An iconic teacher

Professor Randhir Singh, an internationally renowned Marxist scholar of political science, died on January 31, in Delhi at the age of 95.  He was a kind of legend as a teacher. His lectures were so popular for the sheer brilliance of their content and delivered with passion and engagement that students from as diverse disciplines as economics, sociology, law, literature, mathematics and even physics and chemistry, attended in large numbers.

 

Among his students are successful academics in political science who have proud publications records. Many of them attribute their fascination with the subject to his lectures they attended at Delhi University.

 

His Reason, Revolution and Political Theory is a powerful and widely reviewed Marxist critique of the work of the conservative political theorist Michael Oakeshott. The late Mohit Sen, the CPI theorist, in a review in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) had remarked that with this book, Indian political scientists could claim an equal status in the world of international scholarship on political theory.

 

Randhir Singh’s influential article on Punjab, “Marxists and the Sikh Extremist Movement in Punjab,”published in 1987 in the EPW,  exemplifies his intellectual and political integrity. He overcame personal considerations and sharply criticised his lifelong friend the historian Bipan Chandra. He criticised, what he called, "the Ribeiro-Giri Lal Jain-Bipan Chandra line" for its advocacy of resolving the Punjab crisis by using the repressive apparatus of the State and liquidating the Sikh extremists. He argued that this line reinforced the class rule of the Indian State and feeds the aggressive Hindu chauvinist nationalism. The robustness of his criticism has been proved by the subsequent events that have shown that the main beneficiary of this line has been the BJP-led political forces. Far from being an armchair theoretician, he was a leading light of the Delhi University Teachers Association, especially in its formative stage and an active supporter of the trade unions, kisan sabhas, human rights groups and the campaigning organisations of women, Dalits, tribal communities and the minorities. 

 

Randhir Singh was one of the few Indian academics who understood the importance of the vision of eco-socialism in its critique of capitalism's environmentally destructive character. He is survived by his wife and two daughters, who are both accomplished professionals in their respective fields.