ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to critically evaluate the impact of neo-liberal market-economy on caste and various caste-related social ameliorative measures of the Indian developmental state precisely meant for the inclusion of socially excluded sections of Indian society. Social democracy calls upon the state to play a positive role for the protection as well as promotion of the interests of the downtrodden, minorities and the other weaker sections of society. It expects that state need not be confined solely to law and order system. The social democratic vision of independent India as nurtured during the freedom struggle and also during the drafting of the Constitution got further reflected in the Resolution of the Government of India adopted for the creation of the Planning Commission in March 1950. In the formative years of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru effectively grappled with a queer dilemma of a tug of war between the protagonists of public and the private sectors.
