By Harsh Thakor
On January 11th we celebrated the birth centenary of the Marxist
intellectual Randhir Singh who for decades served as a professor in
He was not a Maoist or Stalinist but upheld the
positive role of
He firmly stood by the genuine democratic movements of
the day, of any strata of society. The professor was living example of what
someone could do to contribute within the boundaries of an oppressive social
order. We must uphold Randhir Singh's contribution in moulding youth towards
Marxist ideology in the 1970's at a height few teachers did when revisionism
was flourishing. He displayed mastery in explaining the dynamics of a
capitalistic society and inspire cadre to join ranks of the progressive
movement. Most lucidly he summarised the crisis and degeneration of capitalist
societies. Few teachers as intensively fostered spirit of questioning in
students or the Marxist method of analysis, in contrast to indoctrination.
Randhir Singh sowed the breeding ground for many a revolutionary activist.
No Indian Marxist intellectual was held in such esteem
as Randhir Singh by the Monthly Review. In Turn Randhir Singh rated the
‘Monthly Review’ as the finest Socialist journal in the world. I recommend
readers to read tributes by Chaman Lal,Gilbert Sebastian 'Mainstream Weekly', Pritam
Singh in 'The Wire' and by his student Sandeep Bhushan in the Caravan, which do
ample justice to him.
I recommend any democratic cadre to study the writings
of Professor Randhir Singh, who taught us the importance of studying all the
bourgeois philosophers be it Plato, Thoreau or Voltaire and be a very good
student of history. He delved into political thought of Machiavelli and Hobbes
as he did to Marx. If he prescribed the work of New Left philosopher Lucio
Colletti as a means to understand Rousseau, he would also recommended liberal
thinkers such as Ernst Cassirer and Leo Strauss to help students understand
theorists such as Machiavelli and Hobbes. His best essays are 'Future of
Socialism", 'A Note on the Current Political Situation: Some issues and a
Conclusion ", and on '
His magnum opus Crisis of Socialism: Notes in
Defence of a Commitment was published a decade ago, which was released
by another notable Marxist thinker, Aijaz Ahmad, in
Perhaps it was a misfortune that Randhir Singh could
not comprehensively trace or address the root cause of the setback to Socialist
societies or write a critique on Maoism, or the phenomena of splits or
deviations within the Indian Communist Movement. Still few intellectuals in the
world still displayed faith in Marxism with such degree of conviction as
Randhir Singh. Where Randhir Singh was arguably flawed was his inability to
trace The pro-Brahamanical stands of Gandhi like the promoting of Varnas. In
the view of Vijay Singh Randhir Singh's enrolment as a member of the Communist
Party of India and later C.P.I.(M) prevented him from grasping Kruschevian
revisionism. We could also term him flawed in not demarcating completely from
Trotskyism or classifying
Life Summary(by Chaman Lal)
Born on January 9, 1922, in Moga district of Punjab,
Singh's father was an idealist and doctor (civil surgeon) by profession
Singh was a good student and qualified for a
medical degree, but opted for arts (something that his teachers thought he was
best-suited for). He proved his teachers right and topped masters in Political
Science from Panjab University Lahore even though he was more involved in
political activism during that time and had to spend a year in
There he would often spend time with his hero
Bhagat Singh’s comrades like Kishori Lal in the "terrorist ward",
where Bhagat Singh was incarcerated earlier.
Singh became a full-time activist of the
Communist Party of India in 1939 at the age of 17 years, first as an activist
of All India Students Federation (AISF), of which Satya Pal Dang was leader at
that time.
He remained underground as well, reaching out
to peasants in rural area and was a part of editorial staff of party journal in
Punjabi. Singh also translated the Communist
Manifesto and some other works of Karl Marx in Punjabi in
those days.
He was 25 at the time of partition and after
moving to
His first-class-first master’s degree in
political science came handy during this time and he got a lecturer's job in
Along with Bipan Chandra, he would distribute
copies of Enquiry in
those days, besides other Leftist journals. He continued to be a part of the
CPI, but was critical of its "revisionist" policies.
With the split of the party in 1964, he went
along with CPI (Marxist) for a few years. This was the period, he was viciously
attacked by the "official" communists. He was removed from the
editorship of CPI’s theoretical Punjabi journal Sada Jug (Our Age) charged with
"individualism and intellectual arrogance", as he had refused to
publish BT Randive’s criticism of Mao Tse Tung.
During those days of crisis, teaching was both
a relief and pleasure for Singh.
After spending nearly two decades in
In between, his PhD thesis was rejected, he published only one book in 1967 — Reason, Revolution and Political Theory: Notes on Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics. But it was this one book that earned him laurels as a political theorist. His other publications came much later in life, mostly after retirement.
Contribution of Randhir Singh as a Teacher
Randhir Singh in his day played an important role in organising the
Quoting Chaman Lal"Even though he did not write or
publish much, Singh earned much respect as a teacher. In fact, his teaching
techniques became legendary. As the classroom used to be mostly packed, some
students would stand outside and listen to his lecture. Interestingly, he was
advised many times not to teach "subversion". He was even stopped
from "touching upon" Marx and instead given Plato to teach. But Singh
would still end up imparting lessons on Marx, of course through Plato.
Singh had termed his teaching as "Robin Hooding". Despite facing
harassment and humiliation from organised groups, his "Robin Hooding"
went on very well, though he was conscious of the fact that this was
"within the system" and even lent legitimacy to the system. While
many get "co-opted" in the system by such liberalism, Singh remained
different and did not confine himself to teaching alone."
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