Educatedness

If not educated well, people listen to fears first, next to expectations, and then comes spectacle to them. They follow the herd, practice superstitions, and celebrate ignorance. They are mostly deaf to reason and oblivious to substance. Education makes folks human.

I have devised here a test to know people who are educated.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Preserving Talent

A time and space only generate a few, rather exceptionally, naturally talented people. Any civilization can count their number in its history. The modern age provides a relatively fertile ground for talents to grow but they are still scarce. A community or nation should nurture those talents with utmost care. Poor countries either waste or lose them to the benefit of rich countries. A rich country is rich as it pools talents from all over the world. If such talented people remain unrecognised, it would be only a competitive loss to the nation, but an absolute loss to humanity.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Ease of Living

People talk about the ease of doing business but what they almost ignore talking about is the ease of living. 

Ease of doing business leads to general prosperity and the creation of employment. In fact, there is no other way to let everyone willing to work have a job. It also gives a competitive advantage to the country in the international market. In addition, the economic strength feeds the military muscle on the one hand, and surpluses nourish cultural efflorescence on the other. Certainly, people should talk about the ease of doing business more.

Though incomparable, the ease of living is rather more fundamental in nature. It is generally believed that people living through tough times are heroic ones, and they are bringers of good times. Truth is rather the opposite.

Bad times mostly lead to worse times and worse to the worst, and this is an endless spiral. If one studies history, one can see a declining phase lasts for centuries and often a rise is brought about by not the decaying stuff but by something new emerging mostly unrelated to the rot. And, it is only good that leads to better.

To live with ease is about optimising certainties and thus ensuring general stability. People certain of things spend more, donate more and care more for each other. Insecure people do just the opposite. Secure people can think clearly and find better mechanisms to meet the challenges. Such a scenario leads to peace and prosperity for optimum numbers. Even the worst off have adequate support as charities abound. The basic fact is that the ease of living is the raison d'etre of politics. Otherwise, it is chaos.

The rise of capitalism is associated with the advance from adventure to calculation in carrying out businesses. It happens when the rules of the games are fixed and uncertainties are reduced to a minimum. You can understand the importance of trains running on time.

At the mundane level of governance, it means policy stability and predictability. Frequent changes in the rules of games and rude shocks are undoings of the policy of policy-making.

Niraj Kumar Jha

गहरी बातें

कहना आया नहीं बातें बड़ी करता हूँ
हताशाएँ छिपाने बातें गहरी करता हूँ

नीरज कुमार झा

अनकहा जीवन

कहना है कुछ
कह जाता कुछ और
अपने लिए भाषा ही नहीं बनी
​भाषा उतनी ही है
जिससे चलती विचारधाराएँ 
जीवनियाँ तो लिख जाती हैं
जीवन अनकहा रह जाता है

नीरज कुमार झा

Publicising Personal

Privacy, it seems, is a dated idea. People flash their very personal indulgences and intimate moments on 'social' media.

 
As I see it, the latent story is different. They are, in fact, celebrating their newly-gotten selfhood. Barely a generation ago, selfhood was an elitist possession only.

 
They should thank economic liberalisation, post-1991, for that.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

Guinea-pigism

Mostly, ideologies including such great philosophical works, as Plato's Republic, base themselves on the assumption that human beings are guinea pigs. Their lives and feelings are immaterial. Ideologues think without compunction that they can subject people to their fancies.

Strangely, human psychology is such that they fall for these ideologies and take it absolutely normal to be treated as guinea pigs.

 
Anything that matches the madness of ideological enterprises is the holification (sanctification) of the acts of predation.

Niraj Kumar Jha

ज्ञान, बुद्धि, कौशल, और चतुराई

ज्ञान, बुद्धि, और कौशल पृथक् विशिष्टताएँ हैं। यह बात अटपटी लग सकती है, लेकिन ज्ञानी व्यक्ति बुद्धिमान हो, जरूरी नहीं है, और कार्यकुशल हो, यह तो बिल्कुल जरूरी नहीं है। एक व्यक्ति का इन सभी गुणों से युक्त होना दुर्लभ है। एक व्यक्ति जो कार्यकरण में निष्णात है, हो सकता है कि ज्ञान से बिल्कुल रहित हो।

मेरे उक्त अभिव्यक्ति का उद्देश्य यह रेखांकित करना है कि व्यक्ति के व्यक्तित्व का आकलन संदर्भ के अनुसार ही होना चाहिए।

ज्ञानी व्यक्ति का बुद्धिमान नहीं होना एक व्यापक त्रासदी है। ऐसे व्यक्तियों के पास ज्ञान का विपुल भंडार होता है, लेकिन हो सकता है कि वह ज्ञान के ध्येय और प्रभाव से अनभिज्ञ हो। उसके द्वारा ज्ञान का सम्प्रेषण वास्तविकता से असंपृक्त अथवा लोकहित का प्रतिगामी हो सकता है।

ज्ञानी और मूर्ख में भेद कर पाना भी एक कठिन चुनौती है। लोग इसके लिए व्यक्ति को प्राप्त उपाधियों अथवा पद के आधार पर उसका मूल्यांकन करते हैं, जो प्रायः भ्रामक होता है।

ज्ञान का एक प्रबल पक्ष ज्ञानी व्यक्ति का सर्वहित की व्यवस्थागत विचारों से अवगत होने की स्थिति और उसके विस्तार करने की क्षमता है। मेरे विचार से ज्ञानी व्यक्ति की प्रकृति की विशिष्टता वैचारिक संवेदना है। यदि विद्वान कर्मणा भी सज्जन और जनहितैषी है, तो वही मेरे लिए महान है।

जनहितैषी विचारों में जन की प्रभुसत्ता रहे, विचारों की नहीं, यह भी जरूरी है। विचारों की आग पर लोगों का पकाया जाना ज्ञान और बुद्धि की विकृति है; और विडंबना यही है कि यही विद्वता का सर्वाधिक क्रियाशील स्वरूप है।

ज्ञान, बुद्धि, और कौशल, अथवा कौशल से युक्त होने मात्र से जीवन में सफलता मिले, यह तो लगभग एक संयोग ही है। इसके लिए एक अलग विशिष्टता की आवश्यकता पड़ती है, वह है चतुराई। यह बुद्धि का स्वहित में लक्ष्यबेधी संधान है। यह अन्य का स्रोतीकरण है। ऐसे जन स्वयं को स्वाभाविक रूप से साध्य और अन्य को साधन के रूप में प्रयोग करते हैं। उनके लिए ज्ञान भी स्वहित हेतु एक संसाधन मात्र है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Anticolonialism and Postcolonialism

First, let me define these two terms for the sake of clarity. I would welcome being corrected if they are off the mark.

Anticolonialism was an ideological project and action plan for exposing colonial designs, legitimacy, and hegemony; and seeking national liberation from colonial rule.

Postcolonialism is a philosophical enterprise and programme for national reconstruction after the colonial devastation for redeeming dignity in people's living conditions and an egalitarian world order. Postcolonial theoreticians have uncovered the continued sway of colonial epistemology and institutions denying autonomy and agency to the decolonised world. 

 
The postcolonialism programme is proving to be trickier. Earlier they relied on Bolshevism, but being a deceptive doctrine of liberation it failed all its adherents and even its homeland. Postcolonialism needs new consciousness and fresh imagination. We need the significance of self-educated people in numbers.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Democracy and Capitalism

There is an invisible hand which works behind the visible working of democracy and capitalism. The components of the invisible are however decipherable; the crucial one of them is the significance of the number of people who tend to respect themselves, seek self-reliance, have a mind of their own, and can apply their minds. This is a long-drawn historical process of how people inhabiting a land could evolve to such a state.

Just to prove the point, a capitalist may be least friendly to capitalism, as they may not like free market and competition. They may apply extra-market means to eliminate competition.

To clarify the title of the post: democracy and capitalism are the two sides of the same coin, that is liberalism.

Niraj Kumar Jha

समझ की समझ

संतुलन के सरोकार और समांतर की खोज समझ को अक्सर दिग्भ्रमित कर देती हैं। तुलनात्मक उपागम अत्यंत सावधानी की मांग करता है, अन्यथा सामान्य और विकृत समान रूप से प्रतिष्ठापित हो जाते हैं।

नीरज कुमार झा

वैश्विक सकल घरेलू उत्पाद में हमारी हिस्सेदारी

भारत का वैश्विक सकल घरेलू उत्पाद (जीडीपी) में हिस्सा 3.37 प्रतिशत है। हमारा प्रयास होना चाहिए कि अधिकतर भारतीयों के जीवन काल में यह कम से कम 20 प्रतिशत हो जाए। यह विकसित देशों के तुल्य संतोषजनक  मानक जीवन शैली प्राप्त करने के लिए तो आवश्यक है ही (विकसित देशों की वैश्विक जीडीपी में हिस्सेदारी उनकी वैश्विक आबादी के प्रतिशत से चार से पाँच गुणा ज्यादा है), राष्ट्रीय सुरक्षा के लिए भी अपरिहार्य है (चीन का 17.86 प्रतिशत है)। देश की सामरिक शक्ति अंततः आर्थिक शक्ति पर ही निर्भर करती है।

कोई पूछ सकता है कि अन्य सरोकारों का क्या होगा? उत्तर यह है कि अन्य समस्याओं को दूर कर ही हम इस लक्ष्य को प्राप्त कर सकते हैं। उदाहरण के लिए गुणवत्तापूर्ण शिक्षाव्यवस्था, चिकित्सासेवा, कानून व्यवस्था, तथा जेन्डरन्याय आदि के बिना यह संभव ही नहीं है।

यदि किसी कार्यक्रम या योजना से जीडीपी वृद्धि दर अप्रभावित रहती है अथवा नकारात्मक रूप से प्रभावित होती है, तो वह कार्यक्रम के लक्षित समस्या का निदान नहीं होगा बल्कि समस्या को लेकर भ्रम फैलाना होगा।

जो कवि-साहित्यकार, दार्शनिक आदि उदारीकरण का विरोध करते हैं, उन्हें भी अच्छी आमदानी होगी। अभी तक के आर्थिक सुधारों का फायदा उन्होंने देखा है। उनमें से कुछेक तो चार्टर्ड हवाईजहाजों से सफर करते हैं।

नीरज कुमार झा

Intellectuals

Professional intellectuals, in particular social scientists, have unavoidably to live a dual life. An intellectual is first a subject and actor in social life and secondly a neutral observer and interpreter of institutions and processes. In the first role, they may be passionate activists and in the second role, they are neutral observers and resource providers for corrective or progressive recourse.

Marxism advocates activist intellectualism. They make a gross fallacy. The sway of teleologism and economic determinism over the intellectuals of this school is a telling example of intellectualism gone wrong. First, the doctrine asserts that social dynamics are determined by their scientific rules and contradicting the same, its successive ideologues kept on devising comprehensive plans and organisations for social action and resorted to propaganda to make what they perceived as scientific inevitability happen. In fact, they were trying to make up for a deficient doctrine.

The point here is that an intellectual has a greater role than just acting and reacting in response to events and has to rise above personal likes and dislikes. They need to delve deeper and find out causes and underlying currents to identify the true nature of social phenomena and to suggest means to improve societal practices and direct the social dynamics in a desirable direction.

A passionately activist intellectual mostly thinks unilinear and takes a predicament as a given, which they seek to fight with the force of sheer numbers or by making loud noises. They also turn partisan as a result of this proclivity and mainly play the role of cheerleaders or mourners as per the fate of their chosen outfit. They also do not serve their group as they can only charge their fellow activists emotionally and they do not point to the strengths and weaknesses of their programme or agenda or of those of their adversaries.

Intellectuals need to review their professional role with some seriousness.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Democracy in India

Democracy in India has deep roots. It is in its civilization. Those who are not aware of or do not have a feel of India's civilizational traditions and heritage wonder at the success of democracy in India. The fact is simple; when India gained independence, all the factors which the Westerners regarded as compulsory for democracy to grow and flourish were missing. It happened despite everything and India remained a democracy, particularly in a global scenario where even today nearly half of the world's countries have yet to gain the dignity of being meaningfully democracies. There is no other factor than its civilization, which places India in this extraordinary and exceptional position.

However, this is not to say that the Indic civilization underwent a sudden transformation to democracy on its strength alone. The process was seeded during the colonial rule itself and other factors came into play supporting and catalysing the makeover.

Two factors which supported the process were the rise of the middle class and later the growth of Indigenous industrial capitalism in the early twentieth century.

It is the combination of these two factors, which made India survive the collectivist experimentation for nearly four decades.

Now, India is in the process of recovery; though the intellectual scape is still to be cleaned of the collectivistic pathogens.

Let my country awake.

Niraj Kumar Jha

राजनीति और व्यापार

दो परिघटनाएँ जो जीवन और विकास के लिए सबसे जरूरी हैं, उनकी संज्ञाओं को हम नकारात्मक अर्थों में लेते हैं। राजनेता भी कहते सुने जा सकते हैं कि यह राष्ट्रीय महत्व का मुद्दा है, इस पर राजनीति नहीं होनी चाहिए। लोग अक्सर कहते हैं कि शिक्षा अथवा चिकित्सा का व्यापार नहीं होना चाहिए। 

हमारी हर समस्या का समाधान और बेहतरी का उपाय राजनीति से निकलता है और वे सभी चीजें जो हमारे जीवन को संभव बनाती हैं, भोजन, वस्त्र, आवास, दवाइयाँ, आवागमन के साधन इत्यादि, व्यापार के माध्यम से ही हमें उपलब्ध होती हैं।

 
हमें पाखंडियों के प्रभाव को नकारना होगा और जीवन के सबसे प्रभावशाली निर्धारकों के प्रति सकारात्मक दृष्टि अपनानी ही होगी। हमें समझना होगा कि व्यापार से उत्पन्न धन राजनीति को पोषित करता है और राजनीति का प्रधान कार्य व्यापार को निष्कंटक करना है।

नीरज कुमार झा

GDP Growth

It is the GDP growth, which decides the destiny of a nation. The economy is the belly, which feeds both, the muscles and brain of a country. A robust economy can only sustain and strengthen the military capability, intellectual prowess, and cultural vibrancy of our country.

 
Citizens must demand and strive to strike the GDP growth rate in double digits. A double-digit growth would imply doing away with all the ills in society, which bother us. Good quality education and affordable and advanced medical facilities for all are the basics for the economic takeoff and for the long haul, it must be sustainable environmentally too.

 
LPG, i.e., liberalization, privatization and globalisation we need to rethink for growth today. We must make our national ecology most favourable for entrepreneurship. Only when we have globally competitive Indian corporations, including arms industries, we can become a great power. We must expand globally to source raw materials and sell our products.

 
It is the national good on which depends the good of everyone. If the nation is powerful, everyone is secure; and if the nation prospers everyone will have a comfortable life. We have seen this happening and now we know how to make our future even better.

 
Niraj Kumar Jha

जीवन का सार

मानव सृजन करता है कल्पनाओं का अलग संसार

बना लेता है निकाल उसका सार जीवन का आधार

व्याकुल मध्य अस्तित्व के अबूझ अपरिमित विस्तार

समझता नहीं कि उसकी सीमा ही है जीवन का सार

नीरज कुमार झा