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