On the death anniversary of one of India's most consequential socialist thinkers, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai on Monday, 12 October 2026 paid humble homage to Dr Ram Manohar Lohia, the freedom fighter and architect of the 'Sapt Kranti' — the Seven Revolutions.

Posting on X, CM Sai wrote: 'महान स्वतंत्रता सेनानी एवं सप्त क्रांति के प्रणेता डॉ. राम मनोहर लोहिया जी की पुण्यतिथि पर विनम्र श्रद्धांजलि।' — 'Humble tribute on the death anniversary of great freedom fighter and pioneer of the Sapt Kranti, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia.' He added that Lohia's struggle and ideas for the rights and upliftment of the poor, farmers, labourers, and the marginalised 'will always guide us.'

Who was Dr Ram Manohar Lohia?

Dr Ram Manohar Lohia (23 March 1910 – 12 October 1967) was a towering figure in India's independence movement and post-independence socialist politics. A fierce critic of caste hierarchy, economic inequality, and concentrated political power, he remains one of the most cited ideological anchors of India's non-Congress left.

His 'Sapt Kranti' — the Seven Revolutions — was a framework that called for simultaneous transformation across seven fronts: against inequality based on gender, skin colour, caste, and class; against colonialism; for individual freedom against state overreach; for world unity; and for a new economic order. It was a sweeping, interconnected vision that distinguished Lohia from the more narrowly economic socialism of his contemporaries.

Why a BJP chief minister invokes Lohia

The tribute carries a quiet political resonance. Lohia is most closely associated with the socialist tradition that shaped parties like the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal family — not the BJP. Yet Lohia's insistence on social justice for the poor, farmers, and backward communities, and his sharp critique of dynastic Congress rule, have long made him a figure politicians across the spectrum choose to claim. CM Sai's invocation — centred on Lohia's commitment to the marginalised — underscores that legacy as a broad national inheritance, not a partisan one.

In Chhattisgarh, a state where tribal and agrarian communities form a substantial share of the population, the emphasis on Lohia's advocacy for farmers, labourers, and the dispossessed carries local weight as much as symbolic national gesture.

Fifty-nine years after his passing, Dr Lohia's demand for a politics rooted in the everyday lives of those at the bottom remains the standard against which leaders still measure themselves.