In News
The Prime Minister of India paid tribute to freedom fighter and socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia on his birth anniversary (23 March).
About Ram Manohar Lohia
Early Life and Education
- He was born on 23 March 1910 at Akbarpur, currently part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India.
- He attended the Banaras Hindu University to complete his intermediate course work after standing first in his school’s matriculation examinations in 1927.
- He earned his B.A. degree from the University of Calcutta and received a doctorate (1932) from the University of Berlin, where he studied economics and politics.
Role and Contribution
- He 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 was one of the founders of the Congress Socialist Party and editor of its mouthpiece Congress Socialist.
- In 1936, he was selected by Jawaharlal Nehru as the secretary of the Foreign Department of the All India Congress Committee (A.I.C.C) which was the highest body of the Congress Party.
- He opposed the Indian participation on the side of Great Britain in World War II and was arrested for anti-British remarks in 1939 and 1940.
- In 1941 Lohia became one of the leading figures of the Central Directorate which clandestinely tried to organise the Quit India revolt, sparked by Gandhi in August 1942.
- He remained a member of the Socialist Party when it fused in 1952 with the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party to form the Praja Socialist Party.
- He Formed the Socialist Party (Lohia) in 1956 and became editor of the journal, Mankind.
- In 1963 Lohia became a member of the Lok Sabha after a by-election in Farrukhabad (Lok Sabha constituency) and in 1965 merged the Socialist Party (Lohia) into the ranks of the Samyukta Socialist Party.
- He has included the value of individual freedom in his concept of “Sapta Kranti” (seven revolutions).
- In his contemplations, Lohia made a special emphasis on the freedom of women in all aspects. The goal of gender equality was at the top of the Sapta Kranti.
- 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.
- 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 with Sarojini Naidu as acting president.
