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One Gets So Lonely-Harris Wofford

When Che Guevara died, many radical youngAmericans toasted his name. We each shouldhave our favorite revolutionaries, political artistsand teachers, and I have been luckier than anyonedeserves. Yet in one season of death, the mostSocratic teacher I ever expect to meet (and afriend of Rammanohar Lohia's), Scott Buchanan

has died; of the men to whom I wasmost devoted in politics, RobertKennedy and Martin Luther King, werekilled. And this year of tears began withthe terrible loss of Rammanohar Lohia,a man who will always walk on thewaters of my memory as theembodiment of a permanent andpeaceful revolution.

Rammanohar would haveappreciated the reason this tribute wassomewhat delayed: that a funny thinghappened to its author on the way tothe Post Office, he went to jail.

"When will you go to jail?"Rammanohar kept pressing thatquestion in each of our meetings overthe last ten years. Almost as if to showthat it wasn't too difficult, even inAmerica, he himself on his last visit herewas arrested in Mississippi fordisobeying local segregation practices.

It was a question he had put toyoung audiences, and particularly toNegroes, on his first trip here in 1951.His widespread and eloquent case forcivil disobedience, as a powerful andnecessary form of political persuasion

in a complex modern society, was one of theoutside factors along with many internal Americanfactors, that moved some young Negroes, suchas Martin Luther King, to begin a decade of non-violent direct action.

Rammanohar would also have approved theparticular issue that led to this writer's arrest and

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one-night stand in a Chicago jail: a peaceful marchin protest against police violence and lawlessnessin breaking up popular demonstrations during theDemocratic National Convention. It was overpolice violence under an administration of his ownparty that Rammanohar once resigned from theleadership of his Party. Believing that there wasno more important issue than affirming that anAsian is not a fly and that the State must respectand protect human life, Rammanohar had calledfor the resignation of his Pary's first stategovernment, pending an investigation of the factsof a police killing of some demonstrators. Whenthey failed to follow his lead, he himself resigned.On his 1951 trip to the United States, he hadtalked of the need for that kind of action: "I wisha tribe of politicians arose all over the world,which would specialize in doing its job withoutholding offices. A big problem for mankind todayis how to tame power. Perhaps one way to dothat is by voluntary abdication of power. At leastwe should give that a try."

In retrospect, it is amazing how relevant toour current affairs are the major themes of Lohia's1951 visit – and of his main ideas over the years.His formula of Spade, Prison and Vote reflectsthe means we are coming to call "the NewPolitics." The Spade, he said, was the symbolfor unpaid constructive activity and voluntaryservice. He wanted to see full-time volunteerbrigades and millions of part-time volunteersgiving "one hour a day for the community." Theprison symbolized the climax of many less drasticforms of peaceful direct action protest. Thetraditional democratic method of the Vote wouldbe less of a skeleton if people no longer feltpowerless between elections; if they took on the

flesh and blood of volunteer service and non-violent struggle.

Against racial segregation and against the warin Vietnam thousands of Americans have beenstanding up, sitting down, marching and going tojail. And more and more Americans arediscovering that it is possible and necessary toengage in immediate constructive service, to dosomething human and significant now even beforesecuring state power, to invent institutions andorganize private programmes of reform evenwithout winning elections. One of the strong linesRobert Kennedy was pursuing in his last yearwas what Lohia would call the Spade. Blackcitizens are using the Spade, on an increasingscale, to make Black Power a reality in a scoreof inner-city communities. The overseas PeaceCorps of a dozen countries and many domesticvolunteer programmes represent this too, andSecretary General U Thant has proposed theuniversal recognition of one or two years'volunteer service at home or abroad as anessential part of one's education as a citizen.

Lohia's other main goals, which seemed tosome so romantic two decades ago, have alsobeen turned up by the political tides as verycontemporary proposals.

Recalling his words during the 1951 trip,one sees what a coherent and instructive viewof the world he lived by. Decentralization –his idea of "government of the localcommunity, by the local community, for thelocal community"– is now a current battle cryeven in America, the citadel of bigorganization and centralization. "The onlyway to make democracy live to the peoplewould be to cut up sovereign power in as tiny

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bits as possible so that the common man inhis village and township can understandpolitical affairs and make intelligent use ofthem", he said. Such decentralization would"enable us to rouse populations into activity."Black leaders are saying the same thing now.With the drive of black communities for power,and new theories of federalism emerging,town and regional as well as state and federalgovernments may yet be empowered andLohia's Four Pillar State become a reality.

Once Lohia said he was honoured to be calleda "Jeffersonian Socialist" but added that Jeffersonwas dangerous although "very regretfully aJefferson has not so far even won in any country."

"A Jefferson is sancitified in a University whilea Hamilton prevails Wall Street. All the streets,all the pavements. all the machines, all theclothes, and every thing that we do, isHamiltonian. The time has come on theworld's stage for Jefferson to win."

At least the time has come when more andmore people everywhere share Lohia's sense ofthe equal irrelevance of capitalism andcommunism.

"The distinctions between the two camps areobvious. I am thoroughly aware of the evilsof the Soviet system. But to distinguishbetween them is not to prefer. I just don't. Iwant something new, that goes beyond Mr.Ford or Mr. Stalin, and I would be lost if Istopped to prefer one of the old systems. Wewant neither. Communism can give as littlebread to Asia as capitalism can give it freedom.Both are doctrines of centralization."

Both lacked what Lohia called "soul." Stalinhad asked, "What is this thing called "soul'? Thereply: "that which you have not got." LohiaAdded:

"Ford and Stalin are different eyes of the samemind. They both believe in mass production,large-scale technology, and centralization, andthis ultimately means the same kind ofcivilization. If all this, in the form of eithercapitalism or communism, could be appliedin our two-thirds of the world, then I wouldbe on weaker ground, but it simply cannotwork. To bring India to the U.S. level it wouldrequire, say, five hundred billion dollars."

It may be people in countries of affluence whoare drawn most to Lohia's idea of new civilizationthat would "abolish poverty and attain a decentstandard of living – but which will not awakenthe erosive urge to an ever increasing standardof living." In Alabama he was asked by aprosperous farmer: "Now that we have thismaterialistic bull by the tail, how do you think wecan let him go?" Lohia prophecied; "Today,anyone to be listened to must pay homage tomass production and its system, but I suggestthat twenty years hence, anyone who wantsto benefit mankind must operate inside theconcept of a decent standard of living."

Nearly twenty years later the Third Camp thatLohia championed, "the Asia of peacefulchange"; a "free and united Africa," the belt ofindependent nations from Belgrade to Jakarta,was still in Lohia's terms "soft", yet one of hisprescriptions for hardening it – keeping out ofthe cold war conflict – was spreading. And theYugoslavia Lohia loved not only still stands, its

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infection is spreading within the Communistworld. "Should all the small or retarded nationsof the world as determinedly seek their ownpatterns of progress and freedom as Yugoslaviahas done," he said upon arrival in New York fromBelgrade, "the international caste system of fiveBrahmin nations and over sixty pariah nations willbegin to end."

At least the Negroes who spurned Lohia'sconstant plea that they interest themselves in Africawould probably now respond – in fact he mightfind them immersed in an effort to discover theirAfrican roots. "I am no more interested in Africathan in Argentina," the wife of a leading Negrocollege president told him then. "Well I am," hesaid strongly. (A white waitress in those days ofSouthern segregation was at first puzzled byLohia's dark skin, but served us, saying later sheknew he was no coloured man.)

Lohia predicted that with the rise of Africanpower, aesthetic concepts would change, andblack would be recognized as beautiful. If blackpeople had held power and been subjugatingEuropeans for four hundred years, the standardsof beauty for a Venus would be very different.He called for concerted effort to assist the finaldrive for African freedom. Will Africans use theirfreedom well? "The question is frivolous and hasno meaning – which people has used its freedomwell? When I look at the history of the last 400years of modern civilization, I have grave doubtswhether it is so worth imitating".

Violence was one of the attributes of moderncivilization he would like to exercise. "Do not usethe Sten-gun or the revolver or the acid bomb,"he said; quoting Mrs. Aung San, the window ofthe murdered founder of modern Burma.

"I believe in revolutions," Lohia toldAmericans, but there was good reason for theworld-wide "creeping paralysis". And"distilluionment amounting to disbelief'.Revolutions that go violent end up somethingquite the opposite of what they profess, he said,"and leave and ashen taste in the mouth." Withthe sound of the guns, the cries of starving peoplein Biafra, and the tramp of the troops in Chicagoand Prague, this too is an issue to which Lohiastill speaks with great power.

Would it now be possible to carry out arevolution through the agency of sympathy?But I would also add anger. Not bitterness,jealously, or hatred, but sympathy and anger.Anger very definitely because, if I may at thisstage draw your attention to a big revolutionthat Mahatma Gandhi carried out, let no onemake a mistake about it, be was at times veryvery angry and resorted to quite angrymethods.

One revolution in thought was the breakingloose from the bonds of nationalism. "It is timefor us to try to have a world mind," he said. Forhim, it meant he felt free to criticize his countryabroad, and felt enough at home in the UnitedStates to court jail in one of its states still practisingsegregation. In league with Garry Davis ("WorldCitizen Number 1") and a French movement forworld citizenship that had by plebiscite"mundialized" an area comprising three millionpeople, Lohia caused a number of Indian villagesand towns, as well as the University of Lucknow,to adopt a "World Charter" and vote themselves"fragments of world territory." The nation-statewas for him then, as it has become for so many

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young men and women of "New Politics"throughout the world today, one of the alien orboring big bureaucracies to be bypassed,superseded and changed. He called for a WorldParliament with power to enforce peace andpromote economic development.

But aside from his suggestive and propheticideas, he embodied – in warm flesh and withstrong muscle and irrepressible spirit – somethingelse, perhaps even more important today. Hepractised dialectic – a hard and vulgar, yeteloquent and graceful dialectic of persuasion. Hewas in a constant dialogue with himself, his friends,his party, his people. Gandhi (who said of Lohiathat he did not know a braver or straighter man)would call it a dialogue with truth.

On that 1951 trip to America, Lohia stungand stirred people from coast to coast–and on aTown Meeting of the Air broadcast to millions ofAmericans, he challenged each person and groupto re-examine basic propositions and dogmas.To comfortable Negro professional he prescribedjail and involvement in the African freedommovement. To an audience of white Southernershe told of his dream that all mankind wouldbecome mulatto, and gave an ancient Indiandefinition of "race": "All who can producechildren of each other." To the Americans forDemocratic Action he asked why they were forsocialism all around the world, but not in America.To the Unitarians at a Star Island conference whosang, "I'll shine my little liberal light all around theworld," he responded by advocating the principlemost alien to Unitarian doctrine; anger.

The choice lies between a revolution withpeaceful means and a revolution with arevolver or the atom bomb. And we havemade our choice, and this is all that I can offerto men of religion and goodwill: that the meanswe shall employ shall be those of sympathyand, of course, anger, for no man who isprepared and willing to resist injustice candeprive himself of this great and good andglorious quality of anger. If his eye does notredden at an act of injustice, he shall hardlybe in a position to shed a tear of sympathy.

As a foil to his often sharp and puckishdialetic, Lohia also knew the great and good andglorious virtue of silence and solitude; and hecould draw himself out of politics to drink of thewaters of the earth and breathe the air of poetry.He walked many hours by himself in theRedwood forest of California. "The larger partof mankind will probably think of honeymoonsand sunsets and dawn," he reminded a politicallyenthusiastic audience at Stanford University.What does the morning look like in India? Doesthe self ever meet self? These were the greaterquestions, he said, for most people who belongto "the largest single party in the world, the partyof non political people." And the real test of acivilization, he suggested, was how its womenthink and look. America scored fairly well on hisscale. "At a sidewalk cafe it is hard to tell alaundress from a duchess. That is a gloriousaccomplishment, better than we ever achievedin 6,000 years. But you are at a point where youmust think anew."

His sympathy for America survived all thedark corners he saw. "I can claim to be

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American," he said. "After all, I have lived withAmerica in a manner of speaking for nearly thirtyyears. Your Boston Tea Parties, and Lincoln andJefferson, those were the meeting grounds, andthen, of course , your individual men and women.I have fascination for the American people, anddoubts about modern civilization, of whichAmerica is climax."

The fascination began in Paris in 1933, whenan American girl wept because the conciergewould not let two coloured men go up to herroom. "This made me think that there is somethinggood in America," he said at Fisk College. "TheAmerican is still primitive enough to show hersympathy and cry for her convictions. That wasMaxine. And then there was Josephine Baker.At that time she was taking Paris by storm andshe took me by storm too. It makes no difference– in Tripoli the lips are thick, in Paris the lips arethin, in Berlin the skin is fair, in Nashville the skinis dark, but "underneath, my treasure, all else isthe same."

And through it all, every through his recurringanger and many disappointment, even with anashen taste in his mouth, he laughed. Not longbefore his death I read a curious article inMankind in which Lohia's laugh was criticized.Indians were put off by this smiling, they couldnot take a man seriously who laughs so much,the article concluded. That brought a flood ofmemories over me, of our first meetings, when itwas his merriment in the midst of action that sointrigued and charmed us. Later we saw him retainthat merriment in the midst of much melancholyand even agony. What he called "the vanity offulfillment" was never his to enjoy. Yet he

remained a happy warrior. So I would amendthe proposition: Do not take a man seriously whodoes not laugh about the important things.

In 1951 Lohia went to meet Albert Einsteinin Princeton, and the great, hearty laughs thesetwo men shared as they surveyed the world areunforgettable.

"May I ask you a question, Dr. Einstein?"Lohia had begun. "Not about politics. I havecome to learn from you, and in politics I supposeI might even have something to tell you. But inthe higher field of the human mind we need yourhelp. In Berlin, I said that our age thought onlytwice, Mahatma Gandhi and atomic energy; oneis gone and your invention is a source of death.How is the human mind to get out of stagnation,this confinement and rigidity which is stifling it?Do you see integration which can be free thoughtfor voyages of discovery?"

When the two men parted, Einstein put hisarm around Lohia and said: "It is so good to meeta man – one gets so lonely."

Long ago Lohia wrote: "God and woman arethe two purposes of life. I have not met God andwoman is elusive, but once I met a man and hismemory shimmers the path."

He meant Gandhi. I mean Lohia

One gets so lonely

-Mankind a monthly journal;

November, 1968