THE ROAD TO DEMOCRACY: SOCIALISM

After the amendment in the Indian Constitution in 1976, India was declared a socialist state, along with being sovereign secular democratic republic. Being a socialist state, India implies social and economic equality. Social equality means that there cannot be any discrimination based on caste, creed, color, sex, language or religion. Every citizen has equal rights, status and opportunities. Whereas, economic equality means that the Government will strive for equal distribution of wealth and provide a decent standard of living for all.

The theory of socialism advocates common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources. It is an economic and political system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the Government rather than the private players.

There are different types of socialist states. Some do not tolerate capitalism at all, while some allow it as far as the Government maintains its dominance. It is interesting to note that all communists are socialists, but all socialists are not communists. The term socialist state differs as defined by various theories. According to Marxism, a socialist state is a state that has abolished capitalism and is moving towards communism. But, there are some countries, including India that use the term ‘socialist’ in their Constitution without claiming to follow communism or any of its derivatives.

India has adopted a socialistic and mixed economy and the Government has framed many laws to achieve the aim. Because there are several branches of socialism, the view has been so-far-unsuccessfully challenged since 1994 in the many courts in India.

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Socialism

‘Socialism’ is an ideology derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong. In the People’s Republic of China (PRC) it has been the official doctrine of the Communist Party of China since the Cultural Revolution of the mid-1960s, although since the reforms of Deng Xiaoping the term has had little meaning in practice.

Outside the PRC, Maoism was a term, used from the 1960s onwards, usually in a hostile sense, to describe parties or individuals who supported Mao Zedong and his form of Communism, as opposed to the form practiced in the Soviet Union, which these groups denounced as “revisionist.” These groups usually rejected the term Maoism, preferring to call themselves Marxist-Leninists. Since the death of Mao and the reforms of Deng, most of these parties have disappeared, but various small Communist groups in a number of countries continue to advance Maoist ideas.

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