ABSTRACT
In the fifties and early sixties India and China were often regarded as two great Asian experiments, one democratic, the other totalitarian, which could serve as models for other developing countries. Their growth record was the undisputed yardstick showing the viability and effectiveness of the two systems. According to the modernization-perspective, development in the Third World is necessarily a repetition of the historical experience of contemporary industrialized countries. This Western world view is shared by Liberalism and Marxism alike. In both India and China the self-reliance strategy and the modernization strategy have been dialectically related to each other largely in way in which they affect the social power structure. The ideals of modernization became part of the freedom struggle where they competed with Gandhi’s ideals of self-reliance and Hindu revival. The Cultural Revolution was a revitalization of Maoism.
