The Age of Mass Creativity

We are in an age of mass creativity. During earlier times, creativity was mainly the preserve of the privileged, and, to an extent, the indulgence of the recluse. Now under this age of virtually extended and technology-enhanced life, most people have the leisure and other means to get creative. It is the age of each person having access to their mind. Here the takeaway is this: the communities allowing greater freedom to their constituents would leap forward as the future affairs would be more amorphous affairs of the mind. The communities seeking more compliance and conformity would be the communities of laggards, wretches, and rogues. In fact, we are on the cusp of a massive shift, i.e., the transformation of human beings from largely labouring people to creative people. The question is: who would be the pioneers of the new age?

Niraj Kumar Jha

Capitalism and Democracy

I reiterate, as I find it necessary to do, that democracy is a by-product of capitalism. It was when capital (money) became the lifeblood of social relations, the people rose to the state of autonomy and dignity, which define human worth during modern times. It evolved out of the discovery of man and his mind that led people to the order of capital, and the resultant autonomy of human beings furthered the rise of democracy over time.

This is the European story. In India, the spirit of human freedom is rather ancient. The invisible hands, which work behind the free market, appeared very early in India, and the ancient pioneers made it even better by curating it as per the standards of Dharma. India prospered, celebrated life, and included all in the festivities. North India, which faced decline earlier than South and consequent subjugation, saw its high time during the reign of the Guptas. The Guptas minted the largest number of gold coins in Indian history.

The present dismay of the democratic world on the democratic decline is ironic. The greater number of literati positioned themselves in opposition to neoliberalism. They held neoliberalism responsible for every conceivable ill, and never realised that neoliberalism manifested the invisible agency of humanity, which had caused the tearing down of walls, very literally, beginning from Berlin, which held humans and their soul captive to the whims of a few. The process was bringing the world together, promising peace and common prosperity but the entrenched forces closed their ranks and sabotaged it. Now, the literati, who parroted the concerns of powers that be, in their success lament the very outcome of their endeavour.

I pray.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Religion

Religion, unavoidably embedded in human consciousness, is an inevitability of existence. It is a must for humanity to be on the watch for the response being converted into a call and for aggravations of what it seeks to respond to.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Democratic Internationalism

1. The rise of authoritarian regimes with acute ideological and theological justifications in the powerful countries of the world has not only unsettled the international order but has also adversely affected the democratic norms and practices within national politics elsewhere.

2. The hope of an interdependent and fair international order, which emerged in the 1980s and the 1990s is now completely shattered. The GATT negotiators and the WTO participants were driven by crass national interests, none took the cause of humanity. Moreover, the efforts to get mechanical rules through only made the whole mechanism inoperative.

3. The root of all these was that the world united to wreck the very vehicle, which was driving the world towards the new order of freedom and unity, which was then known as LPG.

4. Now, there is a hue and cry in the democratic pockets all over the world about the slide of democracy. This is the most ironic of phenomena; they wish to revive democracy with rhetoric without taking its causation into consideration.

5. What is needed in the world is to revive the spirit of neoliberalism, and reinforce its facilitating mechanism. The WTO should be vested with real jobs and all must back it very tactically to sideline the global rogues.

NIraj Kumar Jha

Revolution and Transformation

Good changes occur in the domain of thinking and viewing, and it transforms the world imperceptively over time without causing disruption and pain. The intense occurrences of destruction and violence, which is often called revolution, is social ineptness in intellectualism, or epistemology. Knowing is an endeavour of disprivileging dogmas, but it occurs quite contrarily. And the resultant outcome of the pursuit of mistaken knowledge is violent ruptures, the worst of which we call a revolution. The so-called revolutions only prolong the good, which is otherwise destiny undergoing realisation.

NIraj Kumar Jha

Knowledge

About its perilous bearing and beingness of good

Ordinarily, knowledge destabilises the inner space and discomposes the inner man, but provides the constituents of goodness we all cherish. Here, I mean 'ordinarily' as concerning people who do not have the airs of being extraordinary and by 'knowledge,' that of the serious kind, not of the general knowledge type, substantive, not formal and procedural.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Incomprehensible

I find it so. Why do common citizens feel sorry for the privatization of government-held companies? The recent case is Air India; I see many people crestfallen. Why so, notwithstanding the fact that the governmentalization of Air India was an act of usurpation, to begin with? As long as air transport was a government monopoly, only a minuscule minority could afford it. The overwhelming number of flyers today are first-generation flyers in India, and it happened only because of privatisation. Present-day aviation employs and serves a far greater number of people and generates considerable revenue for the government, instead of being a sink of public money.

Learn to respect your intellect and yourself.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Utopiated

A commoner is trained to think in a transcendental mode. He always basks under greatness; those of opportunities, heavens, utopia, and whatnot. He is perpetually about to board the bus, the elusive bus that never arrives. So opiated, he only messes up what he has, misses what he can have, and cannot think of what he should have.

Niraj Kumar Jha

मेरी बातें

अपनी बातें कहना अपना जीवित और मनुष्य होने को सुनिश्चित करना है। यह जीवन और मनुष्यता का दायित्व भी है। मैं इसलिए अपनी बातें कहता हूँ और दूसरों की सुनता हूँ।

और, जब मैं अपनी बातें कहता हूँ तो निश्चित ही मैं चाहता हूँ कि वे वार्तालाप में बदलें। हालांकि मैं बातों के अभीष्ट लक्ष्य की प्राप्ति के प्रति निर्लिप्तता का भाव भी रखता हूँ और बातों को उन्हीं के भरोसे छोड़ देता हूँ।

इस संदर्भ में मैं अपनी अपेक्षाओं को भी व्यक्त करना चाहता हूँ और वैसा ही अभी कर रहा हूँ । मैं अपनी बातों से सहमति के बजाय असहमति को अधिक पसंद करता हूँ । दूसरा, मैं चाहता हूँ कि सहमति और असहमति दोनों ही तर्कपूर्ण और/अथवा अनुभवजन्य अभिव्यक्तियों के साथ हों। तीसरा, इस संदर्भ में मैं किसी के द्वारा सहमति के कारण को स्पष्ट किए जाने के प्रति अधिक जिज्ञासु रहता हूँ । सहमति का कारण जानना मेरे लिए ज्यादा महत्वपूर्ण है। वास्तव में मैं अकारण सहमति को उसी तरह की असहमति से भी बुरा मानता हूँ। अंतिम, मैं वैसे व्यक्तियों और सोशल मीडिया के संदर्भ में वैसे पोस्टों को बिल्कुल पसंद नहीं करता जो दूसरों के प्रति सम्मान के भाव से रहित हों अथवा अश्लील और भद्दे हों। इस बात का हमेशा ध्यान रखा जाना चाहिए कि सार्वजनिक मंच की, निजी सम्प्रेषण के माध्यमों से अलग, अपनी मर्यादा होती है ।

ऊपर लिखी मेरी अपेक्षाएँ आकांक्षारहित हैं। यह लिखने के बाद किसी के द्वारा गलती से भी किसी तरह के बोझ लिए जाने के लिए मैं उत्तरदायी नहीं हूँ। आप जैसे हैं, अच्छे  हैं। मेरी शुभकामनाएँ।

नीरज कुमार झा

प्रश्न और उत्तर

उत्तर प्रश्न का अंत है। स्वाभाविक है कि प्रश्न उत्तर से बचना चाहेंगे। दूसरी तरफ, उत्तरों का भी अहं है, वे प्रश्नों से स्वतंत्र अस्तित्व बनाए रखना चाहते हैं । आम जीवन की सहजता के लिए प्रश्नों का अपने बने रहने की हठधर्मिता और उत्तरों की निरपेक्षता की प्रवृत्ति को पहचाना जाना जरूरी है ।

नीरज कुमार झा

Cognitive Upgrade

Advancing to a higher level of cognitive skills and competence for any individual or group is not an easy passage. It requires training for learning and actual learning, and in addition, it needs accessible resources. Most of the collective cognitive abilities, which sustain, for instance, our democratic order, came to us as gifts from our old scholastic traditions, humanist thoughts of thinkers from different civilizations, and many of the gifted personas which we are fortunate enough to have. And, as a result, we could overcome the formal arrangement, which was nothing more than colonial and ideological epistemological traps. So far, we have done fairly well but a constant, conscious, and organised revitalisation of our cognitive skills is a vital necessity. It does happen on its own but the lag and chaos of anarchic ways costs.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Vanishing of Greeting Cards

The disuse of hard cards by their replacement by virtual cards is a lesson to be learnt with care. The problem, which I seek to underscore here, is not the virtualisation as such but what entails the process in particular and what it represents in terms of general changes affecting us. The virtualisation of greeting cards with its ease and zero cost as a means of greeting literally led to its trivialization and even worse it became somehow irksome as part of the number of messages flooding our media spaces. This is something getting upside down, treasured receipts turn into a bothersome burden. Not going into further specifics of the speculation, I would say that many of the old things are going to be in disuse and many novel thing things are bound to be in vogue. And, the overall direction is towards greater humanisation of human beings. But, we need upgraded intellect and recalibrated agencies to harness the new to our benefit.

Niraj Kumar Jha

आज का भविष्य

विगत के दीपक का तेल खत्म हो चुका है और इस समय सूखी बाती फफक रही है। भविष्य हमारी दुनियाँ में तेजी से घर कर रहा है और यह वाला पहले के भविष्यों से बिल्कुल अलग और बहुत बड़ा है । इस आगत के सामने तमाम विगत नितांत बौने हैं। यह तय है कि यह बड़ा होने वाला हमारे पक्ष में ही होगा, लेकिन उलटा करवट बैठ गया तो निकट भविष्य में बहुत कष्ट देगा। लिखने का आग्रह यह कि सुधीजन के लिए विगताग्रहों से यथोचित मुक्त होकर भविषयोन्मुखी होना ही उपयुक्त है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Ideologies

Ideologies are utilities. An ideology barricades minds from venturing into the dreadful domain of meaninglessness. But, these become vile when they impose the heavier burden of meanings on the human mind.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Ideology

Ideologies restrict, but these conduce life. Present times cry for some new ideologies, as the old ones are now abysmally dated. The ancient Indic wisdom may help in a better recasting of the body of ideas for guiding life. Though its binaries-free envisioning and its knowledge of reality as ever-unfolding are not compatible with ideologisation, the perspective would help any ideological venture for making it more flexible and accommodative and serve the human cause better.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Need for Internationalism

No nation is an isolated island. A troubled nation causes troubles for every nation. And, any lapse in any part of the world is an international hazard. This is the time for greater internationalism. The pandemic is a horrific warning, and we cannot wait for a bigger calamity. Already, the environmental crisis threatens the very existence of mankind. The nations of the world need to unite and enforce internationalism. We must have effective international agencies to monitor the affairs of the world.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The artificiality of Being Deficient

It appears that everyone feels to be special, and the amazing truth is that it is so. But, when some people try to impose their specialness on others, it becomes troublesome for the rest. One must be at peace with one's specialness and respect the speciality of fellow beings. But, why does this happen that some are hyper in proving themselves some suffer the non-recognition of being special without any obvious reason? One, therefore, must deconstruct the formations and practices, which deny our specialness to us in some way or the other. The bottom line is that everyone is special but the exhortations and the urge to prove it is an artificiality of being deficient.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Early Retirement

The idea of early retirement, in vogue in the West for a long time, has caught up very fast in India too off late. It means two things: first is the good one that a good number of people can afford to save, and second is not so that the working ecology is troublesome. For, the first we must thank the liberalization process, which values good work and has gained some ground amidst overwhelming collectivist tendencies. And for the second issue, the policy and public intellectuals must think over how to make work fulfilling and enjoyable.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Conflict and Declining Agency of Democracy

Conflicts we see today are the conflicts among the variants of the same sentiment. The sentiment by its property is conflict causing. It is leftism: the ancient proclivity of some men to believe in being the Master or the Messanger. The successful ones let the imagined control the real.

 

Another associated problem is the declining agency of democracy, humanism operationalised. We need to extricate democracy from leftism and restore humanism.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Normalising the Normative

The gap between the normal and the normative is the most treacherous field. It is in this space the progress and the regress battle each day. The normative invariably seeks to meta-normalise or abnormalise the normal, and the normal is perennially distressed by being ever wanting in its efforts to adopt the commands of the pioneers and priests of the norms. What we need is to normalise the normative so that everyone is at peace with themselves.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

A University

A university is a community of scholars working with the universe of knowledge, i.e. discovering, refining, preserving, and disseminating the knowledge. At a university, scholars are divided by their specialisations but united by the purpose of integrating and advancing knowledge at any level of human existence. Each specialisation contributes to the knowledge, its methods and purposes. And, being a community, the members of the university learn from each other even by their most casual interactions. Thus, the knowledge advances more in an informal manner in a university. A university is above all an association for the mission: the collective good.

A nation's state and the people's life depend on the quality of universities. Greater goodness has no other means to itself. It must not be missed that university at its core is not an administrative unit or a specialised institution of learning. And, great universities grow supported by nourishing soil. The issue is to allow universities to take their own shape organically. They must be fully autonomous and largely self-sustaining and guarded against any influence which inhibits the faculty of any member in a negative way.

The functional universities where knowledge is alive and speaking sustain societies in their goodness. It's not the other way round.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Celebratism

Social media activities betray a grave social evil: celebratism. The obsessive desire of being feted, though it remains elusive for the most, is turning out to be pathetic. Part of this malady is that if people have nothing to represent or express, they post content about 'celebrities' and wish to be seen in the reflected light. Fine, but it's not exactly fine. One neglects the issues and persons really affecting his or her life, and does harm to self and society. And very tragically compromises one's dignity without realising this. One must represent purpose and relevance, and speak of his or her existential space on the main.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Education Online

Education is now heavily online. It creates great opportunities as well as poses grave threats to the education sector. Education is now truly international as students seek multiple skills and certifications. Institutions and organisations would compete for students globally. The prospective learners would also scout for the most suitable courses/additional courses internationally. And the great race would have its winners and losers in which the size, reputation, and efficiency of an entity would be the determining factors. The process would have a homogenising tilt too. We also must get ready to make the best of the opportunities and ward off the threats.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Knowledge and Ignorance

It seems that almost every person is highly annoyed by ignorant people. And, add insult to injury, the person feels the others being stubbornly resistant to learn. What appears to me is that people are more knowledgeable or less knowledgeable. And it is the same thing as being less or more ignorant. But, it is all contextual. In fact, the real test for being learned, as I can see, is not about the quality or quantity of knowledge one possesses but is about the approach. Kabir had put it very succinctly, and irrefutably, that knowledge is love. And as it is ontologically, so it is epistemologically. Knowledge is valuing knowledge and the continuous drive for knowledge. On the mundane level or on the practical plane, knowledge and ignorance is a critical issue as it may be a matter as grave as the occurrence of avoidable large-scale deaths. And in general, it involves the quality of life, which may be unnecessarily quite abysmal for a larger number of people in a given society. And the reason for the tragedies and the abysmal living, intriguingly maybe the very successful implementation of the operating ideas held as knowledge by the society. What is the way out? Again knowledge, more than about knowing, is one's commitment towards it. One must engage with other people with love and respect in order to enable the person to avoid ignorant ways and go for knowledge-based options. When such engagement takes place with affection and respect, there is an equal chance of realising that what one considers knowledge is wholly or partially fallacious or irrelevant. And, there is no other way than the shared civic pursuit of knowledge for improving our living experience.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Making of a Phenomenon

The social phenomena are continuously in making as heaps or layers over the earlier set of phenomena but such conversion of making into a phenomenon is in fact cast and that is by the recognition and understanding of the making. The articulation of the making brings forth the phenomenal form. Formation or deformation, or disappearance of the making, thus depends on the preexisting and operative knowledge system.

Misunderstanding of or misplaced intellectualism about social realities as a result of epistemological inadequacies, in fact, distorts social realities in very material terms. The existing or emerging realities of social state are only like building materials, the architecture is mostly intellectual.

 

Niraj Kumar Jha

Recognition of Necessity

You can check the flow of some water, but you cannot change the flowingness of water. Recognising the necessity is crucial. M was not wrong with everything.

 
NIraj Kumar Jha

Dharma and Religion

Now, a great number of Indians have come to realise that Dharma is not religion. Most of the earlier narratives in English used religion for Dharma and even now the practice mostly goes on despite the growing realisation. But even those who know about these phenomena mostly see these only in terms of variance. The greater fact is that these phenomena exist not in variance but in total contrast. Dharma is about nature but is not paganism, it is rather a philosophy as well as the science of coexistence: of harmony, first, among human beings, and, then, among beings, and, further, among beings and things. And more pertinently, Dharma though talks of the essence, but the finding of the essence is an evergoing quest. It does not accept the finality of anything. The Gayatri Mantra, the most recited and holiest of all in the Hindu life, only seeks the sharpness of intellect and by that a clearer vision of the reality, which may be existent and which may not be so. Religion in contrast is about superseding nature and about the end of the human quest. Such opposites can be multiplied to great numbers and that would not be such a great discovery but the unfortunate thing is that a ceiling is mistaken for the sky. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Indigenizing Political Theories

Political theories are important. They help people to comprehend, conceptualize, and operationalize political processes systematically, which in turn make their living better. In our case, most of the political theories we use have Western origins, which is the case with other parts of the world as well. There has been a clamour for indigenizing the political theory, a sub-discipline of political science concerning theories. This is something of a wrong persuasion.

 

India has a long tradition of political theorisation, but after getting independence, it relied heavily on Western theories and institutions to situate itself in the comity of nations. In fact, the global order itself was a Western architecture and shaped the rest of the world as per the design.

What about Indianising political theory? In fact, quite a good number of Indians have theorised quite distinctly and made their mark globally. Their theories indeed contain a lot of Indianness.

Notwithstanding all these seminal interventions in the field of political theory, the Indians feel their presence is not mainstream and if some of them are in the mainstream, they hardly represent India but the same orientalism they started by decrying. Hence the clamour for indigenisation.

In fact, the geographical origins of ideas are irrelevant if we take into consideration how does an idea serve humanity. The Westerners theorised the processes intensely and coherently and the resultant theories and institutions rule the world. It is not as if they brewed ideas with racial flavour or geographical spicing. They were only rigorous in accounting for their experiences.

In fact, what we need is not indigenising theory but to theorise well and by doing so we will not theorise only for ourselves but for the world as a whole. It is only a matter of quality. The richness and complexities of our experiences occasion greater scope for greater ideas. For that, we need something very banal - rooted educational institutions.

NIraj Kumar Jha

बैंकिंग सेवा का #नागरीकरण*

नियति और नियंताओं का आभार कि बैंकिंग सेवा नागरीकरण की दिशा में अग्रसर है । उद्योग और वाणिज्य सरकार के कार्यक्षेत्र में नहीं आते हैं, यह सभ्य समाजों की स्थापित समझ है । अन्य के साथ बैंकिंग सेवा का सरकारीकरण बोलशेविक संक्रमण का परिणाम था, जिससे आज के भारत का जागरूक और गरिमायुक्त नागरिकसमाज मुक्त होने की स्थिति में है । इससे न मात्र उपभोक्ताओं का लाभ होगा बल्कि सेवियों के सम्मान और प्रतिदान में भी भारी बढ़ोतरी होगी ।

* सरकारी उद्योग-धंधों का नागरिक स्वामित्व में अंतरण की प्रक्रिया की संज्ञा के रूप में 'निजीकरण' शब्द का प्रयोग मेरी समझ से उचित नहीं है । प्रत्येक उद्यम लोक-उद्यम होता है, भले ही पारिभाषिक रूप से उसका स्वामित्व कुछ भी हो । मैं 'निजीकरण' के स्थान पर 'नागरीकरण' शब्द प्रयोग कर रहा हूँ, जो मुझे उपयुक्त लगता है, और मैं ऐसा प्रस्तावित भी करता हूँ ।

नीरज कुमार झा

The Tyranny of Language

Of all the tyrannies, the worst tyranny is that of a language. A single idiom or a single expression may survive generations of women and men and may dictate life in such a way that the most tyrants would envy to ensure their sway like that. At another level, expressions frozen in time endlessly produce tyrants. We must be very careful about powerful expressions, in particular, about lasting expressions.

There are some examples:

“There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.”

“State is the march of God on Earth.”

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

Niraj Kumar Jha

Civilization

The government-owned businesses were very tragic economic anomalies. These anomalies are being removed now, and the de-governmentalization trends today. The process is termed 'privatization,' but one can see that the term is not compatible with the idea it seeks to convey. The very nature of capital, personal money deployed for gainful provisioning and servicing of the society, is social. The deployment of personal money in the economy brings people into a very fulfilling association. The easier and the less taxed the process, the wealthier and happier are the folks. And, as such a company gets its status changed from being government holding to the civil* ownership, the process may be called civilization. The word civilization must be assigned this good and human good meaning, and the meaning is hardly different from its original meaning. One needs to distinguish a civilization from primitivism to know that the proposed extra meaning does not bring any variance to the effect of the word.

*civ·il (sĭv′əl)
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or befitting a citizen or citizens: civil duties.


Niraj Kumar Jha

Discoursing

Though I am not seen like that, the enduring fact is that I am a professional discourser; I am paid basically for that. And, as such, I explain the basics of discourse to my audiences and one of those is this. The first task of discourse is simplification so that you have the foundational understanding, which is a necessity for getting into understanding. And the second task is to complicate: to look for the interplay of realities and possibilities to the limit when our faculty finds itself unable to go further. First is meant to introduce them to understanding, and second to the limits of understanding. These are two ends but the main concern is to identify the takeaways, i.e. to work knowledge to make it work for the general good (general because the basic orientation of my discipline is not imparting some skills). The bottom line to me is to go to the fundamentals and to get back without becoming fundamentalist and to plan the journey in a way so that it is beneficial to one and all.

Stating the obvious but people need to realize this obvious rather badly.

Niraj Kumar Jha

चित्रण है

नाम, अर्थ, और मूल्य,
जो हमने नियत किए हैं,
और जो सीखे हैं,
वही असीम सागर में
जीवन की नाव है ।
ज्ञान-इंद्रियाँ जुटाती है रंगें,
मस्तिष्क उकेरता है तस्वीरें,
तस्वीरें दिखाती हैं प्रसंग;
अस्तित्व-बोध चित्रण है,
गोचर मात्र चित्रित है।
प्रतिबिंब है,
रंगें हैं,
चित्रण है,
चित्रण जीवन है,
चित्रण अभिकरण है ।

नीरज कुमार झा

Children of the Moment

Regeneration of folks, which took centuries or even millennia, not so long ago, is happening in spans of months or years these times. The folks regenerate themselves in their lifetimes only, and in a continuing way. And in their every avatar, they are more children of the moment than that of the past times.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Republicanism

Democratism, as a conceptual category and as practice, gets all the attention. Another very powerful idea, closely resembling this and perhaps for this reason only, has been grossly overlooked. Republicanism has great potential as an idea or concept, and its non-realization leaves civic life much poorer than it could have been in the case of realization. Democratism as an idea is highly susceptible to monarchism on the one hand and demagoguery on the other, and worse it provides cozy nesting of ideologies of all hues. The Republican idea calls for cutting emotions and all such deviations which seek to deprive people of their happiness (or to induce them to opiated bliss). It is the rationalization of order, which aims at ensuring that each one has all the chances of self-fulfillment. It seeks the paramountcy of science and civics in life. Residues of monarchist and feudal forms, norms, and mores are still quite burdensome. They choke human senses and sensibilities.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Aesthetics

The irony is that it was feudalism that nursed 'the finest' what humanity could achieve in arts, aesthetics, literature, and architecture. The values which hallmarked feudalism, like chivalry, honor, glory, paternalism, devotion, loyalty are still regarded highly by so many. All these happened with their monumental glory amidst the perpetration of now unimaginable brutalities and the most dehumanizing denials, The forms, and the values still hold our fancies, and perhaps even define our ideals; win our admiration, and evoke our veneration. What is this? 

There is something utterly disgusting. The displays, constructed, gathered out of the pools of blood,  sweat, cries of pain, sighs of soul, evoke our aesthetic senses; lords' love songs give us a heavenly feel.

There is something utterly disgusting. We must refashion aesthetics,  

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Indian Democracy

India remains a robust democracy. Sections of citizenry freely exercise their right to oppose what they choose to do so and the government shows remarkable restraint in negotiating its way. The majoritarianism, which is spoken about ad nauseam, is apparently not a reality as all possible views are in the public domain, no matter how much one grudges the other view. All these have few parallels in the world.

At the same time, we cannot ever be complacent. National unity is a critical issue, and we must do everything possible for strengthening it. We must counter the designs which seek to disrupt social harmony and economic growth and simultaneously must nurse an ecology that inspires all to partake in the national resurgence.

Further, this is the time we must come up with great ideas: ideas which get not only our country but the whole world, every inhabitant of this planet, to one's best ever. Only we Indians can play this role, who from the very beginning have ideated about non-othering, which is exceptional as ideas are mostly about othering.

Here, I reiterate: India's strength is its democracy. And, yet another reiteration: only de-disempowered individuals and de-incapacitated personal or private agency can give the Indic democracy the vitality it needs to rescue the world from the chaos it has degenerated into. The world after defeating the devilry of Bolshevism got somehow inattentive towards global commons and gradually it is again in a morass. Only India has the momentum now to steer the world to its good.

India is a global cause: a cause of human good. We with the rest of folks of all the continents must contribute to the cause with unwavering conviction.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Real-Virtual Mixes

The real virtualized, the virtual realized, hold your breath, do it virtually as it is going to be a long haul, and watch the revolutions (or disruptions) stream.

Niraj Kumar Jha