Dr.

RAM MANOHAR LOHIA

NATIONAL LAW
UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW

SUBJECT: SOCIOLOGY
TOPIC: Dr. LOHIA AND SOCIALISM
FINAL DRAFT

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher who gave me the
golden opportunity to done a research on the life of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia and his new
ideology of socialism,which also helped me in doing a lot of Research and I came to know
about so many new things, I am really thankful to him.
Secondly I would also like to thank my seniors and friends who helped me a lot in finishing
this project within the limited time.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1. WORLD CITIZEN

2. LIFE SAGA

I.CHILDHOOD

II.STUDENT LIFE

III. ASSOCIATION WITH CONGRESS

IV. IMPRISONMENT BEGINS

V. ACTIVE IN QUITINDIA MOVEMENT

VI. AGAINST PARTITION

VII. DEATH IN DELHI

3. NEW SOCIALISM : LOHIA

4. SEVEN REVOLUTIONS OF LOHIA

5. CONCLUSION

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WORLD CITIZEN

Rammanohar Lohiya’s personality is very fascinating and inspiring ,even he failed to secure
any high position at the time of independence and it is only because of his characteristic of
behaviour , not to compromise his own values and principles of life. His personality reveals
multiple forms as an unparalleled, inspired, persistent crusader, as an inborn sharp-witted and
intelligent philosopher, as a political leader, as a large- herated citizen and as an instinctive
rebel. He remained a persistent crusader and never got entangled in routine rituals. Instead ,
his ever – blooming imagination looked out for fresh intellectual inspiration. He linked action
with thought and tried to to ultimate truth into the realm of day to day life. Thereby he
captured the minds of people and become their powerful leader. Although, he was a leader of
just one country, he had a firm faith in the unity of whole mankind, and proud of being called
a ‘ child of motherearth’. He spent his entire life in in ever new experiments and non-
investigations in the field of thought. It was his dream to mould a new man who would
establish a new world, in which two worlds of have and have notswould into one. A world
parliament would be established on the basis of adult franchise. He carried out several
experiments in his life to achieve this objective. Each thought and each action of his were
directed towards building up this new world order. He was a staunch nationalist, however he
was not tieddown by geographical and national boundaries, while thinking about
Universalism. He had a proper perspective of both the motherland and motherearth. He held
that one should free to travel entire world without a passport, and must have a freedom to live
and die anywhere in the world. It was believed that socialism grew out of the capitalism of
west. It was also believed that nationalism and socialism were antagonistic. Lohiya was
socialist. Yet he could not see any contradiction between nationalism, socialism and large-
minded internationalism. He identified himself with the land, culture and soul of India, yet he
thought about suppressed people of the entire world.

In his article entitled ‘Rama, Krishna, Shiva’, he praise to motherland to bless him with the
outlook of universalism thus : “ O mother, kindly bless us with the unbounded intellect of
Shiva; the exuberant heart of Krishna and extraordinary ability of Ram......”

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LIFE SAGA OF LOHIA

CHILDHOOD

Rammanohar Lohia was born to Mother Chandri and father Heeralal on 23 March, 1910 in
Akabarpur, a village in Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh. Mother died when Rammanohar
was only two years old. His grandmother brought him up. His father was a devoted
follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Rammanohar saw Gandhi for the first time when he was only
nine years old. The Indian National Congress held its plenary session in 1923 at Gaya in
Bihar. Little Lohia was a Congress volunteer there. He also attended the 1928 session at
Guwahati.

STUDENT DAYS

Following his Matriculation in 1925, he graduated with distinction in 1929 and went to
Humboldt University (Germany) for his Ph.D in Economics the same year. Hitler was in
power at that time. Lohia wrote his doctoral thesis on 'Salt Satyagraha in India.' He was
awarded the Doctorate in both Economics and Political Science. He returned to India in 1932.
It was during his stay in Germany that he decided to devote himself fully to political work.
In fact he was active among Indian students in Germany aspiring for the country's freedom
and participated in the anti-British demonstrations that rocked the sessions of the League of
Nations at Geneva at that time.

ASSOCIATION WITH CONGRESS

In 1934 he was associated with the efforts to form the Congress Socialist Party within the
Congress. The CSP was born on May 17 that year and Dr Lohia was made a member of its
National Executive. Between 1934 and 1936 he was active in the students and workers
movements in Calcutta and became the editor of the CSP mouthpiece, Congress
Socialist. He worked in the Foreign Affairs Department of the AICCfrom 1936 to 1939 and
also became an office-bearer of the UPCC in this period and came close to Jawaharlal Nehru.

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In the years 1937-1948 he developed a close relationship with Mahatma Gandhi and
enjoyed Bapu's unalloyed affection.

IMPRISIONMENT BEGINS.

He suffered imprisonment from May 1939 to July 1940 for anti-war propaganda; thereafter
for the second time he was sentenced to a twoyear prison-term for the same 'crime' but
released after a year-and-a-half. Between 1938 and 1942 he had differences with Nehru on
what policy India should adopt with regard to the Second World War. But this was also the
time when he dedicated himself to Gandhiji for joining the total satyagraha for India's
freedom.

Active in Quit India Movement.

At the historic AICC session in Bombay's Gwalior Tank on August 8, 1942 that saw the
adoption of the famous 'Quit India' resolution, Dr Lohia was a delegate and spoke on the
resolution. Thereafter like countless Congress workers he went underground to
participate in Gandhiji's memorable 'Do or Die' struggle, established the secret
Congress Radio Centre in Calcutta, delivered several speeches on the air from there, and
wrote as well as published and circulated several clandestine journals and publications.
He also played a pivotal part in organising and carrying out a number of secret anti-British
operations in that movement. In May 1943, the Nepal Government at the directive of the
British Indian Government arrested Dr Lohia and Jaya Prakash Narayan in Nepal but a
secret team of revolutionaries was shortly able to free them from captivity.

24 -MONTHS OF IMPRISONMENT

After 21 months of clandestine activities from the underground Dr Lohia was arrested in
Bombay on May 10, 1944 and sent to Lahore firstand then shifted to Agra. At Lahore Jail he
was subjected to inhuman torture. In this period he lost his father, who was a Congress office-
bearer in UP and arrested in the 1930-32 Non-Cooperation Movement, but he refused to
come out of jail on parole. After 24 months of imprisonment he was released in June 1946.
On his release Nehru offered him the party's General Secretaryship but he refused to accept it
as he was having serious differences with Nehru on several questions relating to the
functioning of Congress leaders in power as also the Congress organisation.

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SOLIDARITY WITH GOA & NEPAL

On June 18, 1946 Dr Lohia launched the satyagraha movement in Goa that became the
precursor of the Goa liberation struggle. He was arrested then and there, and again for nine
days in September when he had to endure brutal treatment at the hands of the Portuguese
authorities.In 1946-47, the Nepal Congress was set up under Dr Lohia's inspiration; he also
went to Darjeeling to project and support the demands of the Nepali people and was arrested
in that connection.

AGAINST PARTITION

It is significant that on August 16, 1946, the Muslim League's Direct Action Day that resulted
in the Great Calcutta Killings, Dr Lohia was in Chittagong, then a veritable bastion of the
East Bengal Muslim League, and spoke at a public rally there opposing the proposed partition
of the country; this provoked the Muslim League goons to issue lifethreatening calls
which obviously failed to cow him down.In February 1947 he was elected Chairman of the
Congress Socialist Party at its Kanpur session. In June the Congress Working Committee
met to take a final decision on partition; it found Dr Lohia and JP attending the meet as
invitees and voicing their resolute opposition to the move for the nation's vivisection which
was, however, endorsed with majority support.

SOCIALIST PARTY, PRAJA SOCIALIST PARTY &

SAMYUKT SOCIALIST PARTY

In 1934 a socialist party, known as the Congress Socialist Party, was organised within the
Congress. The party started its Weekly, the Congress Socialist, to disseminate the socialist
ideology among the Congress workers and the Indian masses, the editorship of which was
entrusted to Dr. Lohia due to his logical and progressive approach to the economic and
political questions of the day. In 1936 he was made Secretary of the Foreign Department of
the Congress on the recommendation of Jawaharlal Nehru. He held this post for about two

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years. In 1938 he was included in the Executive Committee of the Congress Socialist Party.
From 1939 to 1946, Lohia’s life was one of continuous struggle against the British
Government. During this period he worked under the guidance and leadership of Mahatma
Gandhi and passed about four years behind bars. In February 1947, the Congress Socialist
Party held its session in Kanpurunder the chairmanship of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. At
the Kanpur Session the party decided to drop the word ‘Congress’ from its name and assume
a new status and title as an independent Socialist Party. In 1952 there was a merger of the
Socialist Party with the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP), with the result that a new
socialist party, known as Praja Socialist Party, was formed. As the President of the P. S. P.,
Lohia pleaded for a greater incorporation of Gandhian ideas in socialist thought.

ELECTORAL BATTLE

Dr Lohia contested the second, third and fourth general elections from UP, the third one in
1962 against Nehru from Phulpur. He lost in 1957 and 1962 but came to the Lok Sabha by
winning a by-election from Farrukhabad in 1963. In 1967 he was re-elected to Parliament
from Kannauj.Even today, after 43 years, one distinctly remembers his absorbing
speeches in the Lok Sabha in 1966. Dr Lohia commanded a kind of respect from friends and
foes alike few have been able to claim since his demise.Dr Lohia led several mass
movements and was jailed on numerous occasions in both pre- and post-independence
India. He was an uncompromising and indomitable fighter who could not be suppressed
by either force or coercion.He visited several countries and participated in meetings of the
Socialist International and World Peace Council. During his last trip abroad in 1965 he went
to Germany, Russia and Afghanistan; while in Kabul he had the opportunity to meet the
Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.His espousal of several causes, like the one on
giving Hindi the status of national language while strengthening the regional languages for
the benefit of the poor and the marginalised, evoked mixed reactions. But his arguments were
always logical and factual. Towards the end of his life he expressed a strong desire to bring
about Left unity in the country.

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DEATH IN DELHI

Following a prostrate-gland operation at New Delhi's Willingdon Hospital on September

29, 1967, his condition suddenly deteriorated and he breathed his last on October 12 at the
comparatively young age of 57. (As a homage to his memory the hospital was subsequently
renamed after him.)

NEW SOCIALISM : LOHIA

He asked the Indian socialists to understand the importance of a decentralized economy based
upon the resuscitation of cottage industries. He seemed to be against both capitalism and
communism on account of their fad for big and heavy machines. According to him, both the
systems are wasteful and hence unsuitable for India. In contrast to them, Gandhi’s ideas and
action, Lohia strongly pleaded, may act as a filter through which socialist ideas would flow
and get rid of their dross. He said, “Nobody would be happier than I if Gandhi’s ideas were
also to influence the other two systems, capitalism and communism, but one may reasonably
doubt that this can be done.”

Developing his argument in favour of Gandhian economy, Lohia explained that the world
today was in the grip of two systems and the third one was in the making. He argued:
“Capitalism and communism are almost fully elaborated systems, and the whole world is in
their grip, and the result is poverty and war and fear. The third idea is also making itself felt
on the world stage. It is still inadequate, and it has not been fully elaborated, but it is open.” 1

Lohia called this idea the true socialist idea. This socialist idea, according to him, is to be
based on Gandhi’s ideas of decentralized economy and village government. He, therefore,
urged the importance of small machines which would utilize the maximum labour power with
small capital investments. This type of thought-orientation was
not liked by many of his colleagues. About a year after (in June, 1953), Asoka Mehta put
forward his thesis of the ‘Political Compulsions of a Backward Economy’ in which he tried
to maintain that the ideology of the Congress was coming near to that of the socialists, and
hence he urged for an ideological alliance between the Congress and the P. S. P. Lohia, as a

1
Dr. R. M. Lohia, Marx, Gandhi & Socialism. Navahind Prakashan, Hyderabad. 1963. p. 120

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counterbalance to it, presented his ‘Equidistant Theory’ and asserted that the socialists were
still as much equidistant from the Congress as they were from the communists. He, therefore,
did not like the P. S. P. to have an alliance with the Congress on policy matters. However, he
saw no harm in making an electoral adjustment with the Congress under special
circumstances.

The main objectives of Asian socialism, Lohia tells that it should strive for the attainment of
such concepts as the democratization of administration, small capital outlay such
as small machines, socialisedproperty and maximum attainable equality. And the method he
suggested for their realization corresponds to the Gandhian method of mass action. He
dismissed communist class struggle as immoral and violent because of its faulty analysis of
capitalism. Socialist class struggle, according to him, “must correspond to the aims of
decentralized society, which alone can now produce good economic and spiritual results.
As an exponent of decentraliz:d socialism, Lohia wanted to organise the state mostly on the
lines Gandhi suggested. The socialist state, according to him, must aim at the decentralization
of both economic and political powers. He called his socialist state a four-pillar state. 12 In
this state, an attempt will be made to synthesize the opposite concepts of centralization and
decentralization. Its four pillars–the Village, the Mandal (the district), the Province and the
Central Government, will be so organised as to work on the principle of functional
democracy. The main features of this state, according to Lohia, will be: (1) One-fourth of all
governmental and plan expenditure shall be through village, district and city panchayats. (2)
Police shall remain subordinate to village, city and district panchayats or any of their
agencies. (3) The post of collector shall be abolished and all his functions will be distributed
among various bodies in the district. As far as possible, the principle of election will be
applied in administration, instead of nominations. (4) Agriculture, industry and other
property, which is nationalized, will, as far as possible, be owned and administered by
village, city and district panchayats. (5) Economic decentralization, corresponding to political
and administrative decentralization, will have to be brought about through maximum
utilization of small machines. 2

2
Dr. R. M. Lohia, Marx, Gandhi & Socialism. Navahind Prakashan, Hyderabad. 1963. p.523

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Lohia was gradually convinced that the traditional and organised socialism was “a dead
doctrine and a dying organisation.” 3 In its place, he urged for a new kind of socialism. While
discussing his “New Socialism,” he states that equality, democracy, non-violence,
decentralization and socialism are the five supreme principles, not alone of India’s politics
but also of all world action. ‘New Socialism’ must aim at the attainment of these principles.
With this aim in view, he outlined a programme which would gradually pave the way for the
establishment of a ‘New Socialism’ in the world.

Lohia tells in his Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, the socialist doctrine needs to be retold in
terms of the simple truth that all men are equal, not only within the nation but also among
nations. When that happens it will change its traditional forms on practically every major
score. In place of an increasing standard of living within national frontiers, decent and
minimum living standards for all men in the world will be assured. In place of the alternatives
between parliamentary and insurrectionary action, a balanced mixture of constitutional action
and civil resistance, wherever necessary and possible, will be followed or practised. In place
of halting and gradualistic reforms of property and in comet socialization of all property
except such as does not employ hired labour and the fixing of a top-bottom ratio in incomes
will be brought about. In place of an international organisation of unequal members, a comity
of nations, equal in membership and executive and based on some sort of adult franchise, will
be established and maintained. In fact, socialism must first achieve the union of mankind in
the mind before it can translate that into practice. 4

3
Quoted from Modern Indian Political Thought by Dr. V. P. Varma, Lakshmi Narain Agrawal, Agra. (Third
Ed. 1967) p. 483.
4
Dr. R. M. Lohia, Marx, Gandhi and Socialism. pp. 475-494.

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SEVEN REVOLUTIONS OF LOHIA :

Lohia states that today seven revolutions are taking place everywhere in the world. These
revolutions are: “

1. for equality between man and woman;

2. against political, economic and spiritual inequality based on skin colour;

3. against inequality of backward and high groups or castes based on long tradition, and for
giving special opportunities to the backward;

4. against foreign enslavement and for freedom and world democratic rule;

5. for economic equality and planned production and against the existence of and attachment
for private capital;

6. against unjust encroachments on private life and for democratic methods;

7. against weapons and for satyagraha.”5

According to him, the attainment of ‘New Socialism’ all over the world depends upon the
success of these seven revolutions.

5
Dr. R. M. Lohia, Marx, Gandhi & Socialism. Navahind Prakashan, Hyderabad. 1963. p. 531

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CONCLUSION

The age of Gandhi ji was the age of sacrifice , that of Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the age of
luxury, power and money , and that of lohia, the age of duty. The need of today is the
coordination of Gandhi’s sacrifice and lohia’s duty. Lohia’s life is synonymous with the
history of the struggle of Indian socialism. Lohia’s concepts , dynamic actions ,
imprisonments suffered by him , all aimed social justice. The clarity of his conceptions,
visions of future and well balanced views impart momentum and inspiration to the struggle
against injustice.The world is not short of great men, nor India, yet Lohiya’s intellectual
contribution must be considered as a unique gift to the world. “the people will pay due
attention to my views and thoughts only after my death” said lohia in his public speech at
Arjun sagar on the 25th sept.1962. his prophecy was based on strong self confidence .It
revealed state reality . During practically his last phase of life lohia had realised it. Common
people had arrived at the conclusion that after Gandhi ji, lohia was the only eminent person
would unreservedly give justice to the feelings of anguish of the poor, deprived and
depressed. . Lohiya’s personality is enriched by five principles : human, sympathy,
unconquerable ability to oppose, faith in people, irrespective of national boundaries
and ceaseless ability to resist.

Lohiya’s personality and socialism in India can be consider as two faces of same coin.
Lohiya’s role in the Indian freedom struggle is distinct in itself, due to his socialists
principles and it is the reason that in front of gaint congress at that time, he established his
own party and make his distinct identity in the world.

There are very few political personalities in India who have contributed so much for the
freedom struggle and the country's post-independence regeneration in such a brief life-
span.Such was his life that Lohia became another name for fearlessness. Both during British
rule and in free India he expressed his opinions fearlessly. His yardstick to judge any idea or
plan was always the same - does it help the downtrodden and the poor? His scholarship was
amazing. His intellect was penetrating. He was a man of independent views.He roared like a
tiger when he said, "For five thousand years no one has known whether the common man is
alive or dead in this land. His personality should blossom and he must grow into a new man."
Lohia toiled and died for the cause of the common man.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY :

DR. RAMMANOHAR LOHIA : HIS LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY BY INDUMATI

KELKAR

MARX, GANDHI AND SOCIALISM BY DR. LOHIA

ARTICAL : DR. LOHIA: TOWARDS ‘NEW SOCIALISM’ BY DR. RAM CHANDRA

GUPTA

WWW.RMLNLU.AC.IN

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