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