What India’s passionate support for an assassinated Congolese leader says about today’s world order

On February 19, 1961, thousands of people gathered in New Delhi to protest the murder of the young leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba.

The freedom fighter Aruna Asaf Ali, one of the organisers of the event, compared the martyrdom of 35-year-old Lumumba to the hanging of revolutionary Bhagat Singh by the British colonial administration.

Congress politician Indira Gandhi said that Lumumba’s loss was that of “somebody very near”. She added that there is more India could have done to protect Lumumba. Footage of the event shows that the large crowds were drawn across the political spectrum.

Artist Amrita Pritam wrote a poem for Lumumba in Punjabi, asking “Can the white sheet hide this red spot in its folds?”

There were several tributes in Urdu including by Makhdoom and Sahir Ludhianvi. Sahir’s poem translated into English by KA Abbas had the lines “Every drop of a martyr’s blood, Will Light an Immortal Flame”. Abbas himself wrote a story based on Lumumba.

What caused this passionate indignation and upsurge of support in India for Lumumba, whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year? It reflected a time when India was closely involved in the liberation struggles in Africa through the state, the activities of solidarity organisations and sympathetic individuals.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru described the murder as “a turning point” in the history of Africa, predicting that “a dead Lumumba is infinitely more powerful than a live Lumumba”.

Lumumba had been murdered just a year after being elected prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 30, 1960, when the country gained independence from Belgium.

By January the next year, he was brutally tortured and assassinated. His body was dissolved in acid. As is now well documented, the US and the Belgians both worked to overthrow the young African leader.

The Congo had become embroiled in a political crisis after independence because the Katanga region – extremely rich in mineral resources – announced its secession with Belgian help.

The Belgians were antagonistic to Lumumba and the country’s press routinely carried racist characterisations of him. With Katanga’s secession, the Belgians found their opportunity to weaken him by sending a large number of armed personnel to the province.

Lumumba appealed to the United Nations for help. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld obtained permission from the Security Council to send a mission to the Congo.

An Indian diplomat, Rajeshwar Dayal, was appointed Special Representative of the United Nations in the Congo and joined in September 1960. By the time Dayal arrived, it was too late. His predecessor, Andrew Cordier, had actively worked against Lumumba. Frustrated with the inability of the United Nations to assist him, Lumumba had asked for Soviet help – greatly alarming the West.

Lumumba’s overthrow had reportedly been ordered by US President Dwight Eisenhower. With the backing of the US Central Intelligence Agency, Dayal wrote in his Mission for Hammarskjöld, Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko undertook a military coup.

“We had no doubt that Mobutu’s own weak will had not provided the driving urge,” he observed. “We had our suspicions which did not point to the CIA alone.”

Eventually, Dayal himself had to leave the Congo as Western powers lobbied for his removal and his life was threatened.

The failure of the United Nations to protect Lumumba brought to light its ineffectiveness. As Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, wrote in his Challenge of the Congo, this was “the first time in history that the legal ruler of a country” had “been done to death with the open connivance of a world organisation in whom that ruler put his trust”.

The Soviets asked for the resignation of the secretary general, Hammarskjöld. In a letter to Nehru, Nikita Khrushchev expressed his shock at Lumumba’s assasination, condemning the United Nations and asking for the resignation of Hammarskjöld.

Nehru expressed his sympathy with his views but did not believe that replacing Hammarskjöld would achieve much. Hammarskjöld soon died in a mysterious plane crash in September 1961. Eventually, Nehru decided to send several thousand Indian soldiers to the Congo under the United Nations mission to end the secession in Katanga.

To understand the rise and assasination of Lumumba, it is first important to understand the significance of Congo. It is a country rich in natural resources, including cobalt, copper and diamonds. It is almost three-fourths the size of India.

When the continent of Africa was partitioned among European powers in the late 19th century, Congo became the personal property of King Leopold of Belgium. During his 23-year rule, an estimated 10 million Africans were killed. In 1908, international alarm over the atrocities forced him to give up the territory. Congo became a Belgian colony.

At independence, Congo had some of the lowest living standards in Africa.

Lumumba, who was born in 1925 in a poor peasant family, grew up hearing stories of the Belgian atrocities. He was an autodidact, a voracious reader with a particular interest in philosophy, history and sociology.

In his years working as a postal clerk, Lumumba became involved with and led several societies and organisations. He took an active interest in discussing colonialism and race relations. He started writing for the newspapers and also wrote poetry. He had also learnt several Congolese languages including Lingala and Swahili. As he travelled around the country and met with a variety of people, his fame as an orator rose.

Lumumba’s growing popularity worried the Belgian colonial administration who arrested him on charges of embezzlement in 1956. While in prison, Lumumba worked on a book titled Congo, My Country. The book was addressed to Belgian rulers and proposed a Belgo-Congolese union.

“My investigations,” he wrote, “have not been limited to the évolué class; they have also been carried out among the working-class and the traditionalist leaders…with people of all types and all shades of opinion.” Lumumba started identifying with the majority of the Congolese population.

This explains how his political views rapidly changed. In 1958, he became one of the founders of the Congolese National Movement. The idea of a national movement that built unity across ethnic divisions in Congo was a revolutionary idea. Soon afterwards, he was the Congolese delegate to the All African People’s Conference organised in Ghana, which had declared its independence a year earlier under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah.

Lumumba would become a committed Pan-Africanist. For Lumumba, unity was a principle of struggle, unity against tribal divisions in the Congo, unity among African nations and ultimately unity among all the oppressed fighting for their freedom.

Lumumba had studied the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian freedom struggle. “We have chosen just one weapon for our struggle, and that weapon is nonviolence, because we believe that whatever the goal, it can be reached by peaceful means,” he said in 1959. “This is what our struggle represents…”

In an interview one year later, he said that the Congolese owe this principle of nonviolent action to Gandhi.

Lumumba did not have the time and the people to fully consolidate the state in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His ideas of African unity and true independence were seen as too dangerous by Western powers in the context of the Cold War.

The story of Lumumba reflects the heroism and the tragedy of African freedom struggles. In the century since his birth, understanding the history of these struggles continues to carry lessons for our unequal world order.

Archishman Raju is a scientist based in Bangalore associated with the Gandhi Global Family and Intercivilizational Dialogue Project.