Ram Manohar Lohia was a socialist political leader, a profound thinker, and a well-known Indian freedom fighter who fought not only against the British rulers but also against social injustice, caste and class inequality, and gender bias. Ram Manohar Lohia has aggressively involved the country’s youth in the independence cause, which he started in Goa in 1946.
(डॉ॰ राममनोहर लोहिया भारत के स्वतन्त्रता संग्राम के सेनानी, प्रखर चिन्तक तथा समाजवादी राजनेता थे।)
Born: 23 March 1910, Akbarpur
Died: 12 October 1967, New Delhi
Party: Samyukta Socialist Party
Contribution of Ram Manohar Lohia
Ram Manohar Lohia was an eminent socialist thinker. He put forth five kinds of inequalities and argued that each of these inequalities had independent roots and had to be fought separately and simultaneously:
- Gender Inequality: Patriarchal mindset and gender discrimination is rooted in most societies. So, he inferred that in poor countries, women majorly functioned as reproductive machines and as household servants.
- Racism: Black skin color constitutes low status and ugliness, where inner purity is substituted by outer appearance. He warned that such discrimination would disturb global inner peace and freedom and tried to change the mindset of people and put forth a real definition of beauty – based on inner conscience.
- Caste discrimination: He refuted the caste system, as it restricted individual growth and tried to imbibe a sense of equality in society colonial exploitation: He considered foreign rule as an evil that drains the national resources for foreign profit, and thus tried to promote nationalism & independence from foreign rulers.
- Economic inequality: He stressed abolishing private ownership of means of production and establishing ownership of the whole community, and favored the development of MSME rather than big industrialization Being a socialist, he was against these inequalities and wished to fight by solutions like-
- Intervention by the state to redistribute wealth through welfare policies.
- Regulations on the market, collectivization of resources, and nationalization of major public assets.
- He had no faith in the notion of private property. His book The Mystery of Sir Stafford Cripps (1942) played a significant role in spreading the messages of socialism in India.
Lohia favored the use of Hindi as the official language of India. In his own words, “The use of English is a hindrance to original thinking, progenitor of inferiority feelings and a gap between the educated and uneducated public. Come, let us unite to restore Hindi to its original glory.”
His anti-English and pro-reservation policies did make him unpopular among some people in political circles. He did not also shy away from criticizing the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of whom he wrote in a pamphlet titled ‘25000 rupees in a day’, that the money spent on the PM on a single day was way more than what India could then afford.
- Lohia also advocated the overthrow of despotic rule in Nepal as well as the Goan liberation from Portuguese rule.
- In his last few years, he was against Congress as he felt that there was a need for divergent political parties to come to power and that excess clout in one party was detrimental to the country.
- Lohia died in New Delhi aged 57.
Relevance in Modern Society
Gender inequality is a global problem that affects both developing and developed countries.
Even in the United States, where many “blacks” are treated differently, racism has been observed. The United States’ current immigration policy also demonstrates racial discrimination. Migrants from Central Asia and Africa face racial persecution in Europe as well.
The Buddhist majority in Myanmar oppressed Rohingya Muslims; Dalit lynching cases in India; Middle East crises (where the Sunni-Shia conflict continues); or the US government’s recent immigration policies.
Western nations such as the United States, Russia, and China are attempting to reclaim Africa’s significant resources through neocolonialism.
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