This paper attempts to provide an outline of the contributions of the Indian democratic socialist tradition to the expansion and radicalization of the canvas of democratic theory and practice in India. While doing so, it also briefly discusses and highlights the historical and cultural context of the emergence of democratic imagination in India. Besides, the paper also tries to grapple with certain central issues of democracy in contemporar y India, and shows how the socialist input into Indian democracy could help in overcoming some of its predicaments. This analysis is done in three sections. The first section discusses the historical and cultural context of the emergence of democracy in India in terms of the nationalist movement and the framing of the Indian constitution. The second section identifies the central issues that Indian democracy confronts today. Finally, the third section highlights the significance of Indian democratic socialist discourse both in identifying the problems of Indian democracy as well as in evolving amicable solutions to them.

Democracy as a political idea owes its origin to the west. However, the western genesis of the idea of democracy does not necessarily make it Eurocentric as different societies have different ways of articulating or rearticulating democracy in their distinctive cultural and historical pursuits. In India too, the chronicle of democratic imagination and pursuit has been historically specific and culturally distinct.