Knowledge: Organic, Mechanical, and Pretension

Knowledge, as I have said earlier, is not about knowing but about living. It becomes true only when it is lived. True knowledge is organic: it integrates livelihood with a congenial social life.

Mechanical knowledge offers a solution for everything, but rarely solves anything. For moral crisis, for instance, it prescribes a course on moral education, without realising that it is precisely the mechanical imparting of knowledge that fails to nurture genuine moral values in learners.

Worst of all is the pretension of knowledge. Amid ignorance, a certain class of people, or those who assume the role voluntarily, take up “knowledgeing,” parading the act of making others knowledgeable, as a lofty mission, often with a touch of mysticism. They glorify “knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” which serves no real purpose and often does more harm than good. More often than not, such pretension flourishes under public patronage.

I wonder if I belong to this last category. Yet, by pointing out this very tendency, I may be spared the charge of pretension. What I seek, in truth, is not abstraction but the real, knowledge that speaks to life as it is lived here and now, even as I strive to think of it on a larger canvas.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Cinema and Reality

A cinematic narrative typically identifies a problem and resolves it. Yet, as the demands of the medium dictate, the problem is often exaggerated and the resolution unrealistic. Cinema transports viewers into a world where desires are fulfilled and grievances avenged. It offers an escape from reality, something troubled minds may need to recuperate, but it cannot, by itself, bring about meaningful social change. On the contrary, it can create the illusion that justice has been served. It may also lead people to believe that their fantasies and prejudices are real and justified. This, in turn, can drive them towards inappropriate behaviour. Ultimately, cinema often exacerbates problems rather than resolving them. The responsibility of engaging with reality rests with academia, which must work in concert with other institutions and agencies to shape and improve actual conditions.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Shifting Balance

Mr. Trump is, in fact, harming the U.S. economy itself, rather than strengthening it as he projects. He is not only damaging his own national economy but also destabilising the global economy in ways that erode America’s strength. By disrupting an intricately interwoven global supply chain, he weakens the very foundation of U.S. preeminence. The United States has the capacity for far more subtle and effective strategies to safeguard its position. But every reckless slip, every inch of lost ground, will be swiftly claimed by its principal rival and other nimble economies.

For India, the lesson is clear. Citizens must be enthusiastic supporters of governmental measures to enhance the ease of doing business and foster an environment conducive to technological innovation. Only then can India remain competitive in a changing world. After all, the strength of a democracy lies in its people—thinking clearly, acting responsibly, and rising to the occasion.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Reimagining Democracy in the Digital Age

The founding fathers of America institutionalised a democracy mediated by elites, people of standing and knowledge. This was necessary when education was limited and distance posed a serious constraint, with horses as the fastest means of travel. Ordinary citizens could seldom be aware of national or international affairs, and elite mediation helped to bridge that gap. For its time, this arrangement served America well.

Democratisation, however, carries its own momentum. Over time, the commoner’s sense of knowledge and worth has grown stronger. With distance no longer a barrier and information more widely available, elite filtering has lost the weight it once carried. Elitism no longer commands the influence or credibility it once did. The task now is to democratise excellence by removing the obstacles that prevent individuals from becoming knowledgeable and responsible. What is needed is a more horizontal world in which responsibility and knowledge are widely shared, rather than vertically controlled by a few.

A new democratic model must rest on three pillars: universal access to quality education, digital literacy that enables citizens to navigate the information age, and participatory structures that give people a genuine role in decision-making. Scholars, too, must shed their elitism, leave their ivory towers, and utilise new tools, such as social media, to engage directly with the people. To cling to monologues, closed academic circles, or unread papers is to mock the spirit of the age.

Here, Gandhi’s principle of Oceanic Circles offers a guide. He envisioned governance not as a pyramid with power concentrated at the top, but as widening circles, each individual forming the centre of a village, each village part of a wider community, until the whole world became an ocean of cooperative responsibility. Though his imagery was rural, the principle can be adapted to an urbanised and digital world, where neighbourhoods, communities and networks serve as circles of shared responsibility. In the digital age, this vision can be realised on a scale that Gandhi could only have imagined. Digital democracy, if embraced fully, can make governance more horizontal, empower citizens with knowledge, and weave them into circles of shared responsibility. It offers the promise of a more substantial democracy, a better quality of life for the common citizen, and perhaps a more peaceful life for all.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Trap of the First

It seems to me that whatever comes first becomes an organic part of our brain. It is as though the brain, as an organism, awaits the first wave of information to complete its being. Strangely enough, the cognitive makeup of the mind repeats this process. To expand its grasp of the world, the mind once again internalises whatever ideological inputs it receives first. The mind’s template is thus formed by these initial inputs, and everything a person encounters later is processed through that template. Powerful organisations often develop sophisticated mechanisms to alter such templates, yet even they prefer to recruit people when they are young, before the first impressions harden.

I have come to understand education as the transfer of culture to the next generation. Ideally, education is not only about transmission but also about renewing and rejuvenating culture. Yet its true task reaches deeper: liberating minds from the fixations imposed by those first inputs. Perhaps this is why the Vedic seers made it mandatory to pray daily to Savitr—“We meditate on the adorable glory of the radiant sun; may She inspire our intelligence.” The prayer itself is a reminder that the mind must remain open to inspiration beyond its earliest imprints. It pains me, therefore, to see many academicians—supposedly the guiding souls of society—still repeating the ideological rubbish they absorbed during their college days, unable to free themselves from the very templates education should have helped them transcend.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Human Knowledge

A common person generally does not know what they come to know, or what they are made to know. Knowledge, as we typically understand it, appears benign—or even highly useful. Yet what passes as knowledge is often a multipurpose instrument to mould people’s minds to ends that may not serve the common good, or even the good of the individual concerned. For instance, the colonial regime used knowledge itself to legitimise its rule. It can make something good appear bad, and something bad seem good. Pharmaceutical companies have done the same. Those who invented the cigarette marketed it as beneficial to health, concealing the fact that it was a serious health hazard. The same pattern can be seen in every walk of life.

We must understand knowledge in a way that serves humanity. Knowledge is not a thing, though it is abstract, yet it is often treated as if it were. Real knowledge is lived knowledge. It is being aware of oneself and one’s surroundings, and seeing things objectively, to remove what hinders the good life and promote what enables it. Knowledge should not take one away from lived reality. It is not for mindless consumption but for mindful engagement. People know, decide, reflect, and practise—and thus become truly knowledgeable.

AI is a threat to human beings only if we approach knowledge as it is generally done. Knowledge is what we own, not what owns us.

Niraj Kumar Jha

America’s Democratic Reckoning

I am not sure whether the current manifestation of the American political system reflects a systemic decline or merely a temporary ebb. The American system is undoubtedly robust; it has endured the test of time for more than two centuries. Its Constitution has served as a guiding treatise for a successful democracy, incorporating the famed formulas of thinkers such as John Locke and Montesquieu.

What has gone wrong with the United States should be a cause of serious concern for democracies across the world. One point that comes to mind is that although the United States was a great democracy, it did little to nurture democracy as a struggling global phenomenon. Indeed, it often acted in ways that weakened it. If, for instance, democracy thrives in India, it is despite the actions and inactions of the Western world. In the end, karma has a way of catching up.

Any democracy, if it is to evolve in the course of democratisation, requires a conducive democratic ecology. No country, not even America, can endure as a democracy within a global environment that is non-democratic or hostile to democracy.

A more immediate cause of the American reactionary approach is its diminishing confidence in being the economic giant far ahead of any other national economy. Its economy is becoming increasingly constrained in its ability to sustain its superpower infrastructure and global manoeuvres. The present mood is more of a knee-jerk reaction to reality than a willingness to accept the inevitable and contribute to a rational and fair world order. If people do not choose wisdom, the times are bound to teach a cruel lesson.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Teaching Teachers

The concept and institutionalisation of teacher training took root during colonial rule. I still wonder what exactly was on the minds of the colonial ringmasters when they promoted it. One obvious possibility is that it served to mould teachers’ minds into servitude and to acculturate society into that same tendency. To me, the idea in its original form does not seem purposeful.

If a person is to become a teacher, they should already be educated to a level where others cannot simply “teach” them in the conventional sense. The more fitting model would be for an aspiring teacher to earn further qualifications in pedagogy, exactly as is done today, but through a university’s school of pedagogy. A prospective teacher must be firmly anchored in the universe of knowledge.

The takeaway is clear: the very nomenclature of “training” and its colonial import should be discarded. Pedagogy learning ought to be fully integrated into the functional university system. The functionality of a university is another issue altogether, though.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Democratic Flipside

The formal mandate of governance often wraps office bearers in an aura of importance, making both leaders and citizens believe in their exalted status. In the glare of this halo, citizens are blinded to their rightful position of mastery—the very foundation and purpose of democracy. People uneducated in citizenship inevitably reenact monarchism.

Niraj Kumar Jha

We the People for Reforms

As far as economics is concerned, I am a layman. These are my views on economic affairs; if they seem audacious, I welcome correction.

In 1991, when economic reforms were given a notional start under duress, I was elated. I had long recognised the perils of our colonially induced, slavish mentality economic model — a mindset that had embraced self-defeating collectivist socialism. Yet I wondered: how could we open our domestic market to foreign players without first empowering our own enterprises to compete?

A preparatory phase should have come first: dismantling the bureaucratic chokehold of permits, quotas, high taxes, and the inspector raj; then bringing the economy to a truly global playing field in ease of doing business and in ease of living — the latter resting on the basic guarantee of security of person and property. We should have had a free and competitive internal market before venturing into internationalisation.

That hardly happened. Yet our businesses, built by people of steel, absorbed the shock and emerged strong enough to make their mark globally. India is a vast nation; if we put our house in order, we can shield ourselves from global turbulence and become a pivotal hub in global supply chains.

The way forward is clear. Free the domestic market to the optimal extent within our borders, while carefully calibrating the economy to face global competition and hazards. The goal is not reckless liberalisation, but an intelligently sequenced one — strengthening our internal base before taking on the world.

Many big-ticket reforms remain overdue: land and labour flexibility, rationalised taxation, infrastructure overhaul, and genuine ease of doing business. They will not materialise without public understanding and support. A nation of India’s scale cannot afford to drift between half-measures. If we expect our enterprises to compete globally, we must first give them the freedom, security, and infrastructure to thrive at home.

Niraj Kumar Jha

On Ignorance

Ignorance is not being deficient in knowledge. Knowing is unavoidably relative. The so-recognised best may be erring and missing. Ignorance is a mental condition that prevents one from using one's mind and is a failure to see things clearly. Much of what passes as the “body of knowledge” often contains elements of anti-knowledge—content that is contrary to truth, filled with the superfluous, the meaningless, the misleading, and ideas crafted more to capture imagination than to illuminate reality.

True knowledge begins with knowing what real knowledge is—and this is humanity’s deepest challenge. In intellectual circles, discourses are too often positional, and practices tend more toward parroting than reflecting. The point is that people should believe in the divine endowment placed inside each one's cranium. The divine has ordained each to be an autonomous thinking one.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Age of Participatory Knowledge

This is the finest phase in human history for the enablement of the individual cognitive self in the larger public domain. Participation in debates—thanks to technology—has been greatly democratised, and the elite’s monopoly over terms and narratives is now fairly undermined, and for good. True, the weakening of normative knowledge disciplining by traditional custodians has made platforms noisy and chaotic, but this reflects the failure of our systemic epistemology, which has yet to provide a common ground for respectful cognitive exchanges—serving both the collective good and individual well-being. Our age demands greater democratic depth and coherence in the epistemological framework.

Niraj Kumar Jha