Pure Secularism

 A pandemic earlier caused a separation; politics divorced religion. This pandemic we see the unease of science.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The Utopia of Statelessness

It is not only the ideology, which misleads us with such a utopia, but even the classical liberals when they say that the state is a necessary evil, they too fantasize a stateless society. The point is that this is unrealistic. Optimisation of freedoms does require a collective authority. The intellectual challenge is to fashion this organically. The protocols are already there. Rule of law geared to facilitation of freedoms by ensuring a just order can be operational provided we apply understanding instead of extra wisdom we all possess. Government we can have organically societal instead of being sui generis extraneous.

Niraj Kumar Jha

The WWII Internationalism

The internationlaism, which grew out of the the great war during the  later part of the twentieth century, is dying now. I don't think that it would be appropriate to say that it survived the Cold War. Rather I find that the Cold War was imbedded into its logic. Teh internationalism was more a design for global domination by a few powers than about the  pursuit of global good. Now the order is crumbling primiarily because of its own inherent cotradictions, and by the rise of another power, seeking global hegemony, and ethnic resurgences everywhere. It's high time for democracies and freedom loving people from all over the world to unite and work for a new internationalism facilitating freedoms all over the world. Otherwise, the world is going to face weakened resolve and agency for fighting global crises and check the rise of evil forces. 

Niraj Kumar Jha 

Science

I learnt that science is the systematic study of a phenomenon. But what I realise is that science is about honest and intelligent pursuit of knowledge, and the methods follow. There is another dimension too, i.e. science being applied against human good. And thus honesty, as put in the context above, must mean to cover morality, the commitment to human good, along with objectivity.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Online Education

I am not aware of the ongoing debates on the online education but I can say that it is the future of education. The brick and mortar educatonal institutions would remain there as the lived centres of education parallel to the virtual mode of learning. The longer we remain in denial,more we are going to lose. And more readily we adopt and adapt, more we are likely to remain in the race for everything globally today.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Social Dynamics

Social dynamics is a very long term affair; the causative factors may span over millennia. The focus on the current conditions and actors helps little in understanding and in managing social affairs. And more profoundly, it is the intellectualist state (operative epistemology) over time which determines the unfolding social phenomena. We often overvalue great calamities or upheavals. The plague epidemic in the 14th century triggered a chain of movements bringing modernity to Europe but hardly affected Asia, from where it originated. The Arab Spring, mostly an ICT generated movement, sank the Arab nations more in obscurantism and authoritarianism. We may also talk about a completed project of recent history, the Soviet one. The promised egalitarianism never materialised and it reduced into a very dehumanising totalitarianism. And yet, the desirable changes within a foreseeable future are possible, provided we realise that wishes are not horses. They need a scientific understanding of the social organism and commensurate policy measures to materialise. A proper probing of the current must move beyond the contemporary.

Niraj Kumar Jha

Democracy Mechanism

You know the law of gravity and you also know that the rocket science is a different ballgame. You know democracy as a principle but the democracy of order, constitutionalism in operation, is a different ballgame. Most of the probems we perceive, face, or suffer as such require repairs or upgrades of the democracy mechanism but the problem is that the same elements, deficient in skills, who script malwares cry hoarse at the machine's malfunctioning. And the problem ironically afflicts even the developed democracies. We need proper knowledge and skills first.

Niraj Kumar Jha