Heavenism

Some promise 

Heaven after

Some here

Both ask for 

From humans

Their humanity

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Freedom and its Absence

What it means to be slavish, and what it means to be free, are not questions that ordinarily arise—unless they are raised with the intent of mobilisation. Over time, such conditions become normalised, slipping below the threshold of awareness.

At the macro level, historically speaking, it took Indians a couple of generations to even recognise that they were not free—that they lived under slavish conditions. At the micro level, it is even more difficult to perceive such a state. How does one know whether they are truly free? This is a question that demands a long discourse, but I shall attempt to touch upon it briefly.

Freedom rests on shared understandings that leave everyone unobstructed in leading a life of dignity, where the sanctity of one’s person, family, home, and privacy is habitually respected. Even in public spaces, one does not feel anything other than an equal, nor that others are elevated at the cost of one’s own degradation. Freedom means living without fear of being wronged, provided one has not wronged others.

It is the optimisation of security and certainty in life—the right to act and speak as one chooses, without being subject to the whims, fancies, or interests of others against one’s will. All of this culminates in a life free from want and unwarranted interference. Such is the state of freedom.

Slavishness means living with the constant fear of being wronged, even when one has done no wrong. It is the erosion of security and certainty in life, where one’s actions and words are curtailed, or forced to serve the whims, fancies, or interests of others against one’s will. Such a state results in lives marked by want, anxiety, and constant, unwelcome interference. This is the condition of being unfree.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Capital

Capital is not like a mineral deposit; it is a construct of the mind and a devised mechanism. The state of being developed is this understanding and such a drive.

Niraj Kumar Jha  

Postcolonialism Unfolding

The school of postcolonialism sought to expose both the soft and hard infrastructures of imperialist designs that operated at the expense of the decolonised. However, their abstruse works failed to gain traction even in academic circles, let alone among the broader literati. People often speak of the lingering, debilitating effects of colonialism on their faculties and agency, but they have struggled to arrive at a workable idea to overcome the problem. More often than not, they ended up reinforcing precisely what they sought to eliminate, simply because they did not know how to dismantle it. Yet, of late, new technologies and new-age entrepreneurs are achieving exactly that—without any such explicit intention.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

OM

Nations must reunite—for justice, for order, for peace and harmony in the world. An Order Movement (OM) is the urgent necessity of our time. The prevailing chaos exacts a brutal cost—in lives lost and in the depth of human suffering.

Niraj Kumar Jha

ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः (Om, May all be happy)

ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः

सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः।

सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु

मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत्॥

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः॥

The time has come for humanity to de-indoctrinate itself from all ideologies and reset its being to the Kalyan Mantra.

Om, May all be happy,

May all be free from illness.

May all see what is auspicious,

May no one suffer.

Om Peace, Peace, Peace.

Niraj Kumar Jha

स्थितिपोषण अथवा मनभावन

समकालीन समाचारों के प्रस्तुतीकरण की स्थिति इतिहासकारिता तथा अन्य समाज विज्ञानों के उपागमों की प्रकृति के साथ मानविकी क्षेत्रांतर्गत सृजन के रुझानों को समझने का अवसर देता है। पूर्व मे भी ऐसा ही था; विमर्श के स्वरूप और स्रोतों के विस्तार से बातें स्पष्ट हो रही हैं।

 
नीरज कुमार झा

From Muscle to Machine: The Evolution of Thought

Social media has affected human psychology and social behaviour, and I believe that, on balance, this impact has been for the better. Now, with the growing use of chatbots, their inputs are also beginning to shape human thoughts and conduct. In this context, the role of public intellectuals becomes more challenging, as they need to find ways to counter mainstream and mechanised values and practices that risk overwhelming discerning and refined tastes and choices.

In fact, in earlier times, the problem was even more severe, as ideologies that mobilised men-at-arms could impose a particular way of life, eliminating opposition and overriding existing norms and mores. Now, the earlier overreach and excesses are either normalised or no longer menace society as they once did. Still, caution remains critically important.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Public and the Private

Being public and productive are two essential features of political affairs. The political domain is public, and its purpose is to be productive. Private is private, whether it is the domain or its outcome. It comes under public scrutiny only when it forcefully involves others or affects them adversely. A healthy society devises tests for determining their domain and constraining their overreach. Evil is the result of their careless overlap. In a medieval context, or from such a perspective, the adherence to this division appears anomalous or even outrageous. It is a state of affairs reached after crossing a threshold of development, but if a mechanism for progressive differentiation between domains is not in place, it severely impedes development.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

The Eyes of the Mind

The eyes of the mind — mostly, it is they that override what one’s eyeballs directly face. They may magnify, reduce, mould, or distort an image. A good education helps one see things and events in nearly exact proportions, even cutting through the décor and drama of their presentation.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Humanity Predicament

The withering of norms guiding international affairs leaves the present generation of humankind highly vulnerable. The reason is that even a fake idea of the commonality of interest among the people of the world has gone missing. This happened because humanity's progress towards the common good was gradually blocked, which had gained momentum in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Niraj Kumar Jha

धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः

व्यक्ति के अधर्म का दुष्परिणाम उसके स्वयं के लिए तो होता ही है; उस परिवेश का भी होता है, जिसमें वह जीवनयापन करता है। दूषित परिवेश के दुष्परिणाम का वह स्वयं भी भागीदार होता है और उसके सगे-संबंधी भी। एक व्यक्ति का धर्मपालन सभी के हित में है और किसी का अधर्म सभी का अहित है। 

जीवन का ध्येय धर्म है और इसकी सफलता धर्मपालन की प्रवृत्ति और सामर्थ्य है।

धर्म अज्ञेय और ज्ञेय का पारिस्थितिकी की मर्यादा के साथ व्यक्ति की पूर्णता और सामुदायिक सावयवता हेतु समन्वय जनित बोध और तदनुरूप आचरण है।

नीरज कुमार झा

The Challenge: A Human Epistemology

Every working epistemology has a civilizational base, though it is evolving in nature. Civilisations are the largest human communities below the level of the human community as a whole. They are historical products. It is very difficult—indeed, almost negligible in practical terms—for any epistemological project or approach to make sense of what drives another. What is an aberration for one may be the mainstay of another. Alternatively, one can only accept as legitimate whatever the other does, recognizing it as the fixity of civilizational conditions. I strongly believe that post-Enlightenment epistemology in Europe does little to account for the innate nature of religion, which once dominated their lives. This is only an example. At the same time, a civilisation also engenders ideologies, whose origins may lie in both earthy and ethereal premises, often with cross-civilizational reach. Notwithstanding this, a global human project to identify good and evil from an ethno-neutral perspective is still missing. Can we take up this challenge?

Niraj Kumar Jha 

समझ का फेर

समझदारी की बातें समझदारों के ही समझ में आती है। यही हकीकत है। यह उम्मीद की जा सकती है कि इससे समझदारी का दायरा मामूली रूप से बढ़ता होगा। यह उम्मीद हालाँकि अहम नहीं है। महत्वपूर्ण यह है कि ऐसी बातों से समझदारों को अपनी समझ पर भरोसा बना रहता है।

यह तथ्य यहाँ ध्यातव्य है कि समझदारी सामाजिक स्थिति सापेक्ष है, लेकिन आधुनिक परिवेश में जहाँ व्यापक घटनाओं और घटनाक्रमों, वैश्विक परिघटनाओं सहित, का प्रभाव किसी के भी जीवन पर तत्क्षण और गंभीर रूप से पड़ता है और, दूसरी तरफ, जहाँ नागरिकों के रूप में प्रत्येक का नगण्य ही सही लेकिन कुछ प्रभाव है, इन घटनाओं और परिघटनाओं की मुखर समझ सभी से वांछनीय है।

यहाँ यह भी रेखांकित करना आवश्यक है कि अपने को पूरे तौर से समझदार समझना निस्संदेह भ्रम है। समझदारी समझ की कमियों को निरंतर दूर करना और बढ़ाना है। सर्वमंगल की कामना से इस तरह की बातें करना भी समझदारी के दायरे में आता है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Education is about...

Among many things, education is about learning what to value and what to ignore. People must learn to appreciate—and even deprecate—ideas or events tactically, for their own good and for the social good. Without such discernment, people may end up valuing totally absurd and even weird things, paying premium prices and handing over parts of their selfhood in the process.

Worthwhile things and events contribute to the substantialisation of the humanity of a person. These recognise the dignity of a person, enhance their self-worth, and, in turn, ensure social progress. Sometimes, a person may enjoy not being oneself; that is fine. But that should be a momentary break, not a full-time occupation.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Dated Templates and the Dilemma of Our Times

People stalled globalisation—some deliberately, most naively—midway through the last quarter of the previous century and the first quarter of the present one, just as it was reshaping the international order. It was the reengineering of the mechanisms put in place after the World Wars and paved the way for global prosperity. It was a composite of liberalised national economies and international economic transactions.

Today, the fact remains that, thanks to new technologies, the world is more interconnected than ever, beneath the surface of hyper-nationalism. Yet, as this reality remains denied, there is no suitable template to map the fractured global ecosystem. As a result, people generate corrupted scripts and cry out against a chaos of their own making.

Niraj Kumar Jha