It is surprising and anomalous that pre-modern, job-related identities and narratives responding to existential anxieties continue to capture the human imagination and tragically impede the democratic potential of societies. Humanism unfolds as liberalism in the domain of knowledge, democracy in politics, and capitalism in the economy. Strengthening democracy, therefore, requires freeing the market to the maximum, as this alone promises mobility into secular roles and a spirit commensurate with democratic norms.
Let me add something here about the free market. It is a truism that competition begets excellence in corporate affairs and that people empower themselves to serve humanity better. However, the free market must not be seen as economic entities engaged in a blind race for market domination, but rather as a drive to serve fellow human beings better and to respect competition rather than curb it. I am not speaking here of Western liberalism, but of an incipient Indian liberalism, a manifest form of which is Gandhism.
Some may find the passage contradictory, as I advocate secularism in the second paragraph and dharma in the third. It is a gross epistemological folly to equate dharma with religion. Dharma concerns the upholding of life in the best feasible way, commensurate with time and space. In doing so, it draws upon both reason and the emotional sensibilities of human beings and transcends the boundaries of religion and science. In brief, dharma is a conscious and cultivated realisation of human consciousness.
Niraj Kumar Jha
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें