March 23 is the birth anniversary of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. At the events organised to mark this occasion, demands are often made to the government for posthumous conferment of India’s highest civilian honour i.e. Bharat Ratna upon Dr. Lohia. I anticipate that this year will be no different.

In a brief commentary I authored in May 2018, a reference was made to this trend when Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar placed this demand before President Ram Nath Kovind at an event where President Kovind delivered Lohia memorial lecture at a private university. Only three comrades Raj Kishore (late), Qurban Ali and Pushkaraj affirmed my opinion saying it would be an injustice to Lohia and his legacy if the government/ruling class would confer Bharat Ratna upon him.

In this piece written on Lohia’s 111th Jayanti, I would like to submit the following reasons in support of my opinion.

First: Lohia was a strong advocate of rights and civil liberties and he considered civil liberties/rights as the foundation for fostering and strengthening democracy in the country and the world. He had this belief about civil liberties/rights from the very beginning of his political life. At the same time, the issue of civil liberties/rights for him was not merely theoretical; much of his political activism was spent in holding/joining protest movements related to civil and democratic rights/demands of common people, and in going to jail. Lohia was incarcerated more in independent India than under the British rule. It was but natural that the colonial government would make false accusations on a freedom conscious person like Lohia and torture him to the maximum extent in jails, but even the top leaders of the government of independent India, police and courts showed no restraint in making false, baseless allegations/cases and displaying indecent behaviour against Lohia.

He was arrested more than 25 times, including the freedom movement, the Goa Liberation Movement, the Democratic Movement of Nepal. In 1964, during his visit to America, he was arrested by the police for protesting racial discrimination at public places. Prof. Chandan Gowda has given a sincere analysis of the incident in his piece titled ‘An Episode in Civil Disobedience’ (Bangalore Mirror, April 11, 2016).

For Lohia, the meaning of freedom of the individual was not limited to the personal freedom of any leader or activist. His goal was to make the value of individual freedom meaningful at the level of the whole of humanity. He considered freedom from colonial slavery as the democratic right of every Indian. Lohia was lodged in Lahore Fort Jail after his arrest during the Quit India Movement. The British government allowed him to be released on parole to attend the funeral of his father. He did not accept release on parole because as an Indian and a human being he considered his arrest and punishment unjustifiable. His father’s funeral took place in his absence. Lohia was the only child of his parents.

Lohia wrote a pamphlet titled ‘The Concept of Civil Liberties’ for the Indian Civil Liberties Union (ICLU), established by the Congress in 1936, headed by Rabindranath Tagore and acting president Sarojini Naidu. Dr. Kamal Nayan Choubey has delineated the content of this important pamphlet in his article ‘Nagrik Swatantrta, Rajya-Daman Aur Dr. Lohia’ (‘Yuva Samvad’, Lohia Visheshank, March 2011). However, after independence, the Congress itself was not committed to the expectations and pledges mentioned in that pamphlet. Lohia was adamant during Gandhi’s struggle for independence, and in independent India to Gandhi’s designated non-violent practice (civil disobedience), and accepted it as the greatest revolution of human civilization ever. Only during Quit India Movement or August Revolution he (along with Jayaprakash Narayan) make little improvisation to this policy.

It was not Lohia’s way to become democratic by keeping the option of violence in reserve. He also accepted no alternative to transparency in a peaceful resistance. His idea of socialist revolution and the way of struggle in that direction had been moulded into the blast furnace of democracy. Therefore, Lohia believed that if the struggle for civil liberties/rights is an art of strengthening the spirit and institutions of democracy, then it is an essential condition to have faith in the democratic setup. Because the socio-political activists who struggle on this way keep connected to the life of the people, which is the touch-stone of democracy. Lohia was against the dictatorship imposed on the people, and also against the indirect dictatorship in the name of the people.

Lohia was not opposed to the revolutionary movement in the freedom struggle of India, because the revolutionaries believed the same path right and were ready to sacrifice their lives for it. But Lohia was not an advocate of ‘veers‘ like VD Savarkar, whose character was allegedly a set of cowardice, treachery, and conspiracy. In the face of oppression or temptation of power, who would grovel like sheep hidden in the skin of a lion. March 23 is Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom day. That is why Lohia did not formally celebrate his birthday. His decision not to celebrate the birthday signifies deep respect for the revolutionary stream.

It is a distinct feature of Lohia that he was equally supportive of the freedom of the individual along with constitutional civil liberties. Lohia did not accept suppression of individual freedom – whether the freedom of the individual was constrained under the feudal structure or under any modern ideology/system. He believed that the human mind is always on the path of quest. Therefore, no ideology/party can be perfect. He was against stagnation/indisposition, gang-captivity and surveillance based on ideologies and political parties. He has included the value of individual freedom in his concept of “Sapta-Kranti”.

In his contemplations Lohia made a special emphasis on the freedom of women in all aspects. In the concept of “Sapta-Kranti”, he has put the goal of gender equality at the top. In this way, Lohia envisaged and advocated for a modern nation-state and democratic socialist system which provide an opportunity for the entire potential of men and women, in both human and civil forms, to flourish. The concept of “Chaukhambha Raj” (four pillar state) propagated by him also contained the idea of freedom of diverse locations/identities vis-a-vis centralist hegemony.

From the time of independence there were some British laws and some new laws that violate civil liberties/rights. Since the introduction of the New Economic Policies in 1991, the enactment and use of such laws in the country has increased rapidly. During the tenure of the current Modi government, not only has there been an unprecedented boom in the enactment/amendment and use of laws that violate civil liberties/rights, it seems that the government has launched a campaign taking repressive actions against the organizations/peoples struggling for or under civil liberties/rights. It has become a common practice to arrest people and file sedition cases against them. The data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) show that after 2014, sedition cases against citizens and organisations have increased significantly. Of greatest concern is that the high-ranking political leadership is directly involved in suppression of democratic resistance.

For a person like Lohia, who had demanded the resignation of his party’s government in Kerala over an incident of firing on protesters in 1954 (see my article ‘India Towards a Police State’, countercurrents.org, 7 August 2020) the demand for the Bharat-Ratna from the current government; or the government’s decision to confer the highest civilian award to him would be a blatant contempt to Lohia’s entire political thoughts and deeds.

Second: It is an era of corporate politics. This politics, from running a political party to contesting elections, thrives on the donations given by the super-rich class of businessmen – Dhanna Seths. Even the need to submit the accounts of donations has been legally abolished. Everyone knows that this wealth of donations comes from the immense profits that business houses have made from the purchase of national assets/resources/public sector undertakings sold by the governments at throwaway prices, and from the government policies that serve their profit-making interests. The charisma of corporate politics is worth noting that even the Prime Minister of the country feels pomp in the companionship of cronies and in using facilities offered by them. The government advocates the private sector openly in Parliament at the expense of the public sector, and is trying hard to make the private sector as strong as possible at the earliest.

Lohia could not have imagined this form the politics would take in independent India. He did not have a bank account. His party did not take money from foreign governments/institutions in the name of socialist revolution or movements. Lohia propounded the new idea of socialism vis-a-vis capitalism and communism. The present political setup has taken a plunge into corporate capitalism. Needless to say, that the Bharat Ratna to such a leader will be a huge dishonour and injustice.

Actually, there is no justification for giving Lohia the Bharat Ratna by any government other than the present one. If we have a look at the contemporary scenario of the resistance demonstrations all over India, we can find the images of certain icons such as Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Ambedkar etc. placed at the venues or carried by the protesters. But we never find an image of Lohia among these diverse icons. In this context I would like to mention one episode.

I went to Thiruvananthapuram to attend the national convention of the Socialist Party (India) in November 2016. I reached Cochin after the convention and saw hoardings of multi-coloured pictures of many famous and not-so-famous national-international leaders/thinkers all around. These were put as an advertisement for an upcoming event of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). There was hardly any leader or thinker left in that colourful fair filled with expensive pictures. I travelled to Alappuzha and looked at all those pictures carefully. Two prominent leaders of the freedom movement were missing – Acharya Narendra Dev and Lohia. One can also notice that Lohia does not find any mention in the speeches/slogans at the resistance venues/marches.

This trend shows that the civil society activists/political parties/organizations that hold the resistance demonstrations for civil liberties/rights do not consider Lohia’s ideas and perspective on the subject to be relevant. It is not that they reject Lohias ‘over revolutionary’ ways. The ruling class wants to oust him from the network of power, whether it is knowledge or politics, reason being that the ruling class neither want to wage a decisive war against feudalism-Brahminism, nor against capitalism.

A pertinent question can also be asked while summing up this discussion. Will an appropriate/deserving government ever be possible which could give Bharat Ratna to Lohia? That is, a government which would accept Lohia’s views and perspective about civil liberties/rights at least to a large extent. Lohia’s own Socialist Party merged with the Janata Party in 1977 after four decades of upheavals. In 2011, the half-hearted attempt to reinstate the Socialist Party in Hyderabad had not been much successful. By that time, corporate politics had not only put its feet firmly in the public life of India, it had also sharpened its teeth into the entire polity. Most socialists had become part of corporate politics by then. In view of all this, it can be safely said that Lohia is an unfit icon for the Bharat Ratna in any government, not just the existing one.

*The author teaches Hindi at the Delhi University

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On the occasion of the 75th anniversary, Prime Minister NarendraModi gave a call for the revival of the spirit of the Quit India Movement by coining a new slogan – ‘karengeaurkarkerahenge‘  -in place of Gandhi’s slogan,‘karoyamaro‘ – Do or Die. This slogan is a sort of exhortation to achieve the goal of building a ‘New India’ by the year 2022. He said that India will complete 75 years of Independence in 2022, and the memory of the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement should be utilized by striving for the creation of a New India, so that the vision can be realized by the 75th anniversary of Independence.
 
Prime Minister’s call for New India is utterly misaligned with the basic spirit which underlay the Quit India movement. It is an unmindfully bizarre effort to make a stagnant mentality, which is otherwise known as ‘Manuvad’, fit in with the borrowed and poor digital setup. This New India is being built at the cost of the Constitution, the sovereignty and the resources of the country. Since the Constitution, the sovereignty and the resources of the country had been achieved with the Independence from the colonial power, of which the Quit India Movement was the gateway, it is natural for the Prime Minister to think that the spirit of the struggle for Independence, including the Quit India Movement, would hold any meaning only when it is used for building a New India. This can only be possible when the spirit of freedom is reduced into spirit of slavery. In his call, this obvious meaning can be read that the time has come to correct the ‘incorrect’ spirit of freedom struggle. The RashtriyaSwayamsevakSangh (RSS) was farsighted enough, when it had opposed the struggle of Independence inspired by an incorrect spirit!
 
The communists of India would be called honest because they had opposed the Quit India Movement and, at the same time, had no concern with the spirit of Quit India Movement, and the people and leaders who participated in it. Although the Communist Party of India (CPI) had later apologized for its role in the Quit India Movement, but even today, most communist leaders and intellectuals can still be found to argue in favour of their opposing role during the Quit India Movement on the basis of international conditions. They consider the Independence of India in 1947 as a consequence of international conditions, not the result of the Indian people’s struggle and sacrifices.
 
In this article, the spirit of freedom which inspired the people of India during the Quit India Movement, has been contemplated with reference to Lohia’s analysis of the same. Lohia uses the phrase ‘will of freedom’ instead of ‘spirit of freedom’ in his analysis.
 
In the Indian freedom struggle, the will of freedom and the strength, gathered from various sources, to achieve Independence finally culminated in the Quit India Movement. The Quit India Movement conveyed the fact that even if the leaders of the country were directed by the will of freedom, the real strength to achieve it decisively resided in public. In this nationwide movement, a large number of people participated and the movement witnessed unprecedented courage and endurance. Lohia has written, quoting Leon Trotsky, “… barely one percent of the Russian population took part in the Russian Revolution. In our Revolution, no less than 20% of our people took part.”
 
The ‘Quit India’ resolution was passed On August 8, 1942; ArunaAsaf Ali hoisted the tricolor on the Gowalia Tank ground; and on the night of 9^th August the senior leaders of the Congress were arrested. Due to the arrest of the leaders, the action plan of the movement could not be formulated. The relatively young leadership of the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) was active, but it had to work underground. In such a situation, Jai Prakash Narayan (JP) wrote two long letters, from unknown places, to provide guidance and encouragement to the revolutionaries and to explain the character and method of the movement. It can be said that the public itself was its own leader during the Quit India Movement.
 
Lohia wrote on the25th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, “9th August was and will remain a people’s event. 15th August was a state event. … 9th August 1942 expressed the will of the people – we want to be free, and we shall be free. For the first time, after a long period in our history, crores of people expressed their desire to be free. … Anyhow, this is the 25th anniversary of 9th August 1942. It should be celebrated well. Its 50th anniversary perhaps will be celebrated in such a way that 15th August will be forgotten, and even 26th of January will either be foreshadowed or would equal it.”
 
Lohia did not live to see the 50th anniversary of the August Revolution. His belief that people will listen to him after his death, has been proved to be a delusion. The 50th anniversary of the August Revolution came in the wake of the New Economic Policies, which had already been introduced in the year 1991. These policies had opened the country’s doors to domestic and foreign multinationals for loot; and a 500-year-old mosque was demolished in the name of Lord Rama. Since then, due to the nexus of neo-liberalism and communalism, the ruling class of India has become a bitter enemy of the Indian people, who had paved the way for freedom while facing the suppression of the imperialist rulers in the Quit India Movement.
 
The inception of PM’s much glorified New India took place in 1991-1992.In the last three decades, the sovereignty and the resources from the country, and the constitutional rights from the public, have been snatched. The spirit of the freedom struggle, including that of the Quit India Movement, is being used, by its propagators, in the direction of building this very New India. ‘Lohiake log‘ (Men of Lohia), too, are involved in this venture. By the time it will be the 100th anniversary of the Quit India Movement, the picture of the New India would become quite certain.
 
In order to stop this future from becoming a reality, a new resolution must be taken by taking the aid of the words of Lohia, – ‘ we want to be free, and we shall be free’ from New India. Further, taking a cue from Lohia’s perception about the spirit of the Quit India Movement, it can be said that this revolution to regain India will be brought to life by the people of India as they did on August 9, 1942.
 
(The writer teaches Hindi at Delhi University and is former president of the  Socialist Party)

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We remember Ram Manohar Lohia on his 50th death anniversary. Lohia (October 12, 2017).
 
He was a political giant who took on Nehru when the rest of the nation was in awe with him. However, to defeat Nehru, Lohia did not have any issues joining hands with the Sangh Parivar. In fact, this remains the biggest tragedy of independent India: this anti Congressism actually helped legitimise rabid communal elements. A similar thing happened when JP launched his ‘Sampoorn Kranti’ which became a ‘sawarna kranti’!
 
Lohia knew India’s caste arithmetic but politics is not merely about caste and communal calculations. Beyond that, Lohia’s obsession with anti-Congressism actually damaged the socialist movement. He never realised that the Sangh Parivar and its various offshoots are equally dangerous to the the integrity of the country. While it was important to fill the opposition space and fight against the authoritarianism of the Congress party, yet in doing so, any legitimacy to communal fascist forces was detrimental. The result: everywhere the Hindutva protagonists rode on the piggyback of the Samajwadis and decimated them. Jayaprakash gave these forces further legitimacy during the anti emergency movement. The Janata government came to power in 1975 and broke on the question of double membership of the some of the members of Jan Sangh with the RSS in 1979.
 
While both Lohia and JP were great socialists, they however never challenged brahmanical hegemony. The result is that OBCs under Lohiaism in Uttar Pradesh, though, organised, could not create an alternative of brahmanical hegemony. Challenging Congress politically and creating an alternative to brahmanism are two different things. You cannot challenge brahmanism by being part of it.
 
Whatever Lohia was politically, socio-culturally, he unfortunately never challanged brahmanical hegemony. I am not sure what made him suggest that Rama and Krishna was the ‘icons’ of India despite having a rational mind. Dr Ambedkar and many others have refused to accept this and we know this well through Ambedkar’s Riddles of Hinduism.
 
But one thing is clear. Lohia was a definitely politician with superior intellect. At a time when it was difficult to take Nehru on, Lohia did so in equally strong terms and with great oratory. My lasting regret is why Lohia could not or did not meet Dr Ambedkar. Though we have information now which suggests that Lohia wanted Ambedkar to be the leader of RPI and had shown willingness to join the movement led by Dr Ambedkar, this did not happen. It was unfortunate that Dr Ambedkar passed away in December 1956 and the party he envisioned actually could not do anything specific related to this. It is also a fact that RPI had a strong presence in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab for many years.
 
Right now, the challenge is huge and the movement of the OBCs has moved ahead. Lohia’s failing was that he could not create a visionary leadership which could take over the movement. In the name of Bahujans, OBC leaders in Uttar Pradesh have reduced themselves to chanting Lohia-isms while remaining foot soldiers of the Brahmanical social order. It is time they now join the broader Dalit Bahujan movement led by Jyoti Ba Phule, Baba Saheb Ambedkar and EVR Periyar who gave people of India a new identity and strength to fight against all kinds of social evils, providing them with alternative paths.
 
Varnashram dharma is using all the tricks in the book to keep the foot soldiers within its fold. Lohia did not have the strength to fight against this as he did not provide any alternative to it which could be challenge the caste hegemony of the Dwijas. He did not provide any alternative cultural vision which Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar provided to people.
 
We do not support Lohia’s Hindi fanaticism or anti Englishism as it will not take India anywhere particularly its vast Dalit Bahujan masses who have been denied right to education and knowledge by the Varna-ashram dharma. We need a counter culture of India’s Bahujan masses, that is humanistic in nature where the philosophy revolve around human being and not laying down our lives for a fictitious God or gods.
 
Of course, we must not deny his great contribution to politicise the concerns of the OBCs; however the battle is not merely political but cultural too. Lohiaism is status quoist and ends up at the feet of Gandhism which the vast numbers of Dalit Bahujan masses have already rejected as it does not inspire them.
 
Ram Manohar Lohia must be remembered for his great role in popularising socialism and creating an alternative to Nehru’s policies,  but how can this be justified by allying with the Sangh Parivar ?
 
 

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