Lohia's quest for an autonomous socialism

Abstract

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 firsc 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.