DR.

RAMMANOHAR LOHIA

Rammanohar Lohia, the name doesn’t need introduction. Very rare are people of Dr. Lohia’s

vision and action. It is very sad and shameful that few today know of the contributions he made,

in theory as well as in practice. Perhaps, people in India tend to remember only those who

manage to secure power. This research paper is dedicated not only to Dr. Lohia, but also to

common man, for whom Lohia gave all his life.

It assumes that the best tribute to Lohia is to do to him what he did to thinkers like Karl Marx

and Mahatma Gandhi – rigorously scrutinize his ideas and discard those elements that do not

stand close examination. It also assumes that there is now a critical mass of non-Lohians who

may be curious about his ideas and willing to disentangle his legacy from the prejudices passed

on by his partisan contemporaries. An encounter with a recent figure like Lohia forces us to

explicitly state our judgment about his ideas – something that is otherwise buried in assumptions

when dealing with thinkers of the distant past.

The central question leads this research paper to rearranging the standard route to the study of

Lohia’s archive. It notices that his theory of history performs a different role than what other

philosophies of history are known to.

II

Reading Lohia is like looking at a large M F Husain canvas: strong and bold lines, bright

colours, an unsettling blend of diverse elements, profound without being forbidding, accessible

yet enigmatic. Lohia does not offer a master key to his theoretical oeuvre. He does not draw a

blueprint of his doctrinal architecture that shows how the various aspects of his thinking are
interconnected. What he offers, almost deliberately, is a large collage with somewhat carelessly

pasted fragments and lots of blanks.1

History fascinated Lohia, from the earliest stages of his intellectual evolution to the very end of

his life. History, according to him, is that dimension of our lives which we cannot escape from,

for it has implications for the conduct of our lives, in the present and in the inexorable future.

To cite Lohia, “The destiny of man must be read not alone in the annals of history but also in the

indestructible eternity of each moment so grandly engraved in stories that never take place but

are eternally real. If man must learn to live in history, he has equal need to live outside it”2

Dr. Lohia believes that history has a purpose, for it accords us with tool-of-thought with which to

work. The implicit meaning of history, according to Dr Lohia, is ever greater restriction of any

kind of pride, profligacy, pugnacity, and violence. History implies an unending enlargement of

knowledge, peace and prosperity for the benefit of entire humanity, especially the less privileged

people, and creating a society in which all capacities endowed by nature in mankind will be

developed fully for their welfarist use. If there is no such effort, history will be nothing more

than endless revolving around endless labour and ignorance.

III

Lohia has characterised man different from other animals in three respects, that—1. Man is a

thinking being (meaning thereby that he consciously affects his activities, memories and

associations), 2. Man is a tool-making animal (meaning thereby that he uses the resources around

him to his convenience or enlightenment), and 3. Man is aware of himself and his relationships

1
See Yogendra Yadav, “What is living and what is dead in Rammanohar Lohia?” Economic and Political Weekly 15 ,
no 40 (2010): 94
2
Ibid 96
(meaning thereby that he considers himself in control of or aware of something others are not,

and thus searches for a purpose, be it with the help of science, religion, history, philosophy or in

any other way). It is the third character, Lohia states, which leads man into studying history so as

to be the master of his own fate, or to know more about the world in which he resides. Lohia also

considers that any view (on history) he propounds or studies might all be useless, as there have

been philosophers and schools of thought who believe that history has no design, and what

happens is all a play of the contingent and the unforeseen.

Lohia has largely contributed in the field of philosophy of history, in interpretation of history; to

be precise. He was of the opinion that we can never analyse history completely (to form a

universal theory as to the purpose of life), simply because something is bound to escape our

analysis. He attributes this to the fact that there is no mention of the subtler motives and feelings

of the people who largely affected the social scenario, and the ideas and actions of those who

have altered the natural course of history that it might have taken. He was an ardent supporter of

subjective study of history, not on the basis of one’s affiliation but on the basis of understanding

history in totality. Historical inquiry will remain incomplete because other than the facts which

are often undiscoverable or disputed, there must have been subtler motives and feelings that were

dwelt only in the sub-conscious or have not been communicated to us which influenced the great

men, but played and continue to play an important part in the lives of that time and now.

Lohia believed in the cyclical views of history, of which a version is common to the Hindu

understanding of the world in different eras (the eras of Satyug, Treta, Dwapar and Kali). He

believes that the cyclical view of the movement of history is much more sensible, objective and
more applicable to the world than the theory that suggests that history is a linear evolutionary

process. He believes that a cyclical view is more objective on the grounds that it would be

cultural barbarism to call the current age altogether better than the preceding generations or ages.

Citing Lohia, “To divide the history of the world into ancient, medieval and modern periods and

to ascribe to them an ascent, linear or broken, is cultural barbarism, not even interesting.”3

While this interpretation has helped people to enjoy and face the testing and enduring things in

life, Lohia points out that this rich view of history has been used in a wrong way to suggest that

human goodness is on a continuous decline throughout history and will continue to be, making

many people feel that good is not possible to be brought about in these times, and so they stop in

their efforts to make this world a better place to live in. He believed that allegorical

interpretations of the cyclical views on history are flawed i.e. they are neither correct nor

rewarding. Lohia feels that the essential quality of this view lies in the recognition of temporal

events as that which passes the good as well as the bad.

Lohia felt that the need of philosophers and historians to separate and classify the different

elements of cultures is erroneous because the elements do not occur in total opposition of each

other, but in certain harmony or clash or otherwise relation. Therefore, to study these elements in

isolation will never help one understand history. The emphasis may shift or vary, or one element

may preponderate over the others. This relation between different elements may not only differ

from civilization to civilization, but also within a single civilization. It may also be that a people

may become specially gifted as a carrier of one preponderating element. Lohia felt that for a

social setup to survive, it must continually evolve as a culture or it would lie waste soon as it

does not serve the spirit of its times.

3
See Rammanohar Lohia, Wheel of History (New Delhi: B.R Publishing Corporation, 2010), page 7.
Lohia was highly critical of capitalism. Capitalism which propagates pursuance of self-interest,

initially justified its stance by the prospect of unending technological developments. Capitalism,

even with growing child labour, wars among nations and extreme exploitation maintained that

and continues to maintain that these are transitory happenings and in an eventual state of perfect

competition, there’d be peace and plenty for all people in the world. However hopeful might

have been Dr Adam Smith, but he and his successors and followers (Bentham and Mills who

gave the concept of welfare capitalism; Comte and Spencer gave people hope by suggesting that

people are indeed moving from metaphysical bases to modern positivism; Hegel and Fichte

brought heaven on earth by suggesting that it was the continual assent of human institutions that

was helping in bettering the world and that the capitalist stage was the queen of such social

evolution) have fooled quite a lot of people, Lohia believed. Also, Lohia believed that the laws

of property and returns in capitalism did not permit the full use of methods of industrialization,

science and agriculture.4 Lohia believed that the factors of production remain imprisoned with a

few in capitalism and thus fail to achieve the best possible outcome.

Lohia agrees with Marx in that he believes that capitalism produces its own grave-digger.

Capitalism leads to concentration of capital and socialism of labour which leads to rebellion.

Concentration of wealth leads to exploitation and impoverishment of the proletariat. This

happens alongside the socialization of labour happens to the extent that it can strangle the hold of

resources by the bourgeois, and science is liberated to its full application to industry and

agriculture.5 Lohia was also critical of the view of Karl Marx on the emergence of socialism in

society. Marx had said that when capitalism would be very advanced so as to stop the progress of

society, class struggle would end them and achieve a society will socialization of people and also

4
Ibid, p. 14
5
Ibid, p. 13
of factors of production (resources) would take place. But Lohia believed that this was based on

a flawed assumption, and that was that the ruling lands of the existing civilization were to

become the forerunners and pioneers of the emerging civilization.6 This view of Lohia is similar

to the views held by Marx’s rival Mikhail Bakunin, also known as the Father of Anarchism, who

claimed that—“I believe that Herr Marx is a very serious, if not a very honest revolutionary, and

that he really is in favour of rebellion by the masses, and I wonder how he manages to overlook

the fact that the establishment of a universal dictatorship, collective or individual, a dictatorship

that would be the chief engineer of world revolutions, ruling insurrectionary activity in all

countries, like a machine might be controlled—that the establishment of such a dictatorship

would in itself suffice to kill revolution and warp and paralyse all popular movements.” 7 Like

Bakunin, Lohia believed that making a person or a group as the pioneers or forerunners of the

coming civilization (of socialisation) would defeat the very stance of socialism, and lead to

corruption of its principles, because certain modes of production, certain styles of thought, and

some definite processes are firmly set. However much man may realize that his ideas are no

longer relevant to the times that are at the bay, he in isolation is not able to change them because

they are so firmly set. Lohia also felt that Marx failed to distinguish between the internal

proletariats and the external proletariats, as Arnold Toynbee believed, were the two different

factors that led to the decline of any civilisation. Lohia feels that had Marx done so, he would

have been able to give a better theory to history than he actually gave, because then he would

have realized that socialization occurs due to the internal proletariat and poverty and

pauperization occurs because of the external proletariat. 8 Lohia also talks about the idea of

6
Ibid, p. 16
7
See Colin Ward, Anarchism- A Very Short Introduction (Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 2004), page 5
8
See Rammanohar Lohia, Wheel of History (New Delhi: B.R Publishing Corporation, 2010), 18
permanence which is associated with all social establishments that it tries to resist a decline in its

powers or functions, and says that permanence is the problem also with capitalism.

Lohia believed that society moves itself, and the materialist interpretation rightly understands it. 9

The society does not move forward because of the spirit of man, as Hegel would say, but because

there’s always a clash between maturing forces (of production) and rigid relations (concentration

of wealth).

Irrespective of what he called himself or what the general perception might by, Lohia was neither

absolutely materialist, nor an idealist. This is evident from his chapter of “Matter and Spirit of

History”10 in his book Wheel of History where he calls both philosophies incomplete for

understanding the movement of history. He believed that matter is translatable into spirit and

vice-versa, and the people who did not understand this have been basically misinterpreting the

words (of preceding philosophers) and the world. He believed that we have misinterpreted the

working of these two theories by studying them in isolation of one another. He believed that if

we tried to create a society solely functioning on either of the two elements, matter or spirit, the

other has the tendency to seek its own maximum efficiency, and the other can do nothing about

it. Eventually with a growing gap between the two, and development of both, one often wages

war against the other, and that creates revolution. Lohia quite correctly pointed out that when

people confuse their society’s partial efficiency for a total efficiency, they lose their capacity for

rigorous internal examination of the system in which they live. Till the time efficiency continues

to grow, all classes vigorously continue to aim for betterment of their sect and externally seek to

prevent pressure from other nations and societies. When maximum efficiency is achieved and the

society remains static, it starts to develop into a just system of caste (from class) and the external
9
Ibid, p. 19
10
Ibid, p. 21-24
struggles become outside the limits of strength. This ultimately leads to revolution; at best it can

only be postponed for some time. As also, Francis Fukuyama suggests in his book “The End of

History and The Last Man” that the two needs of human beings, that is, the struggle for

recognition (spirit) and economic needs (matter) simultaneously affect his behavior 11 (Fukuyama

lists these criteria as reasons which affect society, and thus says that since liberal democracy

tends to address both of these needs, it is better than any other form of social or political order).

Lohia believed that class and caste are essentially overlapping features. Caste according to him is

class gone immobile because of the duration of its operation, stringent classification or any other

reason whatsoever. Many people think that caste is a specifically Indian phenomenon giving

argument that it has endured an unbelievable long time and has acquired some very sharp Indian

features. But according to Lohia, as an institution in which different classes of population have

found their proper place and do not dispute much with one another, it is universal 12. Lohia holds

the view that classification by birth or its recognition by religion is not a necessary quality of

caste. Caste is distinguished from class by immobility that has crept into class relationship. An

individual cannot get into a higher caste and a whole caste cannot move up in status or income.

“Class is a mobile caste. Caste is immobile class.”13

Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia believed that the entire human history is nothing but an internal

oscillation between class and caste and an external shift of prosperity and power from one region

to another. And this external shift and internal oscillation are inter-related to each other.

Prosperity and power have regularly shifted from age to age. The same people have never rested

supreme on the pinnacles of history. The ingredients of a total historical situation at any time

11
See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, (New York: The Free Press, 1992), page xiii
12
To see examples of caste and class relations, see Rammanohar Lohiya, Wheel of History, (New Delhi: B.R.
Publishing Corporation, 2010), 25-33.
13
Ibid
were class and caste on the inside and a rise or decline in power on the outside. The connecting

link between these two motions, internal and external, of a society was supplied by the state of

its organizational and technical efficiency. A society rose to power and prosperity only as long as

it kept improving its technical and organizational prowess in one critical dimension (“maximum

efficiency”). In this phase, the society could afford to permit internal mobility and a manageable

contestation for status (“equality principle”). After a point, the society hit the limits of one-

dimensional growth, declined in relation to other societies and withdrew into restricting social

mobility (“justice principle”). The global centre of dominance then shifted to another society that

had begun pursuing another dimension of efficiency. 14 However, apart from the rise and fall of

civilizations, Lohia also brings a third aspect of life which might not be found in history. He says

that we have not been able to look forward to a future in which all mankind would co-ordinate

itself so as to put an end to the external struggle among nations and the internal struggle among

classes. And this third aspect is of physical and cultural approximation. “In the revelation of this

secret, a third motor of human development is of decisive consequence. While class and caste

have chased each other and the power of a society has simultaneously risen or declined, mankind

has ever been caugt in the process of physical and cultural approximation.”15

“Where two rivers meet there, according to Indian tradition, stands a pilgrimage. Where two or

more races meet, there should stand a pilgrimage, for the process of physical and cultural

approximation of mankind has taken place on that site.”16 Lohia further adds that, besides the

external approximation between two or more peoples, an internal approximation within a nation

14
See Yogendra Yadav, “What is living and what is dead in Rammanohar Lohia?” Economic and Political Weekly 15 ,
no 40 (2010): 96
15
See Rammanohar Lohia, Wheel of History (New Delhi: B.R Publishing Corporation, 2010), page 41
16
Ibid, p. 45
has also taken place. “The concept of the welfare state has further reinforced internal

approximation.”17

Thus, an ever higher physical and cultural intermingling of races, civilizations and societies

(“approximation of mankind”)18 and a considerable reduction in social inequality within a society

(“internal approximation”)19 could lead us to a stage in human history when unity of mankind

can be achieved through conscious and intelligent designing (“willed approximation”). To cite

Lohia, “But the stage is now set for a willed approximation in which no one group need be

subjugated by another and by which all the peoples of the world might through intelligent design

try to achieve a multi-coloured harmony of the human race.”20

This would create conditions for racial mixing, cultural learning, unlimited pursuit of multi-

dimensional excellence (“total efficiency”), sharing of economic resources and prosperity,

winding up caste and class divisions and ending political dominance. The cruel movement of the

wheel of history could thus be brought to a halt.21

“This new civilization would attempt to achieve approximation of human race and the

overcoming of class and caste and regional shifts through comparatively equal production in all

the world. Its technology and administration would be suited to this requirement and, on the

basis of respective sovereignties of decentralized communes and an integrated mankind, the

people would be able to rule themselves ... Man, individually will seek to know the combination

17
Ibid, p. 51
18
Ibid, p. 43-49
19
Ibid, p. 51-60
20
Ibid, p. 49
21
See Yogendra Yadav, “What is living and what is dead in Rammanohar Lohia?” Economic and Political Weekly 15
, no 40 (2010): 96
of fable with history, the eternal with the flux, and, in trying to develop his whole personality of

poise as well as struggle, he will take part in this new civilization of tranquil activity.” 22

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) Kapoor, Mastram. Collected Works of Dr. Rammanohar Lohia. New Delhi: Anamika.

Volume 2. 2011.

2) Nene, S.R. Dr Rammanohar Lohia Remembered. New Delhi: Rupa Co. 2010.

3) Lohia, Rammanohar. Wheel of History. New Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation. 2010.

4) Yadav, Yogendra. “What is living and what is dead in Rammanohar Lohia?” Economic

and Political Weekly 15 , no 40 (2010): 92-104

5) Ward, Colin. Anarchism- A Very Short Introduction. Great Britain: Oxford University

Press. 2004.

22
See Rammanohar Lohia, Wheel of History (New Delhi: B.R Publishing Corporation, 2010), page 78
6) Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: The Free Press.

1992

7) Sinha, Sachidanand. “Lohia’s Socialism: An Underdog’s Perspective”. Economic and

Political Weekly 15, no 40 (2010): 51-55.

8) Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition. London:

Verso. 2012.