“Today's public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books,

and there is some evidence that they can't read them either. ”

― Gore Vidal

Ram Manohar Lohia, was born in the month of march on 23rd in the year, 1910, in Akbarpur, India. He had devoted his career to combating injustice through the upliftment of a distinctly Indian version of socialism.

Ram Manohar was born to a rich family of merchants. Followed by the death of his mother when he was 2 years old, he was raised and nourished by his grandparents, although his father’s commitment to Indian nationalism influenced him during his childhood to take this step.

He was destined to attend Banaras Hindu University before earning a bachelor’s degree (1929) from the University of Calcutta and a doctorate in the year 1932 from the University of Berlin, where he studied economics and politics.

Whereas in the year 1934 Lohia was involved in the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) and made that year as a left-wing group within the Indian National Congress; as he served on the CSP executive committee and also edited its weekly journal.

Being Objectified

Although a vehement opponent of Indian participants on the Great Britain side in World War II, he was arrested for anti-British remarks in the year 1939 and again in 1940; the latter incident also resulted in harsh 18-month imprisonment.

With the emergence in 1942 of the Quit India movement and a campaign initiated by Mohandas K. Gandhi to urge the withdrawal of British authorities from India—Lohia and other CSP leaders mobilized support from the underground.

For such resistance activities, he was again jailed in 1944–46.

Major writings in English

• The Caste System: Hyderabad, Navahind [1964].
• Foreign Policy: Aligarh, P.C. Dwadash Shreni, [1963].
• Fragments of World Mind: Maitrayani Publishers & Booksellers; Allahabad [1949].
• Fundamentals of a World Mind: ed. by K.S. Karanth. Bombay, Sindhu Publications, [1987].
• Guilty Men of India’s Partition: Lohia Samata Vidyalaya Nyas, Publication Dept.,[1970].
• India, China, and Northern Frontiers: Hyderabad, Navahind [1963].
• Interval During Politics: Hyderabad, Navahind [1965].

Let's remember a poem by Ambrose Bierce on this day -

A Political Apostate

Good friend, it is with deep regret I note

The latest, strangest turning of your coat;

Though any way you wear that mental clout

The seamy side seems always to be out.

Who could have thought that you would e'er sustain

The Southern shotgun's arbitrary reign!

Your sturdy hand assisting to replace

The broken yoke on a delivered race;

The ballot's purity no more your care,

With equal privilege to dark and fair.

To Yesterday a traitor, to To-day

You're constant but the better to betray

To-morrow. Your convictions all are naught

But the wild asses of the world of thought,

Which, flying mindless o'er the barren plain,

Perceive at last they've nothing so to gain,

And, turning penitent upon their track,

Economize their strength by flying back.

Ex-champion of Freedom, battle-lunged,

No more, red-handed, or at least red-tongued,

Brandish the javelin which by others thrown

Clove Sambo's heart to quiver in your own!

Confess no more that when his blood was shed,

And you so sympathetically bled,

The bow that spanned the mutual cascade

Was but the promise of a roaring trade

In offices. Your fingering now the trigger

Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger!

Ad hominem this argumentum runs:

Peace!-let us fire another kind of guns.

I grant you, friend, that it is very true

The Blacks are ignorant-and sable, too.

What then? One way of two a fool must vote,

And either way with gentlemen of note

Whose villain feuds the fact attest too well

That pedagogues nor vice nor error quell.

The fiercest controversies ever rage

When Miltons and Salmasii engage.

No project wide attention ever drew

But it disparted all the learned crew.

As through their group the cleaving line's prolonged

With fiery combatants each field is thronged.

In battle-royal they engage at once

For guidance of the hesitating dunce.

The Titans on the heights contend full soon

On this side Webster and on that Calhoun,

The monstrous conflagration of their fight

Startling the day and splendoring the night!

Both are unconquerable-one is right.

Will't keep the pigmy, if we make him strong,

From siding with a giant in the wrong?

When Genius strikes for error, who's afraid

To arm poor Folly with a wooden blade?

O Rabelais, you knew it all!-your good

And honest judge

Knew to be right there was but one device

Less fallible than ignorance-the dice.

The time must come-Heaven expedite the day!

When all mankind shall their decrees obey,

And nations prosper in their peaceful sway.