The Second World War broke out in 1939. The British Government forcibly involved India in the war. Lohia was against the war. For his antiwar speeches, the British again put him behind the bars in 1940.

It was 1942. Gandhi gave a call to the nation and threw a challenge to the British. "Quit India" said he. On the seventh and the eighth of August that year, the All India Congress Committee met in Bombay. The Quit India Movement was launched. On the 9th of August early in the morning the British Government imprisoned all national leaders headed by Gandhi, who coined a magic slogan, "Do or die". Spellbound by this slogan, the entire nation stood up against the British. Many of the national leaders evaded the police and organized the movement. Lohia was among the foremost.

He started a secret

Broadcasting station and, with Jayaprakash Narayan, he organised an underground movement.

The government imprisoned Lohia again in 1944. In the prison he was tortured in several ways. Each day he would be put in handcuffs of different sizes and weights; he would be made to listen to a single word, repeated for hours on end in the officer's chambers; he would be forbidden to close his eyes all night; the moment he closed his eyes his head would be twisted or the handcuffs pulled; for several nights the police would keep knocking a table by his bed with a piece of iron; they would call the national leaders names in his presence. Once an officer was calling Gandhi names. Weary and exasperated by the torture Lohia roared at him to shut up. The officer made a fuss but thereafter he never opened his mouth again.

Lohia was at last released from the prison in 1946.

At that time India's freedom was in sight. But freedom from the clutches of the British did not mean freedom from the Portugese. These Portugese imperialists had been ruling three small pockets of territory, Goa, Diu and Daman, for four hundred and fifty years. Their rule was more frightful than that of the British. Lohia turned his attention to Goa as soon as he was released from prison. He went to Belgaum in Karnataka. When he entered Goa, the Portugese Government arrested and deported him. Thus Lohia laid the foundation for the liberation of Goa from foreign domination.