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