Cooperative model alternative to socialism, capitalism: Narendra Modi

GANDHINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asserted that the cooperative movement in Gujarat has built a successful alternative model to both socialism and capitalism.

Inaugurating Amul’s chocolate plant at Anand on Sunday, Modi said the seeds sown by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel about a century ago “has blossomed as the third economic system, where neither the government nor the capitalists will have control. This cooperative movement will develop and grow with the participation of farmers and everyone will be a stakeholder in it.”

“This is such a model which can provide a successful alternative to socialism and capitalism,” the prime minister asserted. Modi reminded the audience that it was Sardar Patel who as chairman of Ahmedabad Municipality had inaugurated India’s first cooperative housing society, Pritamnagar, in Ahmedabad on January 28, 1927. This was made by Pritamrai Desai.


The PM’s plaudits for the “third alternative” to capitalism and socialism, however, reminded one of RSS scholar Dattopant Thengadi.

In ‘The Hindu Approach’, Thengadi wrote “the world communism virtually collapsed. But this need not generate euphoria. Apart from the weight of its own internal self-contradictions a number of contributory factors have been responsible for its downfall.

These have not yet been properly evaluated. Capitalism is on the decline. But its demise is being delayed. Knowledgeable circles have stared their search for a third alternative.”