3 Review(s)

Dr Rao briefly reviews the evolution of socialist thinking in India and the attempts to bring about a socialist pattern in Indian society through economic planning and appropriate governmental policies and programmes. Beginning with an account of the classic examples of socialist thought and action which influenced Indian thinking on the subject, the author analyses both capitalist and communist alternatives combining development, justice and individual freedom. In an eminently readable manner, Dr. Rao surveys the Indian political scene from independence and offers cogent reasons why India missed the socialist bus. Democratic socialism being an article of faith with the author, he turns his attention to the prospects of reviving the socialist experiment in the context of a mixed economy in India and concludes on an optimistic note. At a time when political thinking is in a state of confusion and no political party knows what to do in the matter, though all want some kind of a socialist society without sacrificing individual freedom, Dr. Rao book should serve as a timely contribution that may open up an objective debate on the subject and lead to a possible national consensus on the normative structure that should be given to Indian society and the steps that should be taken in all spheres of Indian activity for establishing such a structure. About the Author Prof. V.K.R.V. Rao (b. 1908) had his economic training in Bombay and Cambridge. He joined the University of Delhi as its first Professor in 1942 and subsequently became its Vice-Chancellor. He has received many honours, including the D.C.L. (Honoris Causa) of Oxford University and the Padma Vibhushan from the President of India. He has served on several national and international committees, and functioned as Honorary Chairman of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Economic Development from 1947 to 1950. He has a large number of publications to his credit, including on Swami Vivekananda as the Prophet of Vedantic Socialism. He has also been a Member of the Planning Commission of India from 1963 to 1966 and Cabinet Minister of the Indian Government from 1967 to 1971. From his college days, in the company of Yusuf Meherally, to this day when he is living in retirement in Bangalore and devoting himself to academic writing, Dr. Rao has been a Democratic Socialist. He has spoken on many platforms and written many articles on his democratic socialist faith, which gained in later years by the growing impact of the gandhian approach on his thinking. While he never participated in active party politics, he was always taking part in public affairs, mainly on economic or egalitarian issues. This volume on Indian socialism is his first publication in book from of his life-long interest in Democratic socialism.