The Irony of the Grand

Elite educational centres are more prone to foolish ideas than commoners in their own living environments, as imperial and colonial regimes designed educational institutions from the outset to be secluded from common life. Their models are invariably based on walled campuses, grand architecture housing students and staff, and a sense of superiority among those entitled to live there. Consequently, they lose their cognitive anchorage in common life.

The feeling of being special and superior cuts them off from their own people, making them see themselves as emancipating angels rather than as one among those who are actually their kith, kin and compatriots. They thus often genuinely believe in grand ideas of the kind that Karl Popper analysed in The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Exceptions are too numerous for this proposition to be universally, or even widely, valid. Nonetheless, ideologies, theologies, and ethnic identities, refined and augmented within campuses, often override composite and organic life, and this has been a major problem. The reality is that commoners face life in its raw form and cannot afford not to know what is safe and what is perilous. Those who think that they can guide common folks to rise above their supposedly foolish ways are often fools themselves.

The tragedy is that grandiosed, fortified, and moatified idiocy often beats real wisdom in guiding human affairs, as it is psychologically overwhelming and has the backing of the collective and the centralised against the localised. A true educator would enable pupils and people at large to distinguish between the two.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Shubh Dhanteras: For National Wealth

धनात् धर्मः ततः सुखम्।

This fragment of a famous shloka says that wealth enables dharma, which is the begetter of happiness. I would add that wealth also brings security, and security gives peace. Moreover, wealth sustains culture and fulfils our aesthetic sense.

 
Another famous shloka says:
साहित्यसङ्गीतकलाविहीनः
साक्षात्पशुः पुच्छविषाणहीनः।
तृणं न खादन्नपि जीवमानः
तद्भागधेयं परमं पशूनाम्॥

The famous shloka translates as follows: A person devoid of literature, music and the arts is no better than an animal without a tail or horns. That he lives without having to eat grass is indeed the great good fortune of other animals. The critical and hidden dimension of this saying is that literature, music and the arts, which transform a bare biological being into a human being, all depend on wealth. Despite this, too many literary, cultural and artistic figures celebrate penury and renunciation, contrary to what they themselves aspire to and opposed to the national interest. This is not merely ignorance; it is deceitful conduct.

The very Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) repeatedly remind us that economic production is the belly of the body politic, which sustains its muscles, meaning military power. Yet, we nurture bad bacteria in the form of ideas that weaken the gut and eat into the muscles of the country.

Only through our ceaseless endeavour to optimise capacities, efficiency and cost-effectiveness can we stand our ground in the world. All those with a sense of responsibility and concern must focus on the processes that strengthen our position against others, particularly when many state and non-state actors are hell-bent on having their own way in total disregard for moral norms and fairness.

The critical fact is that national wealth is the principal determinant not only of our national well-being but also of our very existence. We must always remember that we are no longer facing a colossal dragon, but a dragonoid.

Wishing you all a very auspicious Dhanteras. Let its spirit guide your words and deeds.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Organisational Awareness

Bureaucracy is a form of organisation. It is the modern way in which people organise their public affairs or private enterprises. Max Weber identified it, delineated its features, and developed an ideal type of bureaucracy. Much of what people commonly criticise as bureaucratism is, in fact, the result of poor organisational design, inadequate procedures, and a lack of institutional awareness, rather than an inherent failing of bureaucracy itself.

Bureaucracy is rational: it pursues rational goals and operates through rational mechanisms. It is also legal: positions and procedures are determined by law or, within private organisations, by internal rules and bylaws. The people who work within the system are separate from the positions they occupy. These features make bureaucracy a rule-based, impersonal and predictable form of organisation.

Bureaucratic organisation can be appropriated even for irrational, unjust or devilish ends and pursued through equally undesirable means. The point here, however, is not the desirability, legitimacy or morality of the ends or means employed, but the organisational viability and efficiency with which the chosen course of action can be executed. Bureaucratic rationality is a property of the organisational mechanism; it does not, by itself, confer legitimacy on the ends pursued or the means employed.

This brings us to two essential considerations: the pursuit of the common good as the purpose of public organisation, and efficiency as a means of ensuring fairness and impersonality. Personnel should have minimal discretion, as the prescribed procedures should ordinarily suffice to ensure the proper functioning of the system, without requiring anything beyond ordinary professional competence. Its USP is its mechanical functioning, with human sensibility on the part of personnel being an integral part of its design and training, so that the system combines human consideration with mechanical efficiency. As opposed to affective and customary ways of working, the rational-legal approach is certainly more efficient and, if designed with human well-being in mind, works far better for human beings than other approaches. Bureaucracy by itself is only as good or as bad as it is designed to be and the way it is observed, but even its basic template offers a far more efficient form of organisation than humanity had evolved until then.

Knowledge of a process, combined with the desire to improve it, makes a system better, while ignorance and carelessness make it dysfunctional. Awareness and civic sense, or their absence, make a country better or worse.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Glocal Platforms: Reimagining India's Retail and E-commerce Ecosystem

Grocery and kirana stores face stiff competition from e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms, a competition that is proving increasingly difficult, and for many, impossible, to survive. This raises a few important issues and possibilities.

1.    Why did India fail to emerge as a pioneer in e-commerce?    Despite its extensive trading network and large pool of software experts, India could not develop a pioneering e-commerce ecosystem. It certainly had the capacity to do so, as demonstrated by its success in the field of digital payments.

2.     Can traditional kirana stores adapt and reinvent themselves? They can still align their businesses with an indigenous digital platform. Each store could function both as a bright store, a conventional, customer-facing retail outlet that also fulfils online orders, and as a dark store, a dedicated fulfilment centre for online orders. They could also integrate their operations with local suppliers and producers, thereby creating a locally rooted supply and distribution network.

3.     Leveraging personal relationships and trust: A local retailer can retain and attract loyal customers by offering a line of credit to trusted customers, continuing the traditional practice of maintaining khatas (credit accounts), with customers settling their dues periodically, often at the end of each month. Such personalised relationships and trust-based arrangements can give local retailers a distinctive competitive advantage. Digital platforms can facilitate the maintenance of these accounts and make the transactions more transparent and convenient.

4.    Integrating farmers and producers: Farmers growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, cereals, honey, milk, and other products can learn to sell directly by integrating with this network. With appropriate packaging, storage and supply chains, they can market their produce far and wide, reaching consumers beyond their immediate localities. SMEs, too, can participate in this network and benefit from its wider reach.

5.     Building cooperative platforms: Better still, local retailers, farmers and producers can form cooperatives and pool their resources to develop their own digital platforms. These cooperatives can then cross-connect their platforms with those of other cooperatives, creating an interconnected network of locally owned marketplaces.

6.     Reinventing existing platforms: Existing e-commerce platforms can also reinvent themselves by aligning more closely with local suppliers, producers and shopkeepers, while extending their networks and operations globally.

7.     Taking the model global: If Amazon and Walmart can do business in India, why can't Indian enterprises and cooperative platforms do the same in the United States and other continents? There is no reason why India should remain merely a market for global e-commerce companies rather than become a global player in its own right.

The larger idea is to build Glocal Platforms, combining local roots with global reach. Such platforms would integrate kirana stores, farmers, producers, artisans, SMEs and other local businesses into interconnected digital networks. They would draw upon existing local resources, relationships and infrastructure while enabling businesses, however small, to access wider national and international markets. This would combine the advantages of local participation and decentralised ownership with the efficiencies and reach of digital commerce.

The point is to compete and serve your customers better. Think and act, or perish. The only thing you can blame is your own lack of imagination and action. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Left in Poverty

Leftism thrives on poverty and wretchedness. It is the impoverishment of imagination, arising from deprivation and suffering, that makes people vulnerable to leftist ideas. Once these ideas permeate the imagination of a people, reclaiming their intellectual independence becomes exceedingly difficult.

In countries that have experienced prolonged tyrannical rule, sustained poverty or prolonged decline, people become particularly susceptible to such ideas. Once entrenched, they tend to persist across generations. In such countries, even the Right often turns out to be the Left, albeit wrapped in an exotic cloak.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Empire Out of Foolery

The European kingdoms and their companies could colonise much of the world because they had developed superior imaginative and cognitive capabilities, which they translated into technological, financial, military and organisational power. They had developed the skills to train their minds and overwhelm others' imaginations. It is hardly surprising that they could extend their control over lands far removed from their homelands, using the manpower and resources of the colonised territories to sustain and expand their own domination. The reality is not very different even today.

Companies from developed countries can run highly profitable businesses abroad by using the manpower and resources available there. This can go to the extent that they sell their products and services back to the very countries in which they are produced. Ironically, the countries hosting these foreign ventures often find it difficult to do better without them.

Nations vie with one another to attract capital. But what is capital? It is, fundamentally, a product of imagination and cognition. Capital is intellect translated into productive activity through operations and management. Intelligent people engage in what may be called capital farming: they mobilise and organise the resources and energy of others to generate wealth, while the rest serve within the systems they create.

The lesson of the modern world is that the foolish merely cry and complain, while those who dominate derive even sadistic pleasure from their subordination.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Distracted

For a large part of the world, the world is becoming not only hazardous but also increasingly difficult to navigate. The existing superpower and the emerging one are aggressively expanding their leverage, making other countries increasingly vulnerable to their pressure. India has little choice but to become a superpower itself, as it too faces these predatory pressures.

India has immense potential, but the challenges involved in realising it are equally formidable. What we witness on a daily basis is that people generally fail to focus on matters of critical importance.
Ease of doing business is one such obvious priority. India, being the most populous country in the world, must have the highest ease of doing business. Greater ease of doing business simply means more people being able to realise their potential.

The global competitiveness of Indian companies is another critical necessity. Indian corporations must be able to operate across the world, and India must have a greater share of Fortune 500 companies.

Thirdly, India must become a global educational hub, attracting students and experts from across the world to learn and enhance their skills.

Fourthly, we must have hospitals offering the best and most advanced medical services, attracting people from all over the world for treatment. We must also have clean cities, unpolluted rivers, and green mountains. India has immense tourism potential, yet its realisation remains meagre.

Fifthly, our universities must be elevated to a level that justifies their very existence as universities. They must be centres of world-class research, pioneers in cutting-edge technologies, and custodians of morality and aesthetics.

There are so many things that need to be done, and so much untapped potential waiting to be realised.

And what are we discussing? What are we actually doing?

Niraj Kumar Jha