Capitalism: Ideology or Human Condition?

Capitalism is often theorised as a later stage in human existence. Its historical origins are traced and presented as an outgrowth of civilisation, rather than as an essential aspect of human life itself. In reality, however, it evolved alongside civilisation from its very beginnings, when human beings first ceased to be merely subjects of nature and began to exercise some control over it. This became possible because of the unique biological capacities of human beings: a thinking mind and the extraordinary utility of their hands.

The moment human beings began striving for more than mere subsistence, they were already anticipating capitalism. When they domesticated animals, cultivated crops, harnessed fire, devised methods of channelling water, transported goods with the wheel, and increased mobility through the use of animals and carts, they created systems of production that generated surplus. From there emerged the need for exchange, storage, preservation, and accumulation.

Capital, therefore, has prehistoric origins and constitutes an unavoidable part of civilised life, even though the term itself was coined in modern times. Capitalism became dominant only when trade expanded in scale and production ceased to remain merely household-based or localised for immediate consumption.

Tragically, imaginative yet resentful theorists portrayed capitalism as a late and aberrational phenomenon. More tragically still, many accepted this view unquestioningly. In doing so, they disrupted human progress and strengthened forces hostile to human flourishing.

Popular dictionaries and textbooks commonly define capitalism as the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. Such definitions crudely portray private ownership as though it were unique to the modern age, and the profit motive as though it were a moral perversion that emerged only a few centuries ago. This is intellectual absurdity masquerading as epistemology. It is not a definition so much as an ideological position, one that diminishes human sagacity, agency, and the civilizational impulse itself.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

The Rule of Rules

There is the rule of law. Article 14 expresses it succinctly: “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” It signifies that law stands above individuals, offices, and power itself.

Then there is rule by law, where law becomes merely an instrument of power. The British governed India through laws as well, but those laws primarily served imperial control rather than justice.

A third condition increasingly draws attention: the rule of rules. Here, rules are applied and obeyed mechanically, without regard to their purpose, spirit, or consequences, or else abused for private advantage. Rules themselves begin to rule, detached from the social needs they were meant to serve. Some may temporarily benefit while others suffer, yet in the long run, everyone loses.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Philosophy, Science, and Engineering of Politics

A continuous realignment, a fine-tuning, is an unavoidable part of a constitutional system. The basic document, and the whole paraphernalia and ecosystem built upon it, together make the system. As it grows and tests itself against reality, it may deviate from the very constitutional spirit it is meant to bring into lived reality.

There may also be fundamental flaws that cause turbulence to persist, regardless of the remedial actions taken. Alongside this, there is the problem of a gradual loss of constitutional vision as the idea unfolds. As reality gathers its own momentum, the system may even come to negate the very idea that constitutionalism seeks to offer.

The story begins at the source, the original homeland of formal constitutionalism, the United States, where it was consciously adopted as a comprehensive project by men of considerable courage, competence, and judgment, drawing upon, curating, and cohering the finest prevailing wisdom. Constitutionalism, therefore, is not a self-executing equilibrium. It is a fragile and contingent achievement, constantly shaped and threatened by incentives, power structures, and institutional inertia.

The challenge, therefore, does not end with preservation. Constitutional wisdom itself is not final. As the system evolves and reality unfolds in ways not originally anticipated, that wisdom requires revision. The task, then, is not merely to restate principles but to infuse the revised understanding back into the system. This is where the engineering of the political becomes unavoidable: the reworking of instruments, the adjustment of institutional mechanisms, the recalibration of processes and linkages through which constitutional intent is realised. Without such translation, even renewed wisdom remains inert, and the system continues on the strength of outdated assumptions.

The philosophy, science, and engineering of politics can never sit back. The academics of politics must rise above banal description, resist the ritual invocation of received ideological lessons that are often inapplicable, and avoid reducing themselves to cheerleaders or professional mourners.

Niraj Kumar Jha

शब्दों की प्राण-रक्षा

हर शब्द प्रयत्न है,
अर्थ उसका जीवन है।
निष्प्राण न हों शब्द,
शब्दों को सींचना होता है।
सूखे-गिरे बिखरे शब्दों के ऊपर,
जीवन दुष्कर हो जाता है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Hierarchy in India: A Corrective Thesis

My thesis is that India was neither uniquely hierarchical nor rightly understood through the singular lens of hierarchy; it was uniquely theorised as such. The tendency of societies to reproduce status through family, occupation, marriage circles, inherited wealth, and social networks has been near-universal. Elsewhere, it appeared through aristocracy, serfdom, guild privilege, landed inheritance, racial exclusion, slavery, elite schooling, and closed class systems, often sustained by sharper legal barriers and more centralised coercion. Yet these were usually narrated as stages of history, regrettable episodes, or ordinary sociology. In the case of India, comparable tendencies were more insistently named, codified, and later foregrounded by colonial and modern discourse as though they disclosed the essence of an entire civilisation. What was widely human was thus rendered peculiarly Indian. What was widely human was thus rendered peculiarly Indian. Strangely, even many Indians collaborated in this project. I am inclined to attribute much of it to naivete, intellectual conditioning, or the prestige of imported frameworks rather than always to conscious malice, though some among them continue to be treated as patron saints of Indian scholarship.

A further distortion lay in imagining India itself as ordered through a single, neat, occupation-based pyramid. Much of the subcontinent was marked instead by complex and locally varied arrangements in which status was contextual, layered, and often criss-crossing rather than linear. Ritual esteem in one sphere could coexist with political weakness in another; those commanding land, arms, trade, wealth, or state power could outrank ritually honoured groups in practical life. Social standing shifted by region, dynasty, sect, economic role, and circumstance. The very meaning of the “superior” changed with the domain being considered. To compress this fluid and plural order into a rigid schema is to mistake a highly differentiated civilisation for a simplified abstraction.

My further contention is that India’s inequities, though real, were in many respects milder, more diffused, and less uniformly brutal than several forms of stratification elsewhere. Europe’s feudal bondage, inquisitions, religious wars, hereditary nobility, and imperial violence; the chattel slavery and racial orders of the Atlantic world; and other systems of state-backed domination often carried severities of another scale and texture. This is not to romanticise India, but to refuse the habit of flattening all hierarchies into one category while making India their chosen emblem.

Even this comparison remains incomplete, for Indian civilisation also preserved within itself recurrent correctives against social hardening. The meeting of Rama and Shabari in Ramcharitmanas, before the teaching of Navadha Bhakti, is among the clearest expressions of this spirit. There, birth, pedigree, and worldly station are quietly set aside before devotion. The ninefold path esteems humility, sincerity, remembrance, trust, self-restraint, and love of the divine, not inherited rank. Bhakti here is not an ornament added to hierarchy; it is a solvent of hierarchy. It reminds us that the most refined thing a human being can bear is not superiority, but inner elevation.

India should therefore be understood not as the singular home of hierarchy, but as the civilisation most insistently interpreted through that lens, despite the comparative mildness of many of its historical forms of stratification and despite the deep indigenous resources it sustained for transcending hierarchy altogether.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Silence or Speech

It is often said that silence is a mark of knowledge and gravity. One must keep in mind that it depends on the context. In our daily life, silence is practically stillness, a tendency to accept whatever is going on, whether good or bad.

One must speak and engage with others on public issues. Conversations help break the barriers that divide people, often at their own cost. Today, technology offers great opportunities for such conversations on public platforms, and they remain open-ended. It should be used to appreciate each other and positive acts, and to resist negativity.

The best way to curb negativity is often to ignore it. By negativity, I mean any condition, place, or association that negates or undermines a person or refuses to accept them as an equal. Some such situations are unavoidable and part of life. One has to live with them but not succumb to them. The effort should be to limit dependence on them. What is needed is a state of withdrawn engagement, being involved, but not overwhelmed.

Niraj Kumar Jha

सच की नियति

संघर्ष ही सच की नियति,
नहीं कभी रहा उसका ठाठ।
करुणा व प्रीत प्रकृति उसकी,
कैसे फैलाए वह जाल?

नीरज कुमार झा

शोधपद्धति-विज्ञान

पाँव देखो,
हैं कि नहीं?

 
नीरज कुमार झा

डकार भी नहीं लेता

अति बुद्धिसंपन्न होगा वह
जिसने पहचाना होगा
सबसे पहले
कि झूठ के पाँव नहीं होते।

यदि यह सच है कि
झूठ के पाँव नहीं होते,
तो फिर झूठ पहुँचता कैसे है
हर जगह?

झूठ के पाँव नहीं होते,
पर उसमें फरेब होता है।
वह सच की पीठ पर चढ़ जाता है,
यह कहकर
कि वही उसे ले जाएगा
सही जगह।

और इस तरह
झूठ पहुँच जाता है
हर जगह।

पहुँचकर जहाँ पहुँचना होता है उसे,
सच को बाहर
खूँटे से बाँधकर रखता है वह।

पाँव नहीं होते झूठ के,
पर उसका मुँह बड़ा होता है,
और पेट भी।
वह निगल जाता है
संघर्षरत सच की संपत्तियाँ—
मानवीय सरोकार,
उद्यमिता,
सृजनशीलता
और क्रांतियाँ।

डकार भी नहीं लेता।

नीरज कुमार झा

लोकधर्म

जनतंत्र को जन शक्ति देता है, और जनतंत्र जन को। जनतंत्र विषयक धर्म व्यापक धर्म के अटल विधान के ही रूप में कार्य करता है -

 
धर्म एव हतो हन्ति धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः ।
तस्माद् धर्मो न हन्तव्यो मा नो धर्मो हतोऽवधीत् ॥

जनतंत्र को पुष्ट करने निमित्त जन को सम्यक आचरण और उपक्रम अपनाने से पहले तंत्र के व्यवस्थित बोध को प्राप्त करना अभीष्ट है, अन्यथा ऐसे प्रयास विपरीत प्रभाव डाल सकते हैं। इसके लिए लोग प्रश्न करें, और जिनके लिए संभव हो, वे अध्ययन करें। यहाँ यह उल्लेख भी प्रासंगिक है कि वैश्विक संदर्भ में (अन्य सभ्यताओं की तुलना में) दृष्टिगत करने से यह स्पष्ट है कि भारतीय परंपराओं में मानवता और मानवीय गरिमा को अतुल्य रूप से श्रेष्ठ स्थान प्राप्त है, जिसका अध्ययन सम्यक बोध प्राप्ति हेतु ठोस आधार प्रदान करता है।

 
नीरज कुमार झा

Ideological Biology

Most people get their identity and ego fused with a certain ideology, and the lives they lead accordingly shape their physicality too. It is almost like biological growth. As geography shapes one’s physique and mentality, so the ideological milieu becomes biological.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Development or Humanisation?

Development often proceeds like a directed, almost dictatorial campaign where people are treated as cogs in a giant wheel. Even their participation is mechanical, fixed and pre-designed. It becomes more of a formality than something truly substantive.

What should be pursued instead is the humanisation of human beings. Development, as a goal, often ends up relocating or using people. The real need is to unleash the potential of each individual so that everyone can become a substantial human being.

The challenge is that human potential remains culturally and politically constrained. People need to be unchained to realise their humanity.

The task begins with pedagogy. Pupils must be cultivated with a sense of service and learn to value basic public work such as cleaning shared spaces, caring for the sick, and respecting other living beings and nature. At the final stage of education, they should undergo compulsory internships in places of intense humane work like hospitals, nursing homes, and municipal services.

They must also develop fellowship, rise above jealousy, appreciate others’ achievements, and strive to excel with humility. At the same time, they should be trained to stand on their own, be courageous, adventurous, and willing to take risks.

Human substantialization also requires the freedom to do what is worth doing. It means maximising autonomy and safety for all. A free market is a basic and substantive means of achieving this. The market is not a site of predation, as is often propagated, but the most efficient process through which people serve one another.

The government has a clear role: to ensure safety, protect property, and enforce obligations. The government, to be true to its purpose, must function as it is: a collective agency that fairly manages the commons.

If such pedagogy and practice shape public life, development will follow as a byproduct. It would mean clean living spaces, an unpolluted environment, undisturbed natural landscapes, comfortable and aesthetic habitats, safe surroundings, and reliable, humane public services like healthcare.

Niraj Kumar Jha

निदान

गणित के शिक्षक ने विद्यार्थी से कहा कि उसका उत्तर गलत है; सही उत्तर 4 है, जबकि उसने 2 लिखा है। विद्यार्थी ने अपने उत्तर में 2 जोड़ दिया और बोला—“लीजिए सर, अब उत्तर सही हो गया।”

पानी और उर्वरक के अभाव में फसल पीली पड़ने लगी। किसान ने पौधों को  हरा रंग दिया।

कमरे में छत से पानी टपक रहा था। मकान मालिक ने फर्श पर पानी बहने के लिए नाली बनवा ली।

नकझ

Time for United People

The obvious bottom line is that this is only a phase in a long-drawn process of build-ups, manoeuvres, and counter-manoeuvres for global supremacy, control over resources, and leverage in global exchanges. The real concern is their intensity and starkness at this moment, such that the international system, built over half a millennium in an excruciatingly slow fashion, appears to be collapsing. The suffering of people around the world is a bitter reality of life. The world now critically needs united people for peace and fair play in affairs internationally and within nations. It is only wishful thinking at present, but there is no mistake in saying that we need greater unity and a firmer resolve as a nation to navigate the stormy seas of international politics.

Niraj Kumar Jha

वैश्विक वैचारिक तन्तुजाल

वैश्विक संगठित शक्तियों का वर्चस्व, दमन और दोहन जिन तंत्रों पर टिका है, उनका पोषण करने वाला वैचारिक तंतु-जाल सामान्य व्यक्तियों की मानसिकता में आविष्ट होकर क्रियाशील रहता है। स्वयं को निरीह मानकर आरोपित आचरण का स्वाभाविक रूप से पालन करने वाले व्यक्तियों का समूह ही अंततः उस व्यवस्था का यौगिक अवयव बन जाता है। यह तंत्र इतना सूक्ष्म रूप से कार्य करता है कि वही निर्धारित करता है कि सामान्य व्यक्ति किन व्यक्ति-भूमिकाओं, दृश्यों और वस्तुओं की सराहना करे और किनका तिरस्कार। स्वयं, स्वजनों और समस्थित व्यक्तियों के प्रति तिरस्कार इस पराजयी प्रवृत्ति का प्राथमिक लक्षण है।

नीरज कुमार झा

भारतीयता

माता-पिता और गुरुओं के प्रति अनन्य सम्मान मानवीयता का आधारभूत लक्षण है। यह पुरानी सी लगने वाली बात ही भारतीयता के अस्तित्व और अस्मिता का पोषक और रक्षक रही है।

नीरज कुमार झा

राह दिखाते हैं गांधी

शांति के गीत में हैं गांधी

प्रतिरोध के प्रयास में हैं गांधी

मानव की हो धरती

राह दिखाते हैं गांधी

नीरज कुमार झा

Boots on the Ground

They are not “boots on the ground.”
They are human beings in the killing fields.
Anxious.
They feel pain when injured.
They have kin and friends
who feel that pain in their loss.

And those to be “booted”
are human beings too.

Humanity can span the distances to the Moon and Venus,
Yet cannot overcome the chasms within.
It can look inside an atom,
Yet cannot see another human as human.

A person can connect, face-to-face,
with another anywhere on the planet,
Yet fails to see the other as human.

Why?

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Unspoken Objective

What they leave unsaid is that war itself is the objective.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Silence of the Sane

Madness grips the world, as it did in earlier times, but the absurdity at this stage of human advancement is astounding. It has recurred before, but it remained scattered and sporadic; it is now overarching. It is so disproportionately enormous and strange that it shocks all potential voices of sanity into bewilderment and silence. The voices we hear often partake in the mayhem rather than de-escalate or contain the mindlessness.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Justice without the Veil of Ignorance

The veil of ignorance grounds a flawed conception of justice. It cannot function without introducing a mechanism for control and delivery, and thereby limiting freedoms which democracy is meant to institutionalise.

Second, the idea assumes that individuals are inherently selfish and uncaring, yet paradoxically expects these very individuals to design mechanisms that better serve the most disadvantaged.
Third, a free society is marked by high mobility: opportunities are widely available, and people are generally able to make use of them.

Fourth, secure and free individuals tend, in general, to care for the disadvantaged voluntarily.
Fifth, in a democracy, the disadvantaged are neither voiceless nor powerless. They articulate demands that are often heeded, and at times, under populist pressures, they receive benefits even without explicitly asking.

A Universal Basic Income (UBI) scheme with embedded health insurance and education vouchers would address both long-term deprivation and temporary shocks, as well as the need for fantastic ideas.

 
The crux of the matter is that a free market generates constant social churn; the bottom is not a fixed condition, and, on average, people tend to move upward over time. As a country develops, manual labour or socially devalued jobs often command higher wages than lower-tier white-collar work. More broadly, as prosperity becomes widespread, people tend to look after those left behind without a theoretical mandate.

Niraj Kumar Jha

धर्मराष्ट्र भारत का संदेश

उद्दीप्त प्रज्ञा से उद्भूत
विवेक से सतत परीक्षित
धर्म वही है

 
सत्यान्वेषक
सत्यानुरागी
सत्यानुयायी
संवेदना से पूर्ण
स्वतंत्र चेतना से युक्त
जीव-अजीव के प्रति श्रद्धावनत
धर्मप्राण वही है

 
नकारात्मकता चिह्नित करने को उद्यत
न्याय का पक्षधर
दुर्जनों के प्रतिकार को सन्नद्ध
जो सज्जनहितैषी है
धार्मिक वही है

अंधकार के विरूद्ध अभियान है धर्म
अंधत्व से त्राण है धर्म
जिसकी दृष्टि निर्दोष
मस्तिष्क सजग निष्कलुष
धर्ममार्ग यात्री वही है

 
धर्मानुरूप हों
आस्था के वचन
उपासना की पद्धतियाँ
भारत का संदेश यही है

 
नीरज कुमार झा

ज्ञान : कतिपय स्पष्टीकरण

ज्ञान तभी ज्ञान है, जब उसे धारण किया जाए; यह भंडारण हेतु मात्र वस्तु नहीं है। ज्ञान आचरण में परिलक्षित प्रवृत्तियाँ हैं; सम्प्रेषण की निपुणता ज्ञान-अज्ञान से निरपेक्ष एक कौशल है। ज्ञान संवेदना और सौंदर्यबोध है; यह प्रभुता, धन या यश की प्राप्ति की युक्ति नहीं है। ज्ञान पीड़ा, वंचना, निरर्थकता, नीरसता, अन्याय और संघर्षों के शमन हेतु विज्ञान का संधान है; यह अन्यीकरण की योजना के द्वारा शोषण, दोहन और परपीड़न का उपक्रम नहीं है। ज्ञान, सहानुभूति और स्वानुभूति की क्षमता है; नाटकीय प्रदर्शन या मंचन में दक्षता इसके इतर एक कला है।

नीरज कुमार झा

Technology: The Most Real and Effective Equaliser of Human Beings

If we read human history with care, one of the most powerful forces shaping equality among human beings has been technology. Travel through the past, and inequality appears harsher, more rigid, and more brutal.

The first point I want to make is this: a scientific approach, though developed over time, aligns more closely with human curiosity than mere believing; history, in many ways, reflects this. Technology, as the usable form of scientific knowledge and endeavour, is a human extension and perhaps the most powerful medium of human liberation. Liberation, after all, is about human beings becoming more human.

It is true that technology gives an edge to its discoverers and early users and often remains concentrated for a time. Yet it rarely stays confined. Over time, its usage spreads, adapts, and resists complete monopolisation.

Take mobile phones with all their embedded features. They are among the most powerful instruments of empowerment ever placed in the hands of ordinary people. One only needs to pause and reflect to see this clearly.

One may even think of democratic elections as a kind of social technology, structured methods that make the idea of democracy workable at scale.

The reason for writing this post is that perhaps the most significant technology to enter common use today is artificial intelligence. It has the potential to reduce certain forms of intellectual and creative inequality among human beings by lowering barriers that once seemed immovable. With the help of AI, one can develop ideas into coherent writing, access background without excessive effort, and attempt creative expression such as poetry, art, and more that earlier felt out of reach.

At present, AI may still hallucinate, but with a little discernment, that can be navigated. Even now, it offers valuable ideas and information that might otherwise remain inaccessible.

This could facilitate another surge in democratic participation and expression, though its direction will depend entirely on how it is used.

The key takeaway, however, is this: common people must value science and technology, adopt them with eagerness, and demand more of them. There must be a wider awareness that science is not external to human life but an essential part of being human, and it must be pursued with greater seriousness and energy. This is good not only for the individual, but also for the community, the nation, and humanity at large. At the same time, people must remain conscious of its flipside, and actively think, discuss, and debate how its risks and distortions can be mitigated.

Internationally, the present moment may appear dismal; in reality, it is exposing hidden patterns and long-standing imbalances. It may well be the darker phase that precedes a new dawn. In such a phase, humanity can overcome its imaginative lag and move towards a new world that technology has already begun to foreground.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Why do wars occur?

Why do wars occur?
Human beings bear the duty to seek an answer.

From their primitive life in jungles,
much has changed.
At every stage of evolution,
they were not what they were before.

Sages spoke of peace,
saints sacrificed themselves to bring sanity,
tomes of literature have long upheld
peace and harmony.

Yet wars return,
again and again.

Thousands, hundreds of thousands perish.
Countless others suffer unspeakable agony.
Nuclear blasts have seared entire cities.
Napalm has burned human beings alive.

And yet they are forgotten soon after they occur.
Even when war rages in its full fury,
we do not heed the screams of pain
or the cries of loss.
War games, sovereignty, and economics
remain our chief concerns.

We must ask why people turn aggressive,
what others do
when such designs are in the making.

We must not reduce our answer to reasons alone.
We must ask how we have evolved,
how we see.
what impresses us, and what we fail to see.
how we behave,
what we value, what we cherish.

Have we ever thought of our human self,
or is that the missing link we ignored all along?

Niraj Kumar Jha

Understanding an Unfolding Phenomenon

An unfolding phenomenon, if understood only through externalities such as the name it goes by, the label it carries, or how it is propagated, branded, marketed, supported, or opposed, fails to reveal its real import. Rather, it should be understood by how it actually unfolds, how it affects people within its fold and beyond, how others shape or respond to it in making what it is, the ecosystem in which it operates, and the motives and conduct of its office bearers and followers, both within their particular collective contexts and in their private capacities.

A label is a matter of choice, often serving mere identification; substance, by contrast, consists of real persons in action, processes, or things with tangible consequences. In the case of social phenomena, this substance is also dynamic, manifesting and operating differently across persons and contexts. Here, I am reminded of a doha by Kabir:
रंगी को नारंगी कहे, मूल तत्व को खोय।
चलती को गाड़ी कहे, देख कबीर रोय॥
(Rangi ko narangi kahe, mool tatva ko khoy; chalti ko gaadi kahe, dekh Kabira roy.)

This confusion persists in public discourse as well. In many cases, Indian social science scholarship complicates matters by superimposing ideologically loaded, foreign-origin terms, concepts, and categories onto Indian conditions. These are frequently ill-suited even for description, let alone analysis or theorisation; the use of the term religion for dharma, and concepts such as secularism, communalism, fascism, or the binaries of right and left, are stark examples.

It also demands a self-assessment of one’s own role, whether as a viewer, a participant, or an affected individual.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Earning Humanity

Humanity comes through training. A human being is born as a biological entity, but becoming human requires cultivation; humanity does not simply come to people; it has to be acquired. Humanity is an evolutionary achievement of the species, yet it remains external to individuals as mere biological beings. Every generation must therefore earn its humanity anew, and the human condition at any time depends greatly on the care and quality devoted to education.

People must be trained even in basic capacities: how to see, how to listen, and how to review and process what they gather through their senses. Without training, perception remains elusive, and judgment easily falls into error. The good of humanity rests on how well a society trains itself at any given time.

Humanity must allow its members to be human in a substantive sense. This requires arrangements for a pedagogy that trains people to say neti, neti to deconstruct what they experience and reconstruct it into an intelligible order for their imaginational training project.

This is the lesson of our times: the toxic fumes around us choke not only our nostrils but also our conscience.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Civilisations?

Barbarism could never truly be relegated to the past. It is a travesty of humankind’s evolution that the most barbaric practices have often been refined and dressed up as civilisation. One is left with the lingering suspicion that what we call civilisations are civilised only in name, the term itself masking enduring geographies of barbarity. Century after century, as human knowledge expanded, brutality too became more methodical and efficient.

The great wars of the twentieth century witnessed what was called “carpet bombing,” a cruel euphemism that concealed the agonising deaths of millions. Strangely, the very nations that speak of human rights, environmental protection, gender justice, and free trade now exult in human slaughter.

The conflicts of today are rarely battles between good and evil. In motives and deeds alike, greed, grievances, perverse hedonism, and supremacism are so entangled that truth is pushed out of nearly every sphere of human striving. Through acts of aggression and injustice, the present generation places humanity in grave danger and sows a legacy that will haunt generations to come.

Niraj Kumar Jha

In the Name of Humanity

Natural resources are for the whole of humanity; a nation or corporation acts only as a trustee. To choose to destroy them is an affront to the whole of humanity. The environment, too, is now strained beyond its capacity to sustain human life; wantonly harming it is a serious crime against humanity.

Likewise, the dignity and autonomy of every person represent the dignity of humanity as a whole. Any violation of that dignity diminishes us all. Even an individual does not have the free choice to demean their own humanity. A person who deliberately demeans his or her humanity demeans humanity itself. Such a proclivity should not be acceptable to fellow human beings.

Nowadays, agencies meant to speak for humanity are either defunct or silenced. In such a situation, individual members of humanity must find ways to express their anguish and to contribute to the good of humanity as a whole.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Lost in Information

We are in the age of information glut. It is a downpour from every side. And, frighteningly, we still do not know what is happening to real people in different corners of the world. The information overflow, instead of bringing clarity, creates a fog around us and envelops our consciousness. We are too much absorbed in some particular things and not in most other things, and are also oblivious to the general.

The world is connected seamlessly, but we have lost connectivity, the human connection, and, more disturbingly, we have lost the sense of interconnection. The absurdities of the age are many. When chatbots inform and explain things better than any human being, or even an assembly of scholars, and when that knowledge is easily accessible to anyone, people nevertheless appear dumber and more disoriented. There appears to be a disjointedness in people in what they think, what they speak, and the way they act.

Even seemingly wise people, when confronted with a problem or a question, tend to reason it away as unavoidable or inevitable. Aggression, resistance, and surrender appear indistinguishable. People relay, but they do not relate. Most people prefer to pronounce rather than converse and to denounce rather than engage. I always suspect people, even those with high credentials and standing, whether they mean what they say, whether they know what they articulate, and whether they stand for what they proclaim.

Some people do things without a care, with serious repercussions; the Dunning–Kruger effect appears endemic, while others are mortally afraid of doing even the right things. Information excess numbs the faculty of judgment, and overexposure weakens the agency even of the sagacious; the rest is then left to their baser instincts, which may turn either predatory or submissive.

Queer times. I wish I were alone in experiencing things around me.

Niraj Kumar Jha

A Fair Order: Heed Humanity’s Cries

Nations must reunite to build an order that is fair to all. Order protects; disorder spares none. Even a large and seemingly powerful nation can be reduced to ruin within days. The core of an apparently almighty state may rot from within, consuming both the innocent and the vile.

For this reason, nations must urgently work toward a fair, rules-based international order. The process must begin at home: states should design their own systems around fairness as a primary principle. An autonomous and responsible human individual is the best guarantee of any durable order. Only then will nations be capable of advancing a just and stable global order.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Living Civilization

A civilisation lives through its people. A flourishing civilisation retains its core values, takes pride in the deeds of its ancestors, preserves its legacies in art, literature, culture, and architecture, and continually renews itself with time in order to remain resilient and relevant. At the most basic level, a civilisation requires its people to remain alive to it, to be engaged with its traditions, enthusiastic about its future, and mindful that its inheritance is shared by all. It must cultivate a sense of belonging so that no section of society feels excluded or alienated from the civilizational whole.

History also reminds us that civilisations are not immortal. Many lands that once hosted great civilisations now bear little trace of the values, institutions, or material achievements of their past. Some survive only in fragments, in ruins, texts, and memories, while in other places, tradition and modernity stand at cross purposes rather than working in harmony. Civilisations decline or perish in many ways, through their own follies and internal decay, or by being weakened and sometimes destroyed by external aggressors. Dead civilisations serve as reminders that civilizational continuity cannot be taken for granted.

A true sense of civilisation must reside in every individual, accompanied by a critical awareness of both its strengths and its weaknesses. Blind reverence does not serve the cause of civilizational continuity. Reflection and honest appraisal are essential.

We Indians may take pride in belonging to one of the world’s most ancient living civilisations. Yet pride must be accompanied by vigilance, an awareness of past mistakes and a readiness to respond to the exigencies of changing times. Every generation carries a responsibility toward its civilisation, a duty owed to the ancestors who built it and an obligation to the descendants who will inherit it. Each generation must therefore preserve what is valuable, correct what is flawed, and carry the civilisation forward.

A civilisation may display dazzling grandeur to the observer, but it is also inherently vulnerable. Its survival ultimately depends on the consciousness, effort, and stewardship of its people.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Politics for Folks

Politics affects everyday life, regardless of the level at which it operates: local, regional, national, or international. Therefore, politics at any level, and especially international politics, must be a matter of general concern. The state of international politics has always been anarchic, but the present times appear unprecedented when considered in light of humankind's evolutionary stage.

What emerges from this scenario is that national power becomes critical for a nation’s well-being, security, and territorial integrity. Every nation must therefore have a balancing strategy not only against its immediate rivals but also against the world's most powerful countries. Otherwise, a stronger nation may dictate terms, occupy territory, forcibly extract natural resources, or compel others to pay tribute. Tragically, this remains the reality of the world today.

Among the factors that determine national power, technology is the most critical, with artificial intelligence in particular becoming decisive. Technological superiority has always influenced the outcome of conflicts, and today, with the flick of buttons, a country can overwhelm others through AI and autonomous, automated, intercommunicating machines.

However, something more human and more fundamental lies beneath this: how people live together within a polity. It concerns the quality of collective life and the management of common affairs. When people live in unity and harmony, with a shared sense of purpose, a nation becomes difficult to defeat. This depends on rationality, fairness, and mutual care. It also explains how even smaller nations can possess a strength that appears disproportionate to their geography, resources, and demography.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Soulful Poetry for Humanity

I once wrote a chapter compiling the political ideas contained in Goswami Tulsidas’ rendition of the saga of Shri Ram. Much later, I came to see that any effort to grasp such an epochal song through theory reduces it to what it was never meant to be. A work born of inward surrender cannot be contained within conceptual frames. Humanity needs soulful poetry more than theory, not because theory is without value, but because poetry speaks from a depth where the self does not assert itself. The great souls who immerse themselves in singing the essence of life serve humanity more profoundly than any theoretician, for they do not explain life; they become its voice.

Poetry may also cause irreparable harm unless poets become poetry itself, without any desire for glory or even the inward satisfaction of having created. The way it may be rendered is as it was by the Goswami. His songs flow from his heart as an outpouring of gratitude toward the Creator and of reverence for every being and thing in creation, permeated by unbounded love, without any sense of pride, vanity, or self-assertion. Such poets do not stand above their creation; rather, they sing as human beings in such inward anonymity that no creator remains separate from the song. Only then does poetry elevate rather than intoxicate. When we recite Goswami’s Ramcharit, we immerse ourselves in divinity, discover our own soul in its literary genius, and hear a voice so free of self that it awakens the human within us.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Meaningfulness Conundrum

 Human life seeks meaning or purpose. Yet most human beings are not privileged enough to consciously pursue life as something meaningful. They simply walk on as circumstances shape their paths. This is the first tragedy of human life: too many people do not know what their lives are meant for, how to live with contentment, and, for that, how to live in harmony. They cause pain to themselves and others.

The second tragedy is more serious. The meaning of human life comes from nowhere; it is invented by human beings themselves. Those who enjoy some material advantage often seek meaning in life, but even those who pursue meaningfulness do not understand what meaningfulness actually is. The real problem is to know what meaningfulness means. How do we know that something is meaningful? How do we identify its implications and consequences?

Most people simply do not know, and they are not capable or equipped to know how certain pieces of knowledge came to be recognised as such, how meanings are constructed, and how to examine their consequences. Societies need to identify people who can think deeply, and to listen to them intently, even when they sound absurd or offensive. This knowledge of knowledge, or meaning of meaning, is indeed a very rare and challenging noetic inclination and exercise, as it seeks to extricate almost nonexistent ideas from phenomena deeply entrenched in life and defended by soulless forces.

The fact is that human beings are what they know themselves to be. Much of human suffering could be substantially reduced if people learned how to weave meaning carefully, to avoid false meanings that masquerade as genuine ones and cause profound trouble.

Yet communities must guard against people who, in pursuit of the knowledge of knowledge or meaning of meaning, get overwhelmed by the absolute darkness of meaninglessness, upon which float only tiny vessels of constructed meanings, and speak and speak as if possessed by it. The philosophically inclined ones must also save themselves from being sucked into meaninglessness.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Democrats and Democracy

Democracy functions not merely through institutions but through a habit of mind. It requires citizens who examine their experiences, question what they are given, and take responsibility for their actions. The central human problem has always been epistemic and practical: how to know and how to act. Societies tend toward cognitive ease; inherited assumptions, social cues, and now algorithmically curated information often substitute for independent judgment. The availability of better information, including that generated by advanced technologies, does not by itself produce better citizens. When individuals outsource judgment rather than refine it, informational improvement can coexist with civic passivity.

If democratic life weakens, it is not only because institutions fail but because citizens cease to exercise reflective agency. Instinct, habit, and group loyalty are natural features of human psychology, but democracy demands that they be examined rather than blindly obeyed. The responsibility here is irreducibly personal: each individual must resist passive acceptance and subject even the most ordinary claims and experiences to thought.

Yet reflection in isolation is insufficient. Democratic agency matures in conversation. Through disciplined, respectful exchange, individuals test their judgments, revise errors, and recognise others as equal participants in a shared world. Such dialogue is not ornamentation to democracy; it is the practice through which citizens sustain both political responsibility and their own humanity. Democracy endures when reflective individuals engage one another seriously, and it erodes when thought and conversation are replaced by reflex and consumption.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Excellence and Equity: On the Moral Foundations of Social Order

History has incontrovertibly validated Orwell’s depiction in Animal Farm: the bare drive for equality destroys not only liberty but equality itself, leaving the community utterly devoid of any sense of fraternity. This points to another fundamental rule of human affairs: it is the pursuit of excellence alone that brings equity to fruition. In fact, the very idea of equity emerges only when the value of human excellence is recognised and actively pursued; it cannot arise otherwise.

This brings us to a puzzling aspect of the unfolding story of the United States: a nation that occupies a commanding position in technological, economic, and institutional excellence in the modern world. It is deeply unsettling that, for certain elites, the pursuit of excellence degenerates into unbridled aggression or unrestrained sensual indulgence. What is at stake here is not individual moral failure alone, but a structural distortion in which success is increasingly measured by domination, spectacle, and excess rather than by contribution to human flourishing. This is certainly not the Protestant ethic that underpinned modern capitalism.

Excellence is intrinsically multidimensional, and at its core lies the elevation of human life through the disciplined pursuit of one’s highest capacities. The domains of excellence are manifold—service, art, literature, philosophy, science, sports, and beyond. Wealth and power are merely instrumental; they acquire meaning only insofar as they serve these higher ends.

However, entrepreneurial excellence must not be undermined, but wealth finds its meaning and purpose only when its possession elevates the holder through aesthetic pursuits and charity, rather than descending into monstrous indulgence in carnal pleasure or the sadistic thrill of domination, and when the enterprise helps meet the genuine needs of people and contributes to the betterment of life. When it does otherwise, it is demonic.

Niraj Kumar Jha 

National Power in a Post-Order World

Internationally, the truth of truth is that power is truth and might is right. For nations, power therefore acquires a significance it had ceased to possess for a long time in the evolving international order. Today, even the pretence of fair play, alliances, multilateralism, and collective security has collapsed. Every nation stands for itself, as there exists no law or organisation capable of guarding against illegitimate transgressions.

India is a great power and a nation steadily ascending to newer heights of power and prestige. Yet this is not enough. It must vastly increase its leverage to negotiate a world of great powers unhinged from any coherent order. India is a nation of nearly one and a half billion souls, many of them highly vulnerable, whose well-being is inseparably tied to the national good. It is therefore the duty of public intellectuals to identify what strengthens the nation and what weakens it, and to build public support around these questions.

Equally critical is the fact that artificial intelligence is constructing entirely new templates that script human life itself, pushing older templates into the background. These changes are creating colossal opportunities and are likely to generate equally unimaginable crises; the early signals are already highly disruptive. A country like India must consciously negotiate this unprecedented transition to mitigate its disruptions and reap the benefits of a revolution of scale unparalleled in human history.

Niraj Kumar Jha