Ram Swarup Quotes

“In 1944, Ram Swarup started the "Changers' Club", alluding to Karl Marx's dictum that philosophers have interpreted the world instead of changing it.”
― Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism

“In 1949, Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel decided to found a think-tank specifically devoted to monitoring Communism, the Democratic Research Service, which was formally started in November 1950. It was sponsored by the industrialist Birla family, and initially led by Morarji Desai, who passed the job on to Minoo Masani. It was as secretary of the DRS that Ram Swarup prepared a History of the Communist Party of India, which Masani published in his own name. A lot of bad blood developed between them, and Ram Swarup quit the DRS to join Sita Ram Goel in Calcutta.”
― Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism

“Ram Swarup, now in his seventies, is a scholar of the first rank. In the 1950s when our intellectuals were singing paeans to Marxism, and to Mao in particular, he wrote critiques of communism and of the actual- that is, dismal performance of communist governments. He showed that the 'sacrifices' which the people were being compelled to make had nothing to do with building a new society in which at some future date they would be heirs to milk and honey...He showed that the claims to efficiency and productivity, to equitable distribution and to high morale which were being made by these governments, and even more so by their apologists in countries such as India, were wholly unsustainable, that in fact they were fabrications. Today, anyone reading those critiques would characterise them as prophetic. But thirty years ago, so noxious was the intellectual climate in India that all he got was abuse, and ostracism.”
― Arun Shourie, Indian Controversies