For him, the true struggle against caste “aims to pitch-fork the five downgraded groups of society – women, Sudras, Harijans, Muslims and Adivasis – into positions of leadership, irrespective of their merit ….” This may be noted that for Lohia all women must be put in the category of the backward classes. Lohia was a great champion of women. He wanted equal relationship between men and women in which women are no more defined as sister, wife or prostitute. Using the characters of Mahabharat, Draupadi and Krishna, he said that the relationship between women and men ought to be the relationship of companionship. This was a relationship in which Draupadi was not linked to Krishna as sister, mother, wife or beloved. This was the relationship between two equals and two most central characters of the epic (Yadav, 2010). He characterized this relationship as of Sakha and Sakhi (Lohia, 1978, 281-300). Writing in the political context, he said that for a good future India must produce such Sudra leader whom even Brahmins follow with honor.
Lohia called himself a socialist but he was critical of both Marxism and Capitalism as both of these systems stood for big industry. He had a strong preference for appropriate technology. Like Gandhi, he also thought that for the construction of a non-violent society – free from inequalities based on caste, gender, region and class – appropriate technology is more suited than large industry. His idea that government which misruled should be thrown out by the people who cannot wait for five years for general election is quite relevant today in the context of debate between civil society and state. In education he was against continuation of English and he supported abolishing private schools so that students from all classes have equal opportunity.
Lohia was a true revolutionary. To quote (Lohia, 1965, 61):
The world needs a revolution or rather a series of revolutions. There is no hope for India and for a large part of the coloured world until their middle-class and supervisory civilizations are pitilessly destroyed. The rewards of manual and intellectual labour must be brought into a relationship of justice and equality and the number of supervisors and regulators must be ruthlessly cut down.
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The method to achieve this revolution is Gandhian – the civil disobedience moment. He argued that civil disobedience must be a matter of right and government should be forced to accept it (Lohia, 1978, 213).
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