I am a master and teacher of a subject of my own creation, which may be called ‘ Rashtriya Nirmaan Shaastra ‘, or the ‘Science of the Construction of a Nation’. One will not find this subject in the curricula of any University.
In this subject, I have super specialized about India, and my burning passion is to see India, which presently suffers fom massive poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition ( every second child in India is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index ), 57% Indian women are anaemic, skyrocketing prices of essential commodities like food, fuel, and medicines, almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for the masses, etc emerge as a modern, prosperous, highly industrialized, nation, with its people enjoying a high standard of living.
I am now 78 years old. It took me over half a century as a student before I could graduate in this subject, half a century of intense study in libraries and in my home, cool and fiery discussions with my contemporaries, and humbly listening to people who were intellectually superior to myself, who remained anonymous, and are now all dead.
This half a century was a period of intense pain and mental turbulence, when conventional ideas and prejudices in my mind were all thrown into turmoil. That I have emerged alive after going through this furnace is perhaps itself a miracle.
To be a master and good teacher of a subject one has to first be a good student, and to be a good student one has to have modesty and humility. Nowadays I often see people who arrogantly behave like teachers, but who were never willing to be students, people holding strong opinions, but opinions which are often superficial, unscientific, half baked, and formed without going through the intense, rigorous study which should precede formation of such opinions.
In my half a century as a student I kept learning, learning, learning. Since the subject ‘ Rashtriya Nirmaan Shaastra ‘ is not to be found in any formal curriculum, I could pick up knowledge about it only in bits and pieces, reading books at home and in libraries, hearing people in the Allahabad University, the Allahabad High Court Bar Association, the Coffee House, and in other places, mostly in Allahabad ( because most of my life was spent there ). My eyes and ears were always open to acquire such knowledge, which usually came in driblets, and never in an organized manner.
Also, this subject, by its very nature, required knowledge of several other specialized subjects, like history, economics, political science, philosophy, law, the natural sciences, literature, etc. Nobody can be a master in all these subjects, because each of them is nowadays so specialized that often one cannot in his lifetime even become a master in the whole subject, but in only one particular branch of it.
But while I could not possibly be a master in all these subjects, I had to have a rudimentary idea of most of them in order to graduate in Rashtriya Nirmaan Shaastra. So I studied these subjects as thoroughly as I could.
My command over English, which was principally due to being educated in an English medium school, gave me access to world knowledge, especially Western knowledge, due to which I am quite comfortable discussing European and American history, Western philosophy, literature, political and economic thought, etc.
At the same time, my Indian ‘sanskars’ made me study Indian history, philosophy, literature etc.
So I am equally comfortable in Indian and Western culture and history, which again was a necessary prerequisite for graduation in my own specialized subject.
It is only in recent years that I became a teacher, after being a student for over half a century. I started teaching initially through some judgments which I delivered in the Supreme Court and High Court ( e.g. Kailas vs. State of Maharashtra, Naresh Chand vs DIOS, etc which can be seen online ), and continued to do so after my retirement from the Supreme Court in 2011 through my articles and videos, most of which are on my facebook page.
The crux of my ideas, which I constantly teach, are contained in these articles :
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-a-call-to-indian-patriots/
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-the-grand-indian-theorem/
https://justicekatju.com/the-coming-great-revolution-in-india-675951a0ad4e
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmoDYaAIbNI&t=161s&pp=ygUTbW9lZWQgcGlyemFkYSBrYXRqdQ%3D%3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7DGP9thdw&list=PLAPthKuZVn57h49tC4ybtJzE12j8yLzMl
http://justicekatju.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-is-india.html
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-in-india/
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-there-are-two-indias-in-india/
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-the-truth-behind-indias-explosive-gdp-growth/
https://indicanews.com/justice-markandey-katju-emperor-akbar-is-the-father-of-the-indian-nation/
In all these articles and videos my single aim is to show to the Indian people, who seem to be all confused and like blind men groping in the dark, the path they must take if they want prosperity and decent lives for themselves and their descendants. Tremendous sacrifices will have to be made in this journey, but without making them we will never be able to create a political and social order under which our people, and their descendants, enjoy a high standard of living, and abolish forever the curse of poverty, unemployment, hunger, lack of proper healthcare and good education etc which have plagued us for centuries
