It is a widely held belief that Indian Socialists have contributed pretty little to either the domain of theoria or to the realm of praxis. Not accepting this view fully, the author seeks in this paper to indicate Lohia’s attempts to develop an indigenous, autonomous socialism as an alternative to Nehruvian socialism or Eurocentred socialism. After first examining the factors or reasons why Lohia embarked on the quest for a new socialism, the paper next proceeds to outline the crucial aspects of Lohia’s new socialism. In the process the Gandhian impact and the extent to which Lohia was a spokesman of Gandhian socialism is also examined. The paper ends with a plea to take a second look at our current direction of development in the light of the Lohia critique of old socialism and his attempt at laying the doctrinal foundation of a new socialism.

Born in a small town trading community, Lohia was profoundly influenced by both indigenous and alien sources. His study in Germany gave him first hand acquaintance with the occidental socialist tradition, especially Marx. At the same time, his exposure to the Upanishadic tradition of ancient India and the Gandhian tradition of the modern era, did not allow him to be overwhelmed by his occidental scholarship. In fact, an ardent supporter of nativism (all things native) it did not take Lohia long to realise the irrelevance of Marxism to Indian conditions. Claiming to be neither anti-Marx nor pro-Marx, Lohia condemned Marx for his many “half-truths” and for his “automative philosophy”.

For instance, Lohia considered Marx’s view on matter and spirit to be a half-truth and instead claimed that matter and spirit are autonomous and not related to each other in a dependent or subsidiary fashion.[1] Similarly, he would not accept the Marxian doctrine of class struggle as the whole truth. His contention was that race struggle had played an equally important role as class struggle and that “the internal oscillation between caste and class is a prime factor of historical dynamics” in which caste represents the conservative forces of prescriptive right while class represents the dynamic force of social mobilization. He spoke of the tendency of classes to stabilize into castes and of castes to loosen into classes.[2] A third Marxian half-truth, according to Lohia, pertained to the dynamics of capitalism.[3] Whereas Marx found the dynamic of capitalism to lie in its internal structure viz. the contradiction between the value and the use value of labour i.e., within the surplus value thus generated; in Lohia’s perception, capitalism, from its origin to its most recent development, has moved mainly on the imperial dynamic i.e., the distinction between imperial labour and colonial labour and their respective wages. He was emphatic that we give up the idea of at isolated produce of labour within a single economic structure and replace it by the concept of the world’s total average production distributed over its working population.

Lohia condemns both Communism and Capitalism as unsuitable to India’s needs. He condemns Communism on two major counts. Firstly, he condemns Communism for being the continuator and developer of capitalist technology; for only wanting to smash the capitalist relations of production and not the capitalist mode of production. What capitalist technology has meant to 2/3rd of the world, claims Lohia, has not been digested in Communist theory”.[4] Secondly, Lohia condemns the Communist mode of action and class struggle because it fails “the test of immediacy”. The socialist struggle must give bread and freedom immediately or at the same time; but, the Communist promise only bread now and freedom (the stateless society) later. To quote Lohia, “Man has today become the victim to ideologies of remote success, so that the chain of acts of horror lengthens and the last link of the good act is never forged … High priests of Communism have rejected all notions of absolute morality and have raised evil behaviour into a noble virtue so long as it serves the cause of revolution”.[5]

As to Capitalism, Lohia feels that even if it be considered by some as suitable for meeting the needs of sparsely populated countries seeking ever increasing standards of living, it is totally unsuitable to this part of the world. For the poor Afro-Asian countries with their large populations, capital intensive large scale methods of production can only mean “poverty of body and soul’. Capitalism can only produce for profit and there is no scope for profit in the under-developed economies which have to produce items like food, houses and the tools that poor men need to produce wealth.[6] Capitalism as well as Old Socialism, were founded on the hypothesis that mass production and rising standards were compatible with the general aims of society. This Lohia considers impossible.[7] The general aims of society viz. democracy, morality and peace, just cannot be grafted on a society based on a continuous search for newer technologies for mass production and ever rising standards of living. The new doctrinal foundation of socialism, Lohia opined, must be found in a modified and suitably adopted Gandhian approach to life. European Socialism, Lohia felt, had tended to over-emphasise the environment and de-emphasise the individual. It believed that with improvements in environment the individual would automatically change. Like Gandhi, Lohia finds it difficult .o share this belief and instead argues that the environment and the individual need to be equally emphasised since man is both end and means.

Lohia was much attracted by Gandhi’s man centred approach as well as Gandhi’s profound concern for the nuances of Indian tradition.[8] Lohia’s attempt to develop a third camp vis a-vis the Capitalist and Communist camps is largely an attempt to build an indigenous man-centred socialism that would emerge from Indian specifics and meet India’s urgent needs. Like Gandhi, Lohia condemns Western civilization (both Capitalism and Communism) for its insistence on an ever increasing standard of living. He would rather have man-kind opt for “a decent standard of living for all the people of the world”.[9]

The significant aspects of the Socialism that Lohia sought to develop may be said to be three. One, the decentralized state based on small agro-industrial communities and operating on the principle of the “small unit machine”; two, a new meaning and understanding of Equality in the context of Indian history and situation; and three, the means to achieve the socialist goal. While examining these aspects we shall indicate the extent to which they derived inspiration from and reflected Gandhian thinking.

The Decentralised State

Unlike Gandhi, Lohia did not abhor the idea of the state, nor pine for an ultimate ideal of a stateless society. In the Pre face to his book, “Marx, Gandhi and Socialism”, he laments the absence of statehold for long periods in India’s history. “For over ten centuries”, he wrote, “India had no state. This continuous struggle between the impotent nature and the conquering foreigner has been miscalled the Hindu-Muslim conflict”. In his book, “Aspects of Socialist Po1icy”[10] he developed the notion of “a four pillar state” in which the village, the district, the provi nce and the centre have all well defined functions and are integrated into a system of functional federalism. Like Gandhi, Lohia was a theoretical builder of the concept of decentralization with its constitutional, administrative, economic and technological ramifications.

Lohia wanted socialism to adopt the Gandhian principle of “maximum divisible powers to the village or city consistent with the unity and integrity of the country”. He wanted socialism to work out this principle in great detail. In place of such terms as “independent villages” and “self-sufficent villages”, which Gandhi had used, Lohia preferred the term autonomous villages and urged that “the concept of divisible political power be treated so elastically that it becomes capable of continual stretching consistent with the integrity of the country”.[11]

The key units in Lohia’s “Four Pillar State” were the village and the “small unit machine run by electricity or oil”. Elaborating the doctrinal foundation of his new socialism, Lohia observes, “Only a few such machines exist; many more will have to be invented. Technology, which the modern age has kept ever changing, will have to make a revolutionary break with the present. The problem will not be solved by going back to earlier machines discarded by modern civilization, but by inventing new ones with a definite principle and aim. This machine shall be available to hamlet and town as to city; it may be a maid-of-all-work, or, as many kinds as possible; it shall be built on the principle of immediacy in operation and output; it shall not require a large capital investment. Such a machine is not product of decentralization in space, which modern civilization in Europe and USA has started talking about and which keeps the existing principle of technology in tact, but it is the embodiment of the whole principle of decentralization in space and in time, so as to avoid complexity and achieve immediacy”.[12] The new machine (technology) with not only meet the economic needs and aims but also the general aims (of peace, non-exploitation, free dom) of society. Like Gandhi, Lohia does not rule out totally the big machines (centralized production). Such machines may be necessary in steel industry, but “emphasis must heavily rest on the small unit machine”.

To match with the new technology Lohia suggested a corresponding mode of ownership and political control. Since ‘ownership of property by the state exclusively at the centre goes with mass production”, opines Lohia, “it is disastrous both for bread and freedom” and must therefore go. At the same time private property, “except such as does not occasion employment of one person by another” must also be abolished. In their place, property of the appropriate type must be evolved such as village owned property or co-operatively owned property. Lohia rejects the Nehruvian concept of socialism based on “the mixed economy” in which both state and private ownership is permitted in the means of production.

The Meaning of Equality

According to Lohia the case for equality has not yet been stated comprehensively nor has its complete meaning been adequately investigated. Hence he proceeds to do this in an essay written in 1956 entitled “The Meaning of Equality”.[13]

In keeping with the Gandhian tradition, Lohia speaks of the spiritual dimension of equality. Equality is not merely a rational or a logically deduced concept. It is a spiritual sense of identity and fellow-feeling which one experiences. “The primary issue is to feel the joy of being one with the universe, of being equal with everything in it”, says Lohia. Once there is spiritual kin ship, material equality will easily follow. Lohia gives the example of the ideal family in which such kinship obtains: “Its foundation is built on almost total material equality. No matter what the earnings of individual members may be, or, if they do not earn anything at all, as in the case of children and old parents, the family, is, in food and dress a compact unit, and the requirements of its members are equally met”.[14] The problem of equality is how to spread this kinship beyond the family confines to embrace the human family. The attempt to spread this kinship has hitherto, admits Lohia, “floundered on the rock of the self”. Perhaps arousing national pride and anger at poverty in our midst, argues Lohia, may help India achieve this national kinship which in turn will lay the spiritual foundation of material equality.[15] At the same time Lohia is realist enough to see the interconnection between material and spiritual equality. If the joy of unity is impossible without the feeling of kinship, he argues, then the feeling of kinship, in turn, is impossible without material equality. In other words the spiritual and material aspects of equality are not distinct or separate categories but aspects of the same concept.

Kinship and material equality, says Lohia, constitute the outward expression of equality whereas its real inward expression is equanimity. In Lohia’s words, “Man must strive to feel an inward equality between contrary conditions of pleasure and pain, heat and cold, victory and defeat. The ancients in India seemed to have sensed that inward equanimity and outward equality are two sides of the same coin, for, alone in India’s languages does a single word stand for both meanings, samata or samatvan is the word.”'[16]

Lohia admits that equality may be an abstract concept but has in daily life to take concrete expressions. As examples of the achievement of concrete equality he cites the European history of the last four hundred years and the concrete achievements in the fields of legal equality (All Men are equal before the Law), political equality (One Man, One Vote) and now the struggle for economic equality viz., decent and increasing living standards for everyone.

Equality according to Lohia is not a mere “levelling down” process. It implies “levelling up” as much as levelling down. “Equality as against those placed above one’s station in life”, says Lohia, “is easy to practise, for in certain situations, jealousy and bitterness come easiest to man”. On the other hand, equality as against those placed below one’s station in life is comparatively hard to practise since it demands sympathy. Lohia goes further and says that the passion for equality demands not only sympathy for the poor but also anger (not jealousy) towards “those enjoying an undue share of the common wealth”. The poor must make efforts to lift themselves up, not with the lever of bitterness and jealousy, but rather by the development of their own talents. Lohia blames the caste system, which for centuries enabled some to specialise in mental pursuits while condemning most others to manual work, for throwing up “a leadership which specializes in the demagogy of jealousy in order to attain equality with the classes of power and wealth”… “The usurpers of inequality possess certain virtues, particularly of efficiency and manners, and the crusaders of equality must ever breed their virtues in their own ranks”.[17]

Crucial to Lohia’s analysis of equality is also his view regarding India’s ruling classes.[18] The fight for equality will necessarily have to mean a struggle against the entrenched ruling class and all that it stands for viz. caste (savarna), English education and wealth. Over ninety per cent of the ruling class in India, asserts Lohia, belong to the high castes and most of them possess both the other characteristics of wealth and English education. However, it is “the element of caste that makes the whole situation almost hopelessly irredeemable”.

Lohia deplores the Nehruvian socialist model in which “each Five Year plan seems to be providing a fresh stream of five lakhs to a million people to the country’s ruling classes … Perhaps the most disastrous feature of the whole situation is the uplift of a limited section of backward and low castes into the ruling classes of the country”.[19] This model of socialism has only given an illusion of class conflict between the bureaucratic class and the industrial or trading class whereas the truth is that both these classes belong to the high castes. “Their superficial conflict befools the people but nothing changes”.[20] The trading castes have only come to acquire the skill of corrupting the bureaucratic high castes.

Since most political parties are being led by the ruling classes, they cannot be expected to usher in real equality. Lohia commended this role to the Socialist party and urged it “openly and frankly to adopt a scheme of preferential opportunities to the mass of the people” and to fight for the removal of distinctions based not only on wealth but also on cultural and social elements. As a concrete immediate measure he suggested giving constitutional sanction to the scheme of preferential opportunities to the extent of sixty to seventy per cent of leadership posts in “politics, government services, the military, trade and industry to women and sudras, harijans, adivasis and the backward caste of religious minorities”.[21] Lohia was convinced that to achieve equality the Party must work for the removal of “the disinterestedness of the low caste people” and for “breaking the hegemony of the savarnas”.

A discussion on Lohia’s concept of equality would be incomplete without a reference to his policy of “people’s language”. The policy of people’s language also shows the Gandhian influence on him s nce it was Gandhi who first pioneered the idea of people’s language to replace English in the fields of adminstration, education and trade. To quote Lohia, “The use of English as medium in economy depresses work output, in administration weakens efficienc y and adds to inequality and corruption. That English is a foreign language and hurts national self-respect is a minor point compared to its effect in depressing the economy and causing inequality.. .A totally new policy must therefore be devised”.[22] Lohia advocated the use of Hindi as the language of the Central Government and till states learn to correspond with the Centre in Hindi they may correspond in their regional language. “The medium of education upto graduate courses should be the regional language and for post-graduate studies it should be Hindi. The district judge and magistrate may use their regional languages whereas the High Court and Supreme Court should use Hindustani”.[23]

Means to the Socialist Goal

What is the path to socialism going to be like? Lohia had no illusions that henceforth socialism must be drastic, unconstitutional when necessary, and lay emphasis on production. Euorpean socialism could afford to emphasise distribution since “it had a reservoir of massed forces of production, which Europe’s capitalism had built and from here it could distribute”. But in the case of the poor nations such a reservoir has yet to be created; and, where the productive apparatus has yet to be created “socialism must needs be drastic, and in order to be that, it cannot always adhere to the slow process ot’ constitutionalism’’.[24] The process of persuasion and law-making are not always available or suitable to the poor nations; hence the underdeveloped will have to resort to class struggle. The class struggle must not merely aim at destroying capitalism in its aspect of private property leaving in tact its own peculiar technology based on large concentrations and centralised control; it must aim at destroying the very capitalist technology and seek to replace it with a new science and technology which will usher in the decentralized state based on the small unit machine.

Lohia, like Gandhi, lays great emphasis on Constructive Work. Even when the Socialist Party is in opposition it can involve itself in various constructive programmes. In the Pachmarhi speech of May 1952 Lohia stated, “The Socialist Party in the recent past attempted to unfold a whole range of constructive activities around agricultural re-construction. It has attempted to move the people to dig for minor canals, wells, tanks, roads and other projects…The Hindu Kisan Panchayat (an organ of the Socialist Party) must be built to resist injustice and equally so to change the people’s habits with regard to food and the way to eat, raising of crops and making of manure, and to assist them in storing and marketing of produce and in finding good tools”. Likewise Lohia never tired of exhorting workers to exert to destroy the system of caste and the subjection of women. In this regard, it is also interesting to note that Lohia extended full support to the Bhoodan movement and Sarvodaya which carried on the Gandhian tradition of Constructive Programme through people’s own efforts.

Since ushering in socialism will mean considerable political education, Lohia advocates “propoganda meetings” and “study circles” as the two chief vehicles for political education.[25] Lohia wanted a study centre preferably in every village. One of the aims of the study centre would be to equip politicans “as much with regional knowledge as with theory”. Lohia was of the opinion that most political workers lack knowledge of the region and hence were unable to withstand the encroachment of bureaucracy upon democracy. Lohia was of course careful to distinguish between knowledge of the region and narrow regionalism. In his words, ‘Unfortunately, however, a great deal of regionalism in spirit obtains, while there is little or none at all in knowledge. Politicans of the village as much as of the nation, are naturally prone to guard their preserve against outsiders … through sentiments of exclusiveness”. Lohia wanted study centres to acquaint them with the necessary theory of socialism.

But Constructive Programme, claims Lohia, must be supplemented by resistance to injustice. Lohia was of the opinion that socialists must learn from Gandhi the way to resist injustice. It is not as if European socialists did not resist injustice. Europeans are known to have carried out epic acts of resistance but only when supported by organization and weapons. An individual in Europe feels helpless without these and in this context Lohia cites the European inability to resist Hitler individually. In contrast, Gandhi taught, as much by his personal example as by his preaching, that you do not need an organization nor weapons to resist oppression and injustice. All you need is that inner something which urges you to resist injustice and the quality to bear suffering manfully.[26]

Lohia’s socialism is also indebted to Gandhi for its doctrine of ends-means and of immediacy.[27] Lohia accepts the Gandhian logic that from bad means good results can never flow. He literally echoes Gandhi when he says, “Means are ends in the short run and ends are means in the long run”. In other words, the methods one adopts to achieve the desired aim will become the end in the long run. “If a system believes or acts so that dictatorship or sacrifice of national freedom or falsehood is expected to achieve the victory of its opposite, it is going against a very simple, easily understood and perfectly obvious proposition that whatever one does in the immediate goes into the total of what one achieves in the future”.[28] In other words, ends and means are so inter-twined that opposites stay opposites and cannot be reconciled. From this fact follows what Lohia calls “the doctrine of immediacy”, or, what Gandhi himself preferred to call “One Step Enough For Me”. The doctrine simply asserts that one must pay enough attention to the immediate steps since these determine the end.

Lohia saw no opposition between class struggle and Gandhian Satyagraha. For him the primary issue was to organize the people’s will on the basis of peaceful struggles. Like Gandhi he is against the use of violence; but, unlike Gandhi, admits that spontaneous violence (that is unplanned violence) may be desirable and even necessary. To quote Lohia, “A brief instant may be reached in the life of the people when the existing order rests alone on bayonets and these bayonets are shaky and the vast mass is determinedly striving for the new order. In this brief moment, the people may choose to exercise their majesty of power so as to end the agony of the old and give birth to the new. This will be spontaneous violence of the people displayed only for a brief moment”. However, Lohia is one with Gandhi in the belief that such a momentary display of violence cannot become the basis of a theory of organization and that doctrines which enable violence are incapable of achieving a classless and casteless society.[29]

When socialism is able to unfold a continuous programme of constructive work and struggle, writes Lohia, the winning of votes will naturally follow. Here we notice a marked departure from Gandhi. Gandhi and Sarvodaya are against the paraphernalia of parliamentary democracy and the system of parties and votes. Lohia, on the other hand, speaks of votes being the best expression of the people’s will, something which Gandhi could never have approved. Lohia’s faith in votes and the party system also comes clear in the following statement made at Panchmarhi: “No one should minimize the importance of the vote, for its is the grandest expression of the people’s will. This expression might sometimes go counter to the doctrines and programmes of socialism, but it will not do then for the Party to blame the people or deride the vote. Both the people and the party are at fault in such an event, for if the people are not sufficiently enlightened, the Party too is not sufficiently mature…. A two way relationship of student and teacher should be established between the people and the party … The majesty of the vote should never be derided, for there is no alternative to it”.[30]

Lohia, unlike Gandhi, had faith in parliamentary democracy and the principle of majority rule, both of which Gandhi and Sarvodaya had roundly condemned. Gandhi and Sarvodaya prefer rule by consensus or unanimity. Should this not be forthcoming, Vinoba had once suggested that the matter could either be postponed or even decided by casting lots. Contrast this with Lohia’s view that when awkward situations arise, when judgements have to be made and opinions differ, “Democracy knows no other way than that of debate and majority decision. Such judgements are not necessarily correct. But that is no reason why those who differ should go behind these judgements, seek out imaginary motives for the error, and translate every difference of opinion into a crisis of principles.” [31]

But Lohia also realized that faith in parliamentary democracy alone would not do for a poor country like India Thus in a 1952 speech at Hyderabad on Gandhism and Socialism, he observed, “If it were suggested that legislation in parliament and assemblies alone would afford redress to all kinds of grievances, whether increasing price or increasing starvation, and the sole remedy afforded were an election once in five years, the mass of people would perhaps lose their patience and distress would pile upon distress and their minds would lose all balance, so that when a party or creed came along and said, now rush to the barricades … to the dagger and the acid bulb … the mass of the people would perhaps resort to or at least welcome these methods”.[32] It is here according to Lohia that the third course of action (other than parliamentary and insurrection) which Gandhi suggested viz. Givil Disobedience or Satyagraha, comes to be singularly effective.

We thus see that Lohia is aware that the law may not always deliver the goods and the people can become impatient and disillusion ed with constitutional processes, hence while supporting all the three time honoured modes of bringing about change viz. persuasion, personal example and compulsion, Lohia is emphatic that the mode of compulsion “must mean that of the law or of civil disobedience”. “A government practises compulsion through the law”, observes Lohia, “and an opposition practises compulsion through civil disobedience”. No other form of compulsion need be entertained, for equality can never be achieved “through spilling blood”.[33] Mankind, according to Lohia, must learn to breed new men who will say “No” to the usurper and the exploiter, without the aid of weapons. And Lohia gives credit to Mahatma Gandhi who for the first time in human history has shown how ordinary men can practise the way of nonviolent resistance hitherto practised by exceptional men.

Conclusion

The Gandhian impact on Lohia’s concept of socialism was quite profound, though it is also obvious that Lohia was no blind follower of Gandhi. !He took as much from Gandhi as suited the autonomous socialism he wanted to develop. Perhaps the one respect in which Lohia remained essentially Gandhian was in his “synthetic” or “integrative” approach to life. Like Gandhi, Lohia’s world view was, metaphysically speaking, a Hindu world view. He always tried to obliterate the antinomies prevalent in the Western world viz. the individual versus the collective, matter versus spirit, bread versus freedom, science versus religion, centralized planning versus free enterprise etc.

In the light of Lohia’s criticism of old socialism and his attempt at laying the doctrinal foundations of a new, indigenous socialism, the time is now ripe to take a good second look at the direction in which we are developing. Lohia’s case for a decentralized state and an equality based as much as on the spiritual values of kinship and equanimity as on such material factors as decentralized production (based on the principle of immediacy in production and consumption) rest on two assumptions: One, a truly human life characterised by kinship and genuine equality is possible only in s mall agro-industrial communities producing largely for their own consumption. Two, large scale production does not lead to increased employment, rather it may displace labour adding to misery. The first assumption also implies a value preference. If most people find life more meaningful only in small communities it would really make little sense thrusting on them a mode of economic development that destroys small communities and creates megapolis and faceless cities.

Regarding the second assumption some economists have tried to counter the argument that large scale production causes unemployment by saying that large scale production does not generate permanent unemployment but only a temporary one. This is because with the increased prosperity brought about by large scale production more demand will be generated which in turn will require even more production, once again re-employing the temporary unemployed. However, what such economists overlook is that modern technology, especially computerization and robotization, tend to displace labour faster than can be absorbed by gradual increases in demand for more goods. What is more, even such gradual increase in demand may not come about if distribution continues to favour the haves against the have-nots. It may be mentioned here that today the West has already begun to experience the adverse effects of indiscriminate labour saving industrialization. The Report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development reveals there is little hope in sight for the young unemployed now running in millions, “despite signs of an economic recovery”. What the OECD report finds particularly disturbing is the nature of the unemployment. Even better educated and trained European youth are without jobs and their participation in the labour force is dropping in all these countries, it observes.[34]

What we have to learn from Lohia’s quest for a new socialism is that we should be less west centred in our approach to development and evolve our own strategy for development. We must give up our obsession with wanting to catch up with the West in regard to all the newer technologies they may discover or invent. We are not pleading for drastic immediate changes or a sudden U-turn which may hurt more by the dislocation it will cause than the good it may do. What we are pleading for is to begin thinking about socialism and development which will take full cognisance of our peculiar conditions such as high population, inadequate resources etc., and which will aim at human felicity rather that at mere power. If it is true that our defence requires modern technology, let us endeavour to confine it largely to that sphere and prevent its senseless invasion in other fields like consumer goods etc. Some of the things now going on in the name of development and modernization surely deserve outright condemnation like one businessman importing machinery to make potato chips; another taking pride in the fact that his soft drinks are made in fully automated plants untouched by human hands etc.

Similarly, we should not consider Lohia’s emphasis on Satyagraha as out of place today simply because the British have gone and we are self-governing. Satyagraha is an instrument to fight injustice, and so long as injustice prevails, Satyagraha should prevail, because if it does not, very likely the gun or the bullet will. In other words, we must realize the value of Satyagraha as a safety valve in an economically backward and corrupt society operating on the principle of democracy.

Notes

1. Vide Lohia, R., Wheel of History, Rammanohar Lohia Samata Vidyalaya Nyas (Trust), Hyderabad, 1986. Ch. 4 (titled ‘Matter and Spirit in History’). Also see, Lohia R., Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, Rammanohar Lohia Samata Vidyalaya Nyas (Trust), Hyderabad, 1978, Ch. 6, (titled ‘Materiality and Spirituality’)
2. Lohia, R, Wheel of History, ibid., Ch. 5, (titled ’Caste and Class’). Also, Lohia R., The Caste System, Samata Vidyalaya Nyas (Trust), Hyderabad, 1979.
3. This point is developed by Arumugam, “Twin Origins of Capitalism and Imperialism”, Mankind, (Founder-Editor Rammanohar Lohia), Volume XVII, January-March 1973.
4. Lohia, R., Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, op. cit., Ch. 15, (titled ‘The Doctrinal Foundation of Socialism’), p. 324.
5. Ibid., pp. 331-332.
6. Ibid., p. 329.
7. Ibid., p. 341.
8. Ibid., Ch. 3, (titled ‘Gandhism and Socialism’) and Ch. 4, (titled Anecdotes of Mahtama Gandhi).
9. Ibid., Ch. 3, pp. 133-134.
10. Lohia, R., Aspects of Socialism Policy, Appolo Bunder, Bombay, 1952.
11. Lohia, R., Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, op. cit., Ch. 3, p. 132.
12. Ibid., Ch. l5. p. 326.
13. Ibid., Ch. 8.
14. Ibid., Ch. 8, p. 224.
15. Ibid., pp. 225-226. Also see Lohia, R., Interval During Politics, Samata Vidyalaya Nyas (Trust), Hyderabad, 1985, pp. 123-126.
16. Lohia, R., Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, op. cit., p. 240.
17. Ibid., pp. 326-327.
18. Lohia, R., “A Note on India’s Ruling Classes”, Mankind, Vol. IV No 4, November 1959.
19. Ibid., p. 34.
20. Ibid., p. 5.
21. Ibid., p. 35.
22. Lohia, R., Language, Rammanohar Lohia Samata Vidyalaya Nyas (Trust), Hyderabad, 1986. p. 1.
23. Ibid., p. 6.
24. Lohia, R., Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, op. cit., Ch. 15, pp. 329-30.
25. Ibid., pp. 343-344.
26. Ibid., Ch. 3, p. 122.
27. In this context it is interesting to note that Lohia once observed that perhaps Gandhism will best survive or abide when socialism uses it as a filter to drain away its dross.
28. Lohia, R., Marx, Gandhi and Socialism, op. cit., p. 123.
29. Ibid., Ch. l5, p. 347.
30. Ibid., p. 349.
31. Ibid., p. 353.
32. Ibid., Ch. 3, p. 126.
33. Ibid., Ch. 8, p. 238.
34. Vide Current Topics, Times of India, (Bombay), November 7, 1985, p. 8.

(Courtesy: ‘The Indian Journal of Political Science’, July – Sept. 1988, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 312-327.)