depiction of the prolonged, excruciating pain and the profound dislocations it causes to the sufferers and their kin among both the losers and the winners. The events are thus presented primarily through their dramatic political outcomes. In contrast, the human costs of those events, the stratagems of the people involved, and the devastating aftereffects recede into the background. The French Revolution was followed by a reign of extreme terror and unrestrained manslaughter, which later obliterated the distinction between the persecutor and the persecuted. Similarly, the Russian Revolution created a totalitarian regime that collapsed under the weight of its follies merely a few decades later.

In other words, the ugliest things can be masked as attractive. Violence can be made heroic, oppression can be made glorious, and often avoidable suffering can be presented as lofty idealism. One can comprehend the recurrent reality by looking at Orwellian depictions. The intellectual task of Political Science should therefore be not merely to recount political events, institutions, concepts, and theories, but to examine the ends being pursued, the means employed to pursue them, and, most importantly, the immediate and enduring human consequences of both.

Let me end this with an invocation of the Kalyan Mantra:

सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः।
सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु।
मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत्।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः॥

May all be happy. May all be free from illness and suffering. May all see what is auspicious and good. May no one suffer or be afflicted by sorrow. Om, peace, peace, peace.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Educationology

Perhaps the most critical component of civilised life figures least proportionately in our philosophical speculation and scientific studies: education, particularly its content and purpose.

The great masters of the past reflected deeply on education and wisely embedded it within larger moral, social, and political questions. Today, we face a widening lag and gap in our thinking about education itself.

In post-independence India, higher education was, to a considerable extent, turned into an instrument of ideological indoctrination, particularly into leftist thought. The resulting economic backwardness ironically weakened the system’s very capacity to absorb even the graduates produced by the technical education it offered.

We need to think about education, philosophise about it, and study it scientifically. Education is too vital to be left merely to educational practices, the fashioning of pedagogical nitty-gritty, or ideological preferences. We also need to weed out from the frameworks of education what may be called pseudo-education or anti-education.
We need Educationology: a systematic body of philosophical and scientific inquiry into education, its contents, purposes, methods, institutions, and consequences. A distinct discipline and dedicated schools of Educationology are critically needed to understand and strengthen this most vital component of civilised life.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Illusion of Redress

    The template of corrective politics, or perhaps the very ontology of protest, appears to exhibit a recurring problem across societies. The alternative they seek is often a more intense form of what they seek to oppose. The lack of individual security, dignity, opportunities, and purpose often brings people into the open, but they seek redress from an abstract collective entity rather than a safe, conducive ecosystem in which they can exercise their own agency and do things for themselves. Though history has repeatedly shown the limitations of such an approach, they still tend to see themselves primarily as members of an ethnic identity or economic class rather than as citizens, and hence the solutions to their challenges continue to elude them. The deeper problem may lie in this very tendency to look for solutions through collective intervention rather than in the creation of conditions that enable individuals to secure their own well-being, dignity, and purpose. People still have a tendency to imagine some form of transcendent intervention, as though the correction of their condition must come from an agency larger than themselves.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Public, the Private, and the Personal

The distinction between the public, the private, and the personal is vital to human good, dignity, and excellence, both in their recognition and in their proper roles. The public agency is meant to serve private entities so that they operate free of friction or coercion, and to protect the personal from external interference, so long as that does not harm others.

A civilisation distinguishes itself from barbarity by maintaining the sanctity of the private in terms of ownership, autonomy, safety, and ease. A civilisation that forgets this human principle invites either decadence and chaos or a lifeless solidity. The past and the present, history and politics, speak to no other conclusion.

Niraj Kumar Jha

जनतांत्रिक ज्ञानमीमांसा

जनतंत्र अपनी स्वयं की ज्ञानमीमांसा में निहित होता है; ऐसा अन्यथा हो ही नहीं सकता। इसकी आधारशिला व्यक्ति, उसके व्यक्तित्व और संपत्ति की सुरक्षा, उसके अभिकरण की स्वायत्तता तथा उसके अस्तित्व की गरिमा में निहित है। लोकतंत्र का जो आधार देखने में सरल प्रतीत होता है, उसे सार्थकता देने और बनाए रखने के लिए एक जटिल संस्थागत तथा सामाजिक व्यवस्था की आवश्यकता होती है। ऐसी व्यवस्था एक विकसित होती भौतिक और बौद्धिक सामाजिक अवस्था की अपेक्षा करती है, जो उसे निर्मित करने, बनाए रखने और निरंतर विकसित करने में सक्षम हो। यही कारण है कि जिन समाजों में इसके लिए आवश्यक सामाजिक और संस्थागत परिस्थितियाँ विकसित नहीं हुईं, वहाँ लोकतंत्र के लिए सार्थक जड़ें जमाना ऐतिहासिक रूप से कठिन रहा है। भारत में, हालांकि, लोकतंत्र जड़ें जमा सका, क्योंकि यहाँ इसकी गहरी सभ्यतागत विरासतें विद्यमान थीं।

विश्वभर में लोकतंत्र को टिकाए रखने के लिए आवश्यक ज्ञानमीमांसीय आधार अपनी गहराई और प्रतिबद्धता, दोनों में क्षीण हुए हैं। इस क्षरण की पहली बड़ी अभिव्यक्तियों में से एक नवउदारवादी व्यवस्था की पराजय थी, जिसे लोकप्रिय रूप से एलपीजी अर्थात उदारीकरण, निजीकरण और वैश्वीकरण के नाम से जाना गया। दूसरे, विभिन्न महाद्वीपों और सभ्यताओं में अनेक जनांदोलन, ऑक्युपाई वॉल स्ट्रीट से लेकर अरब स्प्रिंग तक, या तो निष्फल हो गए या ऐसे परिणामों में परिणत हुए जिनसे समाजों की स्थिति बेहतर नहीं हुई और कुछ मामलों में पहले से भी बदतर हो गई।

अब सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी (IT) और कृत्रिम बुद्धिमत्ता (AI) का उदय लोकतांत्रिक जीवन-पद्धति के सामने इससे भी अधिक गहरी चुनौती प्रस्तुत कर रहा है, जिसका मूल मानवतावाद और मानवीय गरिमा में निहित है। केंद्रीय प्रश्न केवल व्यवस्था-विचलन का नहीं है, बल्कि मानवता के एक बड़े हिस्से के लिए मानवीय अभिकरण और मेधा के क्रमशः अप्रासंगिक या अनावश्यक होते जाने का है। जब लोग स्वायत्त अभिकर्ता के रूप में कार्य करने की अपनी क्षमता, अवसर या प्रासंगिकता को क्रमशः खोने लगते हैं, तब लोकतंत्र की स्वयं की ज्ञानमीमांसीय आधारशिला कमजोर होने लगती है।

इसके लिए हमें अधिक गहन ‘प्रणाली-चिंतन’ की आवश्यकता है। हमें लोकतंत्र को केवल शासन-व्यवस्था या संस्थाओं के एक समूह के रूप में नहीं, बल्कि मानव अस्तित्व को जानने, उसका मूल्य निर्धारित करने और उसे व्यवस्थित करने की एक पद्धति के रूप में समझना होगा। अंततः लोकतंत्र का अस्तित्व इस बात पर निर्भर करेगा कि हम मनुष्य के पुरुषार्थ को संरक्षित कर पाते हैं या नहीं, और उसे केवल अधिष्ठानावलंबी प्रजा, उपभोक्ता अथवा लगातार अधिक स्वायत्त होती जा रही प्रणालियों के किसी स्वायत्त-प्रणालीगत प्रतिस्थाप्य घटक में बदलने से रोक पाते हैं।

नीरज कुमार झा

Democratic Epistemology

Democracy nests in its own epistemology; it cannot be otherwise. Its foundation lies in the individual, the security of the person and their possessions, the autonomy of their agency, and the dignity of their being. What appears to be the simple basis of democracy requires a complex institutional and social mechanism to give it substance and sustain it. Such a mechanism, in turn, requires an evolved social order capable of creating, maintaining, and renewing it. This is why democracy has historically found it difficult to gain substantive roots in societies where the requisite social and institutional conditions have not evolved. In India, however, it could take root because of its deep civilizational legacies.

Worldwide, the epistemological foundations necessary to sustain democracy have eroded in both depth and commitment. One of the first major manifestations of this erosion was the defeat of the neoliberal order popularly associated with LPG, or liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation. Secondly, across continents and civilisations, many popular movements, from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring, either came to nought or produced outcomes that left societies no better, and in some cases considerably worse, than before.
Now, the rise of ICE and AI poses an even more profound challenge to the desired democratic way of life, whose crux remains humanism and human dignity. The central issue is not merely technological disruption but the growing redundancy of human agency and faculties for a large section of humanity. When people increasingly lose the capacity, opportunity, or relevance to act as autonomous agents, the very epistemological foundations of democracy begin to weaken.

This calls for a deeper systemthink. We need to understand democracy not merely as a form of government or a set of institutions, but as a way of knowing, valuing, and organising human existence. Its survival will ultimately depend on whether we can preserve the human being as an agent, not merely as a subject of governance, a consumer, or a replaceable component of increasingly autonomous systems.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Vikasdharma: A Dharmic Theory of Development

The only sustainable path to national development is to allow people the greatest possible opportunities to participate in economic activities, subject only to such collective mediation as is necessary and justifiable. When individuals are able to engage in enterprise in a hassle-free environment, they create wealth, generate employment, and foster innovation, all of which contribute to national development.

Indeed, what is commonly described as negative liberalism I regard as positive liberalism. I view it from another, and arguably more realistic, perspective. By leaving initiative in the hands of individuals, particularly the entrepreneurial class, it expanded the scope of voluntary cooperation, enterprise, and civil society. While it is often criticised for producing economic inequality and exploitation, such criticism captures only one part of the historical experience. It is commonly argued that democracy evolved in opposition to exploitation and inequalities. which capitalism engendered. Yet the more substantive historical fact is that capitalism created the economic and social conditions that enabled people to organise themselves, demand a more humane life, and press for political rights. Prosperity generated resources, education, and an increasingly independent middle class, all of which strengthened the capacity for collective action.

The French Revolution of 1789 illustrates this dynamic. Although its causes were multiple, it occurred in one of Europe's most economically dynamic societies, where a commercially prosperous bourgeoisie had acquired sufficient economic strength to challenge the privileges of the ancien régime. More broadly, many institutions of civil society, voluntary associations, professional organisations, trade unions, and democratic movements flourished in societies where individuals enjoyed substantial economic freedom. Thus, rather than viewing liberal capitalism merely as the object of democratic opposition, it may also be understood as one of the principal conditions that made democratic mobilisation and civic advancement possible.

One must also keep in mind what capitalism replaced. It displaced a ruthless feudal order in which ordinary people were often treated little better than the property of their masters. Equally important is the fact that modern imperialism extended the capitalist model to the colonies in exploitative ways, and many of those societies eventually evolved into democratic political orders. This does not absolve imperialism of its sins, but it does suggest that some of the institutional and economic transformations associated with capitalism, most notably the emergence of a capitalist class and a market-based middle class, later provided conditions conducive to democratic development. These social groups acquired sufficient economic independence and organisational capacity to demand political representation, civil liberties, and constitutional government.

This is not to deny that regulations are necessary to prevent crimes, fraud, manipulation, breaches of trust, and other vile tendencies found among people. Nevertheless, the expansion of individual economic liberty has historically been one of the principal forces behind civic mobilisation, institutional development, and national progress. The challenge, therefore, is not to abandon laissez-faire but to optimise it by preserving economic freedom while ensuring that the state performs its essential functions of maintaining the rule of law, protecting competition, enforcing contracts, and preventing coercion, monopoly, and privilege.

The development school, in fact, confused the outcomes of capitalism with the conditions necessary for economic take-off in backward economies. Its emphasis on institutions, governance, property rights, infrastructure, education, and other structural prerequisites mistook the products of a successful developmental process for its primary causes. These institutions are undoubtedly important, but they are themselves the historical outcomes of a society in which informed human agency, entrepreneurship, voluntary cooperation, and economic freedom have been allowed to flourish. Development does not begin with institutions alone; rather, enduring institutions emerge from the cumulative exercise of responsible and productive human agency. It is this agency, more than the institutions it eventually creates, that constitutes the true foundation of development.

The concept of Dharma, in fact, predates the doctrine of laissez-faire by millennia. At its core lies a fundamental principle: the recognition of the proper sphere of individual action and the limits of external interference. Laissez-faire is but one modern economic articulation of this much older civilisational insight. I have invoked it only to explain the dynamics of development in the contemporary world. If we embrace the free-market principle, we are not merely borrowing a lesson from elsewhere; we are, in an important sense, rediscovering an insight long embedded in our own civilisational wisdom.

At its core, dharma enjoins each person to pursue one's legitimate pursuits without encroaching upon the legitimate sphere of others. Correspondingly, rajdharma requires the state not to direct or usurp the legitimate pursuits of individuals, but to ensure that no one interferes with others, violates justice, or undermines the common good. Its role is not to substitute individual initiative with bureaucratic control, but to preserve the conditions in which freedom, justice, and social harmony can coexist. Economic freedom, therefore, is not antithetical to the Indian conception of governance; rather, it is entirely consistent with a dharmic order in which individual initiative flourishes within a framework of justice, public responsibility, and the rule of law.

Viewed in this light, laissez-faire is neither a foreign prescription nor an imported ideology. It is a modern economic expression of a principle that Indian civilisation recognised long ago: individuals should be free to pursue their legitimate ends, while the state ensures that such freedom is exercised without injustice, coercion, or harm to others.

Niraj Kumar Jha

गणधर्म (Gaṇadharma)

The origins of republicanism can be traced to antiquity, yet it remains surprisingly underdeveloped as a conceptual category. Even today, there has been little sustained effort to distinguish it meaningfully from democracy. Republicanism is conventionally defined in opposition to monarchy, emphasising the absence of hereditary rule. Yet this negative definition leaves much unexplored. It says little about imperialism, even though the American republic emerged as much in opposition to imperial domination as to monarchical authority.

This conceptual limitation is reflected in the constitutional imagination of modern republics. One may consider the language of the earliest formal constitutions of the modern age. It is fundamentally a language of checks and restraints. Institutions are first created, powers are assigned to them, and then elaborate mechanisms are devised to regulate and balance those very powers. The assumption underlying this design is that power is inherently prone to abuse and must therefore be constrained through constitutional architecture. Constitutionalism, in this sense, is less a philosophy of public life than a technology of political management.

A striking contrast may be found in the concept of dharma. Rather than beginning with institutions, dharma begins with the individual as a duty-bound moral being. It conceives society as an organic moral order in which each person is connected to others through the conscientious performance of appropriate duties. The emphasis is not upon external restraints but upon the ethical formation of citizens and the cultivation of character. The primary safeguard of public life is therefore internal rather than institutional. Institutions certainly remain necessary, but they become secondary supports for a moral order rather than substitutes for one.

Modern republics have largely retained inherited institutional structures, adding little more than a democratic icing. Such cosmetic democratisation has not necessarily fostered a genuinely public ethos. Even the United States, arguably the most influential modern republic, exhibits significant tensions between republican ideals and the increasingly opaque and complex dynamics of contemporary politics. Constitutional checks, however sophisticated, cannot by themselves generate civic virtue, public responsibility, or a shared moral purpose.

The problem, therefore, is not merely institutional but conceptual. Republicanism has too often been reduced to a constitutional form of government rather than developed as a comprehensive philosophy of public life. If it is to remain relevant in the twenty-first century, it requires a fresh infusion of imagination and agency. It must move beyond defining itself by what it rejects, whether monarchy or imperial rule, and articulate a positive vision of civic virtue, public responsibility, dispersed power, and collective self-government. Such a reconstruction may also require republicanism to recover what constitutional design alone cannot provide: an ethical foundation that treats citizenship not merely as a bundle of rights and institutional relationships, but as a disciplined way of life grounded in duty, responsibility, and the pursuit of the common good.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Constitutional Devolution

What explains America's constitutional devolution? I do not know. One possible explanation is that, in a long period of material stability and prosperity, the need to remain entertained gradually becomes society's primary preoccupation. Entertainment begins to displace education, spectacle replaces civic formation, and, as a result, the constitutional culture slowly weakens. A constitution ultimately depends not only on legal institutions but also on citizens who possess the knowledge, habits, and discipline necessary to sustain it. When education yields to entertainment as the dominant cultural force, constitutional decline may follow.

Niraj Kumar Jha

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