Socialism in India

Socialism in India is a political movement founded early in the 20th century, as a part of the broader Indian independence movement against the colonial British Raj. It grew quickly in popularity as it espoused the causes of India's farmers and labourers against the zamindars, princely class and landed gentry. Socialism shaped the principle economic and social policies of the Indian government after independence until the early 1990s, when India moved towards a more market-based economy. However, it remains a potent influence on Indian politics, with a large number of national and regional political parties espousing democratic socialism.

Small socialist revolutionary groups arose in India in the aftermath of the October Revolution in Russia. The Communist Party of India was established in 1921, but socialism as an ideology gained a nationwide appeal after it was endorsed by nationalist leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. Radical socialists were amongst the first to call for outright Indian independence from Britain. Under Nehru, the Indian National Congress, India's largest political party, adopted socialism as an ideology for socio-economic policies in 1936. Radical socialists and communists also engineered the Tebhaga movement of farmers in Bengal against the landed gentry. However, mainstream Indian socialism connected itself with Gandhism and adopted peaceful struggle instead of class warfare.

After India's independence in 1947, the Indian government under prime ministers Nehru and Indira Gandhi oversaw land reform and the nationalisation of major industries and the banking sector. Independently, activists Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan worked for peaceful land redistribution under the Sarvodaya movement, where landlords granted land to farm workers out of their own free will. In the 1960s, the Communist Party of India formed India's first democratically elected communist government when it won elections in the states of Kerala and later West Bengal. However, when a global recession began in the late 1970s, economic stagnation, chronic shortages and state inefficiency left many disillusioned with state socialism. In the late 1980s and 1990s, India's government began to systematically liberalise the Indian economy by pursuing privatisation, aiming to attract foreign investment. Nevertheless, the Congress party continues to espouse some socialist causes, and other major parties such as the Communists, Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and several others openly espouse socialism.

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