Things India must do to be a functioning social democracy

If even a modest but growing social welfare package is to be affordable, the public sector has to perform or be disbanded so that the govt can shut down one of the two cash burners, writes T N Ninan

Does India practise social democracy, or democratic socialism? That might sound like wordplay, but the two are very different creatures. The first system is democratic and functions broadly within a regulated capitalist framework. Budgets in such a system are instruments for funding universal social security provisions that benefit the poor more than the rich, such as for elderly care, a public school system, state-provided or state-paid medical services, along with provisions for the disadvantaged, like unemployment benefits. Democratic socialism is different: It emphasises state ownership or control of production, but within a democratic polity (therefore different from communist regimes, which