Social and Economic Democracy

Democracy conceived in merely political terms meant the right of every citizen to freely vote at the periodical elections. The 'one man, one vote' principle applied  in all democratic elections emanated from the recognition of equal rights of  all men- whether highly educated or illiterate, experts, technocrats, industrialists or labourers. For our founding fathers, however, democracy did not mean merely political democracy or the people's right to periodically vote to elect their representatives. Without social and economic democracy, political democracy and had no meaning in a poor country like India. For Dr. Ambedkar, social and economic democracy was the real aim and ultimate goal. He said that the parliamentary democracy was meaningless unless it was geared to achieving the real goal of economic democracy. Jawaharlal Nehru had observed later that Democracy of his conception was only a means to an end. The end was the good life for individual which must include a certain satisfaction of the essential economic needs. Only in the measure that democracy succeeds in solving the economic problems, does it succeeds even in political field. If the economic problems are not solved then the political structure tends to weaken and crack up. Therefore, from political democracy, we must progress to economic democracy which means "working for a certain measure of well being for all." It could be called a welfare State. But, it also "means working for a certain measure of equality of opportunity in the economic sphere." This is made clear by the words of the Preamble which speaks of securing to all citizens of the Republic 'Justice, Social, Economic and Political.'

Extract from Our Constitution by Subhash C. Kashyap