An Invisible War

It would be the most closely watched war ever waged, but very strangely, it is a war hardly visible to us. The brutalisation of the Ukrainian people and the Russian lads, it seems, has been bargained for something else.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Life Package

People purchase travel packages because they get designed happiness. They undergo a drill and get a bottled gel of happiness. They can rub it on their faces whenever they like. While they are happying, their minds hibernate.

There are absolutist agencies. They offer life packages, which nobody is supposed/allowed to refuse. People do their biddings and get fulfilment as a reward.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Ecology of a Problem

A clearly identifiable social problem as a standalone phenomenon having its exclusive causes and consequences does not exist as such. Such a sifting and separating is an intellectual exercise only which is not the reality. The social conditions are highly diffused of things that go into their making. The point I want to make is that a social problem does not drop from the sky like a meteor but it occurs as a result of the prolonged crystallisation of effects of some dysfunctionality of social ecology. If we really care for society, we need to work on the ecology which feeds a problem. It's a long-drawn and thoughtful process.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Entertaiment

I stopped watching films long ago. They are disgusting as they recast general envy and sufferance as entertainment. They humiliate the rich and avenge the rogues. The fantastic storylines season people to believe that enterprise is evil and laws are useless. Moreover, these recurrent doses sedate people to tolerate their miserable lives. The pedagogues, products of doctrinaire disciplining themselves, only added to this oppressive mental state. They trained the scholars to believe in a forthcoming revolution and churned out possessed persons as graduates. Entertainment and education join forces to devalue enterprise and law and legitimate to disturbing extent patrons and persons to lord over their lives. 

Niraj Kumar Jha  

समस्या-मुग्धता

समस्याओं में सबसे बड़ी समस्या बहुतायत में लोगों का समस्या-मुग्ध होना है। अधिकतर समस्याओं का निदान, समाधान, या शमन संभव है। मेरा यह अवलोकन है कि जिनके विचार और व्यवहार के कारण समस्या उत्पन्न हुई है, वे ही अपनी कृत के उत्पाद से अनभिज्ञ समस्या को लेकर सबसे अधिक आंदोलित होते हैं। और, यह भी मैंने अकसर देखा है कि जो समाधान है उसका भी लोग विरोध करते हैं, विशेषकर वही लोग। यह अजीब सी नियति है, लोग समस्या का भी विरोध करते हैं और उसके समाधान का भी। शायद यह दासता की दीर्घावधि का परिणाम है कि समस्याओं की न्यूनता की स्थिति हमें असहज कर देती है। इससे भी बड़ी त्रासदी यह है कि समाधान के नाम पर समस्या-वर्धक युक्तियों को ही वरीयता दी जाती है। उदाहरण के लिए एक विदेशी मूल के अर्थशास्त्री ने पाठशालाओं को भोजशालाओं में बदलने की वकालत की और उसे मान भी लिया गया। परिणाम: न माया मिली न राम। अब उसी धारा के अनुयायी शिक्षा के स्तर को लेकर रूदन कर रहे हैं।

नीरज कुमार झा

The War in Ukraine

One view is that Ukraine provoked Russia. Another buttressing this is that Zellenskyy did not do well by not cowing down. These views state realism, and what these reveal to me is that realism inheres cowardice and opportunism. Realism is good only when it is not divorced from idealism. Realism must remain a tool, and must not become an end ever.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Education

Education, among others, is also about enabling the graduate to be in control. It should empower the initiate to know the essential ideas of living well and equip one with necessary life skills. Everyone should know the fundamentals of the economy, civic life, and health. For instance, when I say health I mean to say that a person should have a fair knowledge of diseases, their causes and cures. The first thing is that they should not fall ill, if fall ill, they must know the basics of cure, and further if the problems aggravate, the person should know enough not to be duped by the practitioners. The ancient university of Nalanda had a compulsory course on medicine for all the resident scholars. They knew it so well that only a healthy body possesses a good mind.

The fact is that our present pedagogy, a colonial graft, seeks to overawe pupils. It basically imparts the knowledge of big and extraordinary things, ideas over lived realities, the universals, the meta realities, but it strictly keeps away the students from learning how to negotiate with all those gigantic phenomena. They create wedges and counterpose norms against mores, ideals against practices, and learning against the living. Today's pedagogy forges the graduates only to fit in the different frameworks. A good number of people do learn the tricks of the trade, but the hard way through trial and error, or outside the ambit of formal education. In other words, they are trained primarily for clientelism. And, the greater part of the pedagogy is simply wasteful: the pieces of ideological stuff. In a nutshell, colonial education creates dependent personas: everyone is prepared to be cheated or exploited by others.

Niraj Kumar Jha