Socio-Political Ideas and Political Society in The Indian Welfare Trajectory

Socio-political Ideas and
Political Society in the Indian

Welfare Trajectory
Ellen Ehmke
International Conference:
“Social Protection for Social Justice”
Institute of Development Studies, UK
13–15 April 2011
1
Conference Social Protection for Social Justice Ms. Ellen Ehmke
IDS, Brighton, April 13-15 2011 ICDD - University of Kassel
„Socio-political Ideas and Political Society in the Indian Welfare Trajectory“ e.e@fu-berlin.de
Socio-political Ideas and Political Society in the Indian Welfare Trajectory

This paper aims to throw a glance at the forces behind the development of welfare
regimes in developing contexts. The broader analytical base of welfare regimes and their
reproduction patterns offer insights on the contexts of social policy (making), which is
crucial when new policies are conceptualised (Gough 2008: 64). And, the foundational
basis of social policy institutions is key to understand their institutional stability as well
as change (Thelen 1999: 401). Therefore, this paper starts out with a short review of
recent political science approaches to welfare regimes in the Southern hemisphere
(Gough 2004; Gough & Abu Sharkh 2010; Rudra 2007; Haggard & Kaufman 2008). But, it
suggests to divert from the identification of regime types and to focus on explanations in
historical institutional legacies. For their analysis, this paper suggests to take up two
hitherto neglected aspects: the importance of socio-political ideas (Kaufmann 2003),
and the nature of political society (Chatterjee 2004). The theses advanced are, firstly,
that socio-political ideas – mediated through cultural parameters and actor constella-
tions – crucially shape the institutional formation of nascent welfare regimes. And, sec-
ondly, that the institutional reproduction of the welfare trajectory may be shaped by the
nature of political society towards a fractioned social protection provision.
In the second part of the paper, the origins of the Indian welfare regime and its trajec-
tory will be analysed in the light of the arguments made above. Roughly, the period
around India’s independence is identified as a critical juncture in the institutionalisation
of the welfare regime. The analysis will seek to identify the mechanisms which ob-
structed the constitutional call for greater welfare for all citizens. It suggests that the
failure to achieve egalitarian citizenship, which is captured with Chatterjee’s political
society, provided a reproduction pattern which disfavoured the development of com-
prehensive, universal social security provision.
1 Welfare regimes in the Global South – an emerging field of study

Only recently, the search for the origins of the development of welfare institutions in
the Global South has been broadened by studies of welfare regimes outside the OECD
world, firstly by Ian Gough (1999, 2004, 2008; Gough & Abu Sharkh 2010), and later by
studies from Nita Rudra (2007) and Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman (2008).
Although earlier works on welfare institutions in the Global South exist, these have
rather focused on social security or social protection, and were not done with a political
science approach, but came from anthropology, development studies as well as econom-
ics (see Platteau 1991; Wehr 2009)
The welfare state regime approach has been formulated for the OECD countries most
prominently by Gøsta Esping-Andersen (1990). His approach discarded earlier func-
tionalist and modernization theory arguments on convergent developments of modern
states towards greater welfare. Instead, regime is used to highlight that variation among
welfare states – with regard to social entitlements, societal stratification and class coali-
tions – have led to qualitatively different arrangements between state, family and mar-
ket (Esping-Andersen 1990: 26). These are not linearly distributed but can be grouped
into three regime types; social-democratic, liberal and the conservative regimes accord-
ing to their degree of de-commodification (Esping-Andersen 1990).
Esping-Andersen’s approach shed a light on systemic divergence of welfare arrange-
ments and their historical political and economic origins. However, his study included a
1
set of countries that – from a global perspective – appear rather similar: they are all
economically advanced capitalist democracies. Therefore, one of the starting points of
the first adaptation of the welfare regime approach to developing contexts by Gough
(2004: 28f) is that institutional conditions faced in the Southern hemisphere – which
admittedly includes an even larger and more heterogeneous group of countries – are
very different.1
A key argument of Gough and his co-authors is that the state plays a comparatively
smaller role in the provision of welfare in developing countries, and they, hence, talk
about welfare regimes rather than welfare state regimes. They identify three ‘meta-
regime’ types: proto-welfare state regimes, informal security regimes and insecurity
regimes (Gough 2004; Gough & Abu Sharkh 2010). Welfare regime, in this context be-
comes an analytical term for the study of welfare arrangements, it loses the normative
connotation of achieving greater welfare. The origins of such regimes and social policy
development outside the OECD, according to Gough (2008: 58ff), can be analysed using
the framework of the “five Is”: Industrialisation, interests, institutions, ideas, and inter-
national suprastate influences. He stresses, that social policy developments are embed-
ded in economic and social structures and have to be analysed in their specific context
(Gough 2008: 63f).
In her study, Rudra (2007) also detects systematic divergence among the social policy
regimes of 59 less developed countries (LDCs). Policy makers in these countries have
reacted differently to internal as well as external pressures, and this has shaped distri-
bution regimes in the long run. She identifies three regime types: productive welfare
states are geared towards promoting market development and aimed at the commodifi-
cation of labour; protective welfare states have partly disencouraged commodification
and shielded (selected sections of) labour as well as capital from market pressures; and
few states combine both strategies and are characterised as dual welfare states (Rudra
2007: 382ff). As a key for the understanding of today’s regimes, she recalls “the initial
choice of development strategy and complementary welfare policies create distribu-
tional coalitions, which thereafter have a vested interest in maintaining existing institu-
tions and reinforcing them” (Rudra 2007: 391).
A third study by Haggard and Kaufman (2008) shares the interest for distribution re-
gimes. They analyse strategic alignments and critical junctures in coalitions pressing for
redistribution, the impact of economic performance, as well as of democratic institutions
in twenty middle income countries. Similar to Rudra, but also in line with Gough, they
contend that economic growth did not automatically lead to greater social entitlements
in the developing world (also see Usami 2004: 29; Gough & Abu Sharkh 2010).2 They
also dismiss the functionalist argument that democracy would ceteris paribus result in a
more generous and progressive welfare regime. Instead, they contend "the effects of
institutions are conditional on the distribution of underlying preferences over the policy
in question and the strength of the contending social groups in the political process"
1 Gough and his co-authors highlight differences in four fields (2004: 26ff, 1999: 33ff; Wood & Gough 2006: 1700):
Firstly, state institutions are less autonomous and democratic practice might be absent. Capitalism in the South
exists next to and interacts with other forms of economic organisation such as subsistence, and the economic devel-
opment was externally influenced i.e. by a colonial past. Secondly, in the South, the trio of state, market and family
has to be extended to include community, which is a fourth major source of welfare production, and each of these
four has an international dimension, too. Thirdly, welfare outcomes tend to be generally lower than in OECD coun-
tries for at least the biggest part of the population, and fourthly political mobilisation of elites and other societal
groups, as well as stratification differ from the Global North
2 And, we may add here that the argument also works the other way, high growth rates are not a sufficient condition
for superior welfare outcomes (Ghai 2000; Bangura & Hedberg 2007). However, growth did create opportunities for
more social spending for those governments that chose to do so (Haggard & Kaufman 2008: 9; Sandbrook et al.
2007; Kohli 2010: 502).
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(Haggard & Kaufman 2008: 15f). They conclude that the legacy of early social policies
weighs heavily and limits the room of manoeuvre of today’s actors in the field.
For the study of the origins of welfare regimes in the Global South this review sug-
gests to keep in mind the different institutional, historical and political conditions, as
described by (Gough 2004).3 The three studies reviewed are broad comparative studies
which identified patterns of divergence and convergence of Southern welfare regimes.
Albeit with different foci, all of them highlight that domestic as well as external factors
have shaped the formation of specific welfare regimes, and that the course on which
they embarked influenced the following trajectories.
1.1 Welfare trajectories: origins and reproduction patterns

This paper builds on the analyses of the authors above: it shares the argument of dif-
ferent settings in the South – which need to be analysed in more detail – and, it shares
the interest in emerging welfare regimes and the patterns that sustain them over time.
To gain a better understanding on how welfare regimes evolve and reproduce, this study
suggests a deeper look into the specific origins and reproduction patterns of a single
welfare regime – in this case India.4 The following approach borrows much from a his-
torical institutional perspective as presented by Kathleen Thelen (1999, 2004), with a
special emphasis on socio-political ideas, as advocated by Frank X. Kaufmann (2003).
And, it will propose that the nature of political society (Chatterjee 2004) might be a
pattern, which shapes welfare trajectories in Southern democracies.
Historical institutionalism includes two related but analytically distinct claims
(Thelen 1999: 387): The first is concerned with the initial choice of policies in founding
moments of institutional formation that shape the following distinct development paths,
the critical junctures. The second claim refers to the patterns of reproduction of institu-
tional stability and change, which are constrained by past trajectories (Thelen 1999:
387). These reproduction mechanisms have been described either as incentive struc-
tures, in which actors, once an institution is in place, “adapt their strategies in ways that
reflect but also reinforce the ‘logic’ of the system” (Thelen 1999: 392). Alternatively,
they have been identified in the distributional effects of institutions, which are not neu-
tral, but “reproduce and magnify particular patterns of power distribution in politics”
(Thelen 1999: 394). Yet, according to Thelen, institutional change and stability is de-
pendent on the type of foundation on which an institution rests. Therefore, “understand-
ing moments in which fundamental political change is possible requires an analysis of
the particular mechanisms through which the previous patterns were sustained and
reproduced” (Thelen 1999: 399).
Kaufmann shares much with the historical institutional framework, but he empha-
sises particularly the importance of socio-political ideas for the formation of welfare
regimes (Kaufmann 2003: 51).
How the social question is put, hence how the central problem of a specific social
policy has been formulated at the outset of its development, must be seen as in-
3 Gough and his co-authors need to be credited for the first and a very comprehensive adaptation of the welfare
regime approach to the Southern hemisphere. Yet, while they theoretically stress the importance of a broadened
view on welfare arrangements, their empirical material for the identification of regimes and their consistency over
time is – due to data limitations – confined to data on private and state social spending and respective welfare out-
comes (Gough & Abu Sharkh 2010).
4 The original reason why India came to the centre of this study lies in its quality as “laboratory for the study of
political factors that influence the development and implementation of pro-poor policies” (Harriss 2006
[2003]: 212). Political factors for social security extension are at the core of the overall PhD project, to which this
paper belongs.
3
fluential key to the understanding of national social policy development. (Kauf-

mann 2003: 33, own translation)
For the OECD’s welfare regimes their importance has long been acknowledged (Esp-
ing-Andersen 1990; Kaufmann 2003: 36), but up to now, the regime types identified in
the Southern hemisphere are nearly bare of references to socio-political ideas, with the
notable exceptions of Elmar Rieger and Stephan Leibfried (1999), Armando Barrientos
(2004), and Arjan de Haan and Gita Sabharwal (2008).5
Following Kaufmann’s arguments, whether or not, and how, ideas finally materialise
in social policy institutions is mediated by the political economy setting, and shaped by
the prevailing cultural parameters and mindsets. This paper, hence, seeks to identify
origins of the Indian welfare regime in its socio-political ideas and the (cultural)
boundaries that have enabled or disabled their institutionalisation in the period around
India’s independence. The time span between late colonial government and the first
years of independence are identified as a juncture, during which the course of India’s
welfare trajectory has been set, in particular through the constitution, the early eco-
nomic and developmental policies. However, the history of some institutions and lines of
thought has be to sought in colonial or and pre-colonial times.
Yet, Kaufmann in his analysis of socio-political ideas focuses on industrialised coun-
tries and is therefore insensitive to different settings in the South. Conversely, Chatter-
jee’s (2004: 4) analysis starts with the influence of Western modernity on the formation
of state and society in the Southern hemisphere and the following division of society in
political and civil society. He draws our attention to the seemingly paradox effect that the
universal ideal of equal citizenship produces and perpetuates real inequalities (Chatter-
jee 2004: 22). The inegalitarian effects that universal policies have produced and repro-
duced, in particular in the political realm, can be understood as a powerful reproduction
pattern, which shapes the welfare trajectory.
The paper will conclude with a discussion of the latest developments in the field of
social policy under the United Progressive Alliance government, which is in power since
2005. And, it shall discuss whether the reproduction pattern has come under pressure,
and with what effect.
2 Origins and Reproduction of India’s welfare trajectory

In any paper that claims to cover developments in the whole of India, and even over
an extended period of time, simplifications cannot be avoided. These, however, are not
meant to deny the huge regional variations in historical, political and economic devel-
opments. In this sense, this paper merely claims to trace the roots of some of the most
influential thought on welfare and social policy, which shaped the nascent Indian wel-
fare regime and to review its trajectory in the context of political society.6
5 Barrientos (2004) describes a shift in Latin American welfare regimes from what could be classified as conservative-
informal to liberal-informal regimes. Rieger and Leibfried (1999: 461ff) analyse the influence of Confucian religious
views on East Asian welfare regimes and conclude that social policies in East Asia follow a distinct logic which is
markedly different from European or Northern American welfare regimes with Christian (or Protestant) traditions.
These views and mindsets have a strong impact on societal stratification and frame the room of manoeuvre for
changes in social policy (Rieger & Leibfried 1999: 479f). Lastly, de Haan and Sabharwal (2008) take up Gough’s
framework of the “five Is” in a comparison between India, China and Vietnam.
6 The following review is largely based on secondary literature and will be complemented with primary text analysis
at a later stage of the PhD research project.

4
2.1 (Pre-) Colonial roots of India’s welfare regime

Kaufmann traces the origins of state action in the field of welfare back to the loss of
the ability to economic self-sufficiency (Kaufmann 2003: 45). As a cause he names the
appropriation of land through private property law and increasing urbanization, which
created exclusionary practices that provoked counter measures by the state. In India,
the major transformative force that brought such change was a multilayered colonisa-
tion. The pre-colonial order in the field of welfare had rested on three pillars of solidar-
ity: extended families, village and religious or caste communities (Muzumdar 1964: 5).
This order was substantially challenged through the arrival of new economic techniques
of production and exploitation, new methods of administration and new ideas as part of
colonial rule, of which the British (1757-1947) doubtlessly exercised the strongest in-
fluence.
The joint family – the original source of welfare in nearly all traditional societies –
may strive for self-sufficiency, but in most cases entering reciprocal or hierarchical
relationships within the larger community is necessary to ensure greater (food) security
(Platteau 1991). Within the village, especially in Northern India, different groups were
linked to each other in reciprocal duty relationships of the jajmani system (Jürgenmeyer
& Rösel 2009: 207; Guha 2007: 202). Reciprocity, however does not mean equality, and
most parts of India could be characterised as strongly differentiated agrarian society in
which the access to resources was unequally distributed among the members of the
community (Platteau 1991: 155). Yet, social relationships were governed by customary,
non-contractual rights based on the principles of status and fairness (Platteau 1991:
119f), which could also favour the weaker sections, as i.e. in the entitlement of the
sharecropper to minimum subsistence provided to him by his landlord.7 But, customary
social rights are generally limited in reach and did not necessarily extend to all sections
of society; at least partially excluded were those groups not residing within the village
such as mobile craftsmen, landless labourers, the outcast(e)s and the indigenous tribes
(Jürgenmeyer & Rösel 2009: 207).
Another traditional source of welfare and social security was provided within castes.8
Castes as endogamous groups had an all-pervasive influence on the social, economic and
ritual life of the individual as it determined rights and duties within and between
groups, marriages, the profession, access to education and many more (Jürgenmeyer &
Rösel 2009: 208; Thorat 2008: 168f). Castes, according to one observer have done
“yeoman service in promoting welfare, even if only in the form of meeting some basic
needs of constituent members" (Muzumdar 1964: 5f). Notwithstanding the strong inter-
nal mechanisms of solidarity and recognised social obligations within the village struc-
ture, the relation between castes is one of graded hierarchy with extreme forms of
economic and social exclusion. Additionally, the access to resources differs between
castes, and consequently the ability to achieve security for its members is also graded.
7 Platteau refers to (good) landlords, who in years of bad yields would not be much better off than their sharecroppers
(Platteau 1991: 133). The material situation of the sharecropper, however, would not be much better in good years
either, only the landlord would profit from the excess production. Such minimum subsistence is a typical traditional
form of social security provision for strongly differentiated agrarian society (Platteau 1991: 155).
8 Caste, however, is a word that has only been found for the structuring principle of the Hindu society by the colonial-
ists, first the Portuguese, casta, later the British, caste. The Hindu term is jati, it stands for the group into which one
is born. Although originally more fluid, the relationship between castes became rigid and hierarchical. This, hap-
pened, around the beginning of Christian time when they were incorporated in an authoritative formulation of a
hierarchically graded social order of the four varna, which, henceforth, established an ideology of rule of and for
brahmans (priests) (Jürgenmeyer & Rösel 2009: 201f). The varna are firstly, brahmans, priests; secondly, kshatriya,
warriors; thirdly vaishya, traders and farmers; and fourthly, shudra, craftsmen and servants. Outside this order are
the casteless the a-varna, aka the untouchables or Dalits, literally broken people.
5
The arrival of colonialism, on the one hand, opened up the rigid determination of oc-
cupations by caste when the colonial industries and the military offered jobs and up-
ward social mobility to some of the most oppressed groups.9 On the other hand, the pre-
colonial economic order of the jajmani system was disturbed by the arrival of industri-
ally manufactured goods, with which craftsmen could not compete (Jürgenmeyer &
Rösel 2009). Those who lost their place in the old economic system, became subject to a
new mode of economic exploitation: as part of the forming working class.
The hereditary economic regime was also changed, where traditional customary
rights were replaced with legal property rights, i.e. in the Permanent Settlement of 1793.
The British rule substantially changed the relationship between landholder and share-
cropper: When legal titles for land were established, that often meant that former share-
croppers – holders of customary rights – were now treated as illegal encroachers. Even
if legal titles did go to smaller farmers, the land was usually registered in the name of
male household head, to the detriment of customary rights of women to the land.10
While the same process had been one of the triggers for the introduction of the early
poor laws in England under Queen Elizabeth I. in the early 17th century (Kaufmann
2003: 45), this did not provoke action among the colonial administration in India. Ac-
cording to Kaufmann, societal processes and phenomena, may they be rural-urban mi-
gration, child labour or income poverty, have to be articulated as social problems and
identified as fields for political action at first, before they will be included in welfare
policies by the state (Kaufmann 2003: 38). Whether or not action will be taken, is fur-
thermore conditional upon the political resonance for the problem, and on the shared
judgement of political decision-makers or the public controlling them.
The British colonial administration had installed Famine Commissioners who even
brought wide-spread poverty to their attention, however, it did not lead to state activi-
ties of poverty alleviation (Corbridge et al. 2005: 51f; Muzumdar 1964). The English,
who had been among the first nations to install a poor relief at home, reacted to urban
poverty in India with containment and zoning, and the problem of the rural poor was
perceived as a result of their backwardness, untouchability and finally of “Indianness”
itself (Corbridge et al. 2005: 52f). Although British rule had partially eroded the old
economic order and decreased the ability of the population to self-sufficiency, the cause
for poverty was not attributed to the new but to the traditional economic regime. To the
colonial administration, there was no social question – yet.
The administration’s efforts to establish social security hardly went beyond the
“small segment of the population whose contentment was particularly important for the
colonial powers to stabilise their rule” (Loewe 2009). For these some of the earliest
state welfare mechanisms in India were institutionalised, i.e. the Workmen Compensa-
tion Act of 1923.
From the late 19th century till the first decennia of the 20th century social reform ac-
tivities were limited to philanthropic and charitable societies and groups. In particular,
untouchability and the custom to burn the widow with her husband after his death,
spurred moral sentiments among British and Indian social reformers alike (Muzumdar
1964: 13ff). Early reform movements from Hindu and Muslim backgrounds firmly be-
lieved that such customs, which started to be perceived as wrong or unjust, are not
indispensible parts of Hinduism or Islam, but internal reform would be needed, and
9 I am thankful to Varsha Ayyar who brought these points to my attention.

10 De Haan (2008) stresses in his review of Orissa’s experience in combating inequalities, how this practice continued
during independence, and how it has further weakened the economic and social position of women, in particular
tribal women, in that state.
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could get rid of these practices (Muzumdar 1964: 13ff). Nonetheless, Muzumdar de-
scribes the encounter with Christian missionaries and their believe in the equality of all
human beings as a shock to the Hindu society, as it deeply questioned its customs (1964:
13).11 The ideas of individualism and of equality of men, were clearly at odds with defin-
ing principle of caste: the hierarchically graded group (Thorat 2008: 169). Yet, the colo-
nial administration and the ideas and beliefs which they imported, did not only weaken
caste ties: according to some analysts, colonial governmental techniques such as the
census have strengthened caste in its cultural importance by lifting caste from its local
and regional context to an all India level (Jodhka 2010: 156ff).
2.2 The social question emerges: The Indian independence movement

Against this backdrop the social question was finally raised, not by the colonial rulers,
but by its challengers: the Indian independence movement. Yet, even in the Indian Na-
tional Congress – the movement’s key political organization founded in 1885 – the social
question did not play a major role on its agenda at first. The hereditary belief that the
welfare arrangements should be left to the different (religious) communities was unsuc-
cessfully challenged until 1917 (Muzumdar 1964: 51). Only after a group representing
the untouchables within Congress had been formed, Congress as a whole adopted its
policies to condemn untouchability (Muzumdar 1964: 50, 6), and embraced a social
reform agenda in which the question of self-government was tied to the demand for
more just government for India’s people.
Self governance was henceforth seen as more than just a moral right: as the only way
to relief the majority of the Indians from their poverty; the believe was prevalent that
“political freedom must include real economic freedom of the starving masses” (Con-
gress 1931 cited in Kumar 2005: 338). Yet, within Congress and the independence
movement at large, different ideas on how poverty and exclusion were to be overcome
and which role the state should play, continued to compete: the three important intellec-
tual leaders (Mahatma) Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Bhimrao Ambedkar
proposed different agendas for reform.
Mohandas Gandhi‘s social reform agenda was centred around three issues: the need
to stop the practice of untouchability, the realisation of equality of women and the edu-
cation of the masses (Muzumdar 1964: 25). Yet, Gandhi’s clearest call has been for self-
rule, swaraj, including the (economic) self-reliance swadeshi of the Indian village, as well
as the whole country. In Gandhi’s version, swaraj was a concept of direct democracy and
localised economy with the village at its core. It was meant to challenge the British rule
economically, through a boycott of British products and increase self-determination of
the individual through economic self-sufficiency. The social question to Gandhi could not
be won through new structures alone, but was one of local reform and individual
change.
Jawaharlal Nehru, who later became India’s first prime minister, identified the struc-
tural causes of social evils in past history, yet, for him, they had an intimate connection
with the economic structure (Nehru in 1920 cited in Corbridge et al. 2005: 53). To
Nehru the social question was to be resolved through state led economic reform (Kohli
2010: 502f). What India needed was to “throw off the shackles of tradition; whole
economies had to be structurally transformed, entire people subjected to moderniza-
tion” (Corbridge et al. 2005: 53f). This top-down approach also extended to his view on
law and the constitution. He intervened in the Constituent Assembly’s debate on the
11 However, movements – such as Buddhist groups, the Bhakti movements and other strands within Hinduism –
which questioned caste had been present in India at all times (Jürgenmeyer & Rösel 2009).
7
constitutional objectives in January 1947 with the words: “The first task of this Assem-
bly is to free India through a new constitution, to feed the starving people, and to clothe
the naked masses, and to give every Indian the fullest opportunity to develop himself
according to his capacity” (Nehru cited in Corbridge et al. 2005: 54).
Yet another approach to the social question was promoted by Bhimrao Ambedkar,
leader of the Dalits in the independence movement, president of the Drafting Committee
of India’s constitution, and later the first Minister of Law. At the core of his struggle was
the achievement of equality for Scheduled Castes (SC), the official Indian term for the
former untouchables, to which he belonged himself, and for other marginalised groups.
He strongly opposed the Gandhian idea of solving social problems on village level (Guha
2007: 107); he actually held the villages responsible for many social wrongs and called
for the establishment of separate settlements for SC (Ambedkar 2008 [1943]: 247f).
According to him special provisions would be necessary to ensure equality to those who
had been historically excluded from economic and social domains, and who continued to
face discrimination. The set of remedies suggested by him included formal equality, laws
that penalize discriminatory actions, far reaching economic reforms which would ensure
the economic independence and welfare of marginalised groups, and adequate repre-
sentation in the legislature and public services (Ambedkar 2008 [1947]).12 And, he drew
attention to the new inconsistencies arising from the constitution, which could not sim-
ply legislate a new order into existence, when he said:
We are going to enter a new a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equal-
ity and in social and economic life we will have inequality […] In our social and
economic life we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue
to deny the principle of one man, one value. (Ambedkar cited in Corbridge et al.
2005: 54)
For Ambedkar solving the social question required a stronger role of state to inter-
vene in the social, economic and political realm in favour of the marginalised (Ambedkar
2008 [1946], 2008 [1947]). And, he stresses that provisions for the equitable participa-
tion of those marginalised groups in the state’s bodies and institutions will be necessary
to ensure them adequate influence on the state.
2.3 Setting the course: The Indian constitution

A key moment for the institutionalisation of the Indian welfare regime came with the
formulation of the country’s constitution. The work of the more than 300 members of
the Constituents Assembly, which was to debate and formulate the constitution, started
on 9 December 1946, even before India’s independence on 15 August 1947. After nearly
three years of discussion the assembly concluded its work and passed the constitution in
November 1949, it entered into force on 26 January 1950.13
The constitution stood the task of moulding the competing ideas on the role of the
state, democracy, religion, language and welfare into a unified format. According to
Ramachandran Guha, the result was a constitution that took up Euro-American rather
than Indian precedents, and could be seen as "an adaptation of Western principles to an
Indian end" (Guha 2007: 109). The commitment to justice, liberty, equality and frater-
nity entered the constitution prominently in the preamble of the ‘sovereign, socialist,
secular democratic Republic of India’ (Constitution of India). Fundamental rights shall
12 Ambedkar contended, this would best be realised in a separate legislature for the SC (Ambedkar 2008 [1946]). But
his proposal did not received a majority, and the SC were granted reserved seats in the legislature and a quota of
jobs in public service instead (reservation policies).
13 See (Guha 2007: 103-23) for the discussions in the Constituents Assembly.
8
guarantee the principle of equality before law, untouchability shall be abolished, and
they explicitly prohibit the discrimination on behalf of the state or its organs on the
grounds of “religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them” (Constitution of India:
Part III). The individual, not communities or villages, were to become central bearer of
rights (Guha 2007: 107f). The Gandhian idea of decentralised village councils was re-
jected in favour of a federal structure with a strong centre – partly a legacy of the Gov-
ernment of India Act of 1935.
The social objectives as laid down in the constitution reflect the state’s commitment
to „promote the welfare of the people” and secure for its citizens „the right to an ade-
quate means of livelihood“ (Constitution of India: Part IV). Furthermore, inequalities
between individuals and groups in income, status, between castes and regions shall be
minimised. These ‚Directive Principles of State Policy’ are deemed to be “fundamental in
the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these princi-
ples in making laws“ (Constitution of India: Part IV), however, they are not directly
enforceable by courts. And the state’s activities in the field of welfare, the right to work,
education and public assistance are bound to “the limits of its economic capacity and
development” (Constitution of India: Part IV). Hence, the social rights are not made
directly enforceable and conditional upon the availability of resources.
An exception in this respect has been established for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes (SC/ST) communities, for whom national welfare commissions shall be set up
(Constitution of India: Part XVI). Additionally, SC and ST are assured of the reservation
of seats in all legislative bodies from municipal to central level, and quotas in public
service as well as educational institutions. After lengthy debates and despite the aware-
ness for other reasons of marginality, such as gender, religious minority groups or re-
gional origin, no special provisions were made at the time (Guha 2007: 111f). The
questions of untouchability and indigenousness had gained momentum among the politi-
cians at the time and moved to centre stage of the social question. Their earlier exclusion
and continuing discrimination was successfully framed as an injustice that demanded a
remedy through state action. Ambedkar’s demands for formal equality, legal punitive
regulations that penalize discrimination, welfare measures, and reservation policies
were enacted. While the SC/ST welfare became a national issue, the overall responsibil-
ity for social welfare is to be shared between the central and the state governments, with
the central instrument to a more egalitarian distribution, land reform, in the hands of
the federal states (Constitution of India).
2.4 Establishing a legacy: Welfare in early independent India

The constitution had explicitly defined the contours of institutions such as the par-
liament, the state chamber and the supreme court, yet with respect to the social realm
many question were left open. When J. Nehru became India’s first prime minister after
the first elections in independent India, economic progress was clearly at the core of his
agenda as well as the first 5-year-plans, and it was the means by which greater welfare
was to be achieved. Emphasis and hope were put on the development of domestic
(heavy) industries, but these never grew to a size to absorb surplus labour (Kohli 2010:
502). Despite the commitment to improved welfare in the Directive Principles of the
constitution and in many statements of Nehru as well as of other key politicians at the
time, little state intervention for social rights or classical welfare programs took place.
Notwithstanding the socialist leaning in the constitution the impact of redistribution
was limited and the development path strengthened capital over labour (Kohli
2010: 502).
9
Apart from the sections of society for which special provisions had been made in the
constitution, social welfare schemes were introduced for the small industrial working
force and the civil service, i.e. in 1948 the Employees State Insurance Act. These were to
be extended to new members and new branches of social security (Sülzer 2008). Wel-
fare boards were established for a number of professions at a central as well as at a state
level. But, essentially this meant a continuation of the colonial tradition to secure the
welfare of those sections of the population that were important for the stability of rule.
In colonial times this had primarily been civil servants, in the new economic regime this
group was broadened to the industrial workers in state enterprises and certain parts of
the private sector.
For the remainder of the population welfare was to be achieved through general eco-
nomic development. Yet, these early economic reforms failed to reach the nearly three
quarters of the workforce that were engaged in agriculture at the time of independence,
and which contributed 60 per cent to India’s GDP (Guha 2007: 201). Consequently, a
domestic consumer market did not develop, which impeded further growth of industries
(Gosh 2004). Land redistribution was not a priority and only successfully implemented
in few states. Regarding the rural population, greater emphasis was given to prize stabil-
ity for farmer’s products as well as to affordable food prices than to social welfare pro-
grammes. When schemes for rural areas were designed, they were mainly employment
or self-employment programmes.14 Overall, the social programmes for majority of the
population remained residual in character (de Haan & Sabharwal 2008).
The believes in economic self-reliance and in economic transformation had prevailed
over a more interventionist social policy agenda: The British belief in “native” origins of
poverty was implicitly shared by Nehru’s reform agenda, which aimed at relief through
economic modernization and reform. A non-interventionist social policy was further-
more ideologically supported by the ideal of economic self-reliance or swadeshi (Guha
2007: 209). In consequence, ”social policy which ensured the provision of basic needs to
the entire population was never a priority” (Gosh 2004: 293). In absence of comprehen-
sive welfare policies, however, the production of welfare and social security largely
remained in the hands of the traditional institutions of family, village and caste, as well
as other religious communities. Thereby the state accepted that the range of solidarity,
the reach of social security mechanisms and the redistributive capacity would remain
limited and yet the main source of security for the biggest part of the population (Arora
2004: 330).
Additionally, Kaufmann argues that socio-political ideas are filtered by cultural pa-
rameters before they are turned into institutions of a welfare state (Kaufmann 2003:
32). One component is the societal acceptance of social (in)equality, which leaves an
imprint on the design of social policy responses to societal phenomena.15 Culture in this
context frames the boundaries within which specific social policy development routes
are either opened up or limited (Rieger & Leibfried 1999: 455).16 With a view to India,
several authors have attested not only its pre- but also its post-independence order a
14 Generally, however, rural social policies play a comparatively big role in different stages of its development process
(see de Haan & Sabharwal 2008: 69).
15 Kaufmann refers i.e. to different experiences in the United States versus Sweden. In the US, key explanatory factors
for the higher acceptance of inequality are the big original income disparities as well as the tradition of slavery and
the related structural presence of a coloured lower class (Kaufmann 2003: 90f,123). In Sweden, on the other hand, a
relatively egalitarian structured society of free farmers, hence the lack of a feudal order, lay grounds for egalitarian
thinking way before the institutionalisation of welfare mechanisms by the state (Kaufmann 2003: 163f,70f).
16 Culture, however, is not monolithic or static, cultures undergo developments and changes, they have to be uphold
through practice, and can be internally and externally contested (Clarke 2004: 34ff). The influence of culture varies,
also depending on structural factors, and hence cannot be determined ex ante (Rieger & Leibfried 1999: 454).
10
"high level of social tolerance for high and growing asset inequality, persistent poverty
and low levels of human development among vast sections of the population, especially
in the rural areas” (Gosh 2004: 293; also see de Haan & Sabharwal 2008: 71f).
One root of the acceptance of inequality can be found in the caste system, but also in
the strong tradition of the communal organisation of welfare in general. The caste sys-
tem forms a special impediment to equality oriented policies because it does not sup-
port the idea of universal equality of men (and women). The caste system in particular
also does not entail redistributory mechanisms in favour of the disadvantaged (Jürgen-
meyer & Rösel 2009: 209f).17 Additionally upward social mobility is traditionally ex-
tremely limited as the social position cannot be changed individually i.e. through greater
wealth, but only if a whole caste moves up the social ladder. As mentioned earlier, his-
torically these positions have been challenged by movements in- and outside Hinduism,
but at the time of independence they continued to exercise a great influence.
While Kaufmann’s approach highlights that historical traditions of culturally en-
grained inequalities impacted on the post-independence welfare regime and diminished
its chances to realise equal citizenship, Chatterjee suggests that the mechanisms, which
distort the democratic development are not only found in its past.
2.5 Patterns of reproduction: Political society
Chatterjee (2004) with his concept of political society, delivers a powerful analysis of
post-colonial societies and their interaction with the state, which can potentially also be
understood as pattern of reproduction of the Indian welfare regime. His point of depar-
ture are the modern inequalities, which followed those described by Kaufmann: the
encounter of colonised countries with the ideals of democracy and the nation-state led
to the formation of formally democratic nation states, yet, these are not only character-
ised by persisting social and economic inequalities, but also ridden by political inequali-
ties that express themselves in the division into civil and political society (Chatterjee
2004: 4).
In terms of the formal structure of the state, as given by the constitution and the
laws, all of society is civil society; everyone is a citizen with equal rights and
therefore to be regarded as a member of civil society. […] This is, however, not
how things work. Most of the inhabitants of India are only tenuously and even
then ambiguously and contextually, rights bearing citizens in the sense imagined
by the constitution. They are not, therefore, proper members of civil society and
are not regarded as such by the institutions of the state. (Chatterjee 2004: 38,
2010 [2001]: 183)
What Chatterjee stresses is that the new democratic political institutions “cannot be
made to work effectively merely by legislating them into existence” (2004: 33). They
need to be sustained by a “network of norms in civil society that prevail independently
of the state and that are consistent with its laws” (Chatterjee 2004: 33). Modern political
communities rely on (pre-political) foundations:18 citizens, who “sustain freedom and
equality in the political domain” (Chatterjee 2004: 33). But, in countries like India, it is
only a “small section of culturally equipped citizens” (Chatterjee 2004: 41) that forms
civil society. They deal with the state on the high grounds of modernity based on the
17 This is different i.e. in the Muslim population, in which the religion also foresees an individual and principally equal
access to god. Also, redistribution towards the poor and needy in the form of zakat is considered one of the five
pillars of Islam.
18 A similar remark was made by Ambedkar, who contended that "Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It
has to be cultivated. We must realize that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing
on India's soil, which is essentially undemocratic" (Ambedkar quoted in Guha 2007: 103).
11
principles of “equality, autonomy, freedom of entry and exit, contract, deliberative pro-
cedures of decision-making, recognized rights and duties of members” (Chatterjee 2010
[1997]: 168).
According to Chatterjee, the large majority of Indians, however, did not become freely
deliberating citizens, from being a colonial subject they went on to being part of the
heterogeneous social of a modern population (2004: 38). This large share of the popu-
lace forms political society, which cannot deal with the state on the grounds of universal
ideals because they themselves do not abide the law, their livelihood is build on circum-
cision of the law (Chatterjee 2004: 40). Therefore, the politics of political society are
always contextual, temporary and strategic; normatively they are not bound to universal
ideals but nebulous (Chatterjee 2004: 50).
Chatterjee conceptualises political and civil society as empirical spaces, yet, he fails to
provide consistent criteria for an empirical definition of the two (Menon 2010: 10f).
Therefore Nivendita Menon suggests "to think of civil and political as two styles of politi-
cal engagement that are available to people – the former style is more available to an
urbanized elite, the latter to the rest. The availability is fluid and contextual and not
fixed by class" (Menon 2010: 11f, emphasis original).
If we think of them as styles of political engagement, they could reproduce institu-
tions on the one hand through their incentive structures, in which “actors adapt their
strategies in ways that reflect but also reinforce the ‘logic’ of the system” (Thelen 2004:
392): This would be the case when the strategic politics of political society are more
successful in securing (temporal) gains for its members than civil society politics, and
therefore become the preferred way of interaction with the state. According to Chatter-
jee this is the case: despite the transitory and selective nature of strategic politics, politi-
cal society – more effectively than civil society – does politics for the marginalised (2004:
66). Yet, this is only true is we accept this outcome-based idea of democratic institutions,
which denotes a shift from government of and by the people, to government for the
people. According to Chatterjee (2004: 34), government has long been turned into tech-
nocratic governance, which promises to realise more welfare for more people at smaller
cost: The delivery of welfare has become such a successful legitimacy generating
mechanism of the state, it has replaced citizen participation and deliberation.19
On the other hand, Thelen (2004: 394) says that a second reproduction mechanism of
democratic institutions lies in their distributional effects that replicate and magnify
particular patterns of power distribution in politics, through which some groups are
empowered, and others disarticulated and marginalized. Such a structural advantage,
one could say, has been given to civil society: When civil society in the form of the for-
mal/organized sector demands i.e. health and safety regulations at the work place and
access to state organised social security, they can express them in the form of compre-
hensive, universal or egalitarian demands. Yet, they will primarily benefit from any
changes themselves, as long as 93 per cent of India’s workforce are in the unorganised
sector and such regulations are effectively not applicable for them. In effect, welfare
provisioning “has not been universal in terms of its actual effects, even when it has been
declared as such” (Gosh 2004: 293).
19The view that the delivery of welfare is of key importance to the legitimacy of the state is shared i.e. by Dolly Arora,
who contends that “legitimacy of the state [in early post-independence India] rested on its capacity to take people's
needs into account; and welfare gestures were the first step in that direction” (2004: 330). And, Anand Kumar de-
scribes a phase in the 1970s, in which Congress had campaigned with the slogan ‘garibi hatao’, eliminate poverty,
and subsequently failed to deliver, as one in which “the collapse of the welfare functions of the state had become the
cause of national unrest” (2005: 343).
12
Yet, the claims of poor peasants, landless rural workers and daily wage labourers in
the cities on welfare programmes of the government are also recognised by state agen-
cies “but those claims could not be regarded as justiciable rights since the state did not
have the means to deliver those benefits to the entire population of the country” (Chat-
terjee 2004: 40). In these circumstances, political society has to and does find other
ways of securing access to welfare via strategic politics. It does so by making claims for
exceptions or preferential treatments. The resulting social policy “has been directed to
specific (and restricted) target groups. And almost always, these groups included those
with sufficient political voice, such as urban organized workers or, increasingly during
the 1990s particular caste groupings“ (Gosh 2004: 293; also see Arora 2004).
The consequence are literally several hundred social programmes of the central and
the state governments, often with overlapping though narrowly defined target groups –
and little knowledge about the programmes among potential beneficiaries (Sülzer 2008:
217,9; de Haan 2008). This multiplicity of social programmes can be read as evidence
for successful political society engagement, which ensured material gains and conces-
sions to particular groupings. Political society can therefore be seen as a plausible pat-
tern of reproduction, which fostered the trajectory of extremely scattered social and
welfare policies in India. And, the fractionalisation into political society also obstructs
equality-oriented politics, because it offers no horizon for general equality. Inequality is
perpetuated in the heterogeneous social – and political society offers no way out.
2.6 The pattern under pressure: Recent developments

If we accept the mechanisms connected with political society as redistribution pat-
tern underlying India’s welfare regime, the past few years seem to announce a change.
Since the general elections of 2004 and the formation of the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government, even though not always on its initiative, there has been a shift to-
wards a rights-oriented policy.20 Popular examples are the Right to Information Act of
2005, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA)21 from the same year, and
the Right of to Education Act of August 2009. Currently discussions on an act that shall
guarantee the right to food are underway.
The rights-based paradigm has been heralded as a major change by many activists
(MacAuslan 2008) and as a sign that “India’s underprivileged majority is not completely
marginalised in this elitist political system” (Drèze 2010: 511). It is taken as an indicator
that those who have traditionally not necessarily benefitted from a rights discourse,
have now successfully employed such. Chatterjee might object to that and question
whether parts of the marginalised population can apply civil society measures truly in
their favour. He contends that where governmental activities take place “within the
stratified social structures of class, status and privilege” (Chatterjee 2004: 66) the bene-
fits consequently go to those with greater knowledge. Political society needs to chal-
lenge the governmental technologies, which would otherwise “continue to proliferate
and serve, much as they did in the colonial era, as manipulable instruments of class rule
in a global capitalist order” (Chatterjee 2004: 25). Hence, the question whether the mar-
ginalised will be able to reap the benefits of rights based policies, or whether the new
universal policies still benefit the few who are privileged already, is valid. As Jean Drèze
puts it, the challenge is not the adoption of an act, but its implementation on the ground
(2010: 511).
20 Another active role was played by India’s Supreme Court, its pro-active judiciary has been vital for the extension of
social rights, i.e. the right to mid-day meal at school for pupils (Chandhoke 2007).
21 In 2009 the act was renamed into “Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act” (MGNREGA).
13
For Chatterjee the legitimacy of political society’s strategic politics rests primarily in
their ability to deliver better for the marginalised. If effectively implemented rights-
based policies perform better, it would question and potentially delegitimize these out-
come oriented policies. From the perspective of procedural democratic theory Chatter-
jee’s approach is questionable anyways, because in his justified critique of the
inequalities caused by the agenda of civil society, he turns to trust traditional – hence
not elected – authorities as actors of political society (Chatterjee 2004: 64ff). And Menon
clearly says that political society’s aspirations may (need to) „violate institutional norms
of liberal civil society" (2010: 13). And, Chatterjee fails to explain whether and how
traditional authority, will act on behalf of the most marginalised, i.e. women. Therefore,
whether political society can really be understood as a potential for “expansion of de-
mocratic political participation” (Chatterjee 2004: 76) may be doubted. Conversely,
rights based policies that effectively serve the needs and the interests of the marginal-
ised have the potential to challenge political society as reproduction pattern.
In this respect MGNREGA might serve as an illustration. Studies contend that where
labour is readily available for those who demand it, the act has raised wage levels and
improved livelihoods (Drèze 2010; Holmes et al. 2010). The same studies also highlight,
that the number of working days per household is not yet sufficient in many regions.
And, the effects of MGNREGA on various sections of the village population might vary, as
i.e. landless labourers do not benefit from the scheme to the same extent as those with
some assets (Ehmke forthcoming; Holmes et al. 2010: 26). Whether or not the rights-
based paradigm will make a dent on the position of the underprivileged groups within
India’s political and economic system, will depend on whether it can also effectively
change the politics of implementation in favour of the marginalised.
3 Resume
This paper attempted to open up new avenues for the identification of driving forces
behind the development of welfare regimes in the Southern hemisphere. The review of
recent literature suggested to study institutional legacies of welfare regimes. For this
purpose I proposed to follow a historical institutional perspective with Kaufmann’s
(2003) focus on socio-political ideas. As Kaufmann’s approach was formulated for
Northern welfare states, and does not pay attention to the different societal settings in
the Southern hemisphere, I suggested to analyse the following welfare trajectory
through the lens of Chatterjee’s (Chatterjee 2004) political society.
From the short review of the Indian context the socio-political ideas of self-reliance
and communal organisation of welfare have emerged as major traditions from pre-
colonial times. Colonial rule brought the institutionalisation of social security schemes
for a small core of government employees. Although the core was broadened after inde-
pendence, it has left an imprint on today’s regime. Regarding the different ideas on so-
cial protection in the independence movement Nehru’s developmental ideas fell on the
most fruitful grounds. The nascent welfare regime was essentially residual – with the
exception of core workers and historically underprivileged groups – which is also due to
a cultural base which accepts wide disparities. Many existing inequalities were not suc-
cessfully fought after independence but rather perpetuated through the politics of po-
litical society, which has added hundreds of programmes, and yet produced mainly
selective and temporary gains for specific groups. However, the most recent swing to-
wards social rights legislation might constitute a shift that shakes this pattern of repro-
duction and allows for greater institutional change in the future.
14
With a view to its implications for social policy making, this paper suggests that it is a
narrow path between universal policies that treat unequals as equal, and giving in to the
plurality of particular demands. The historically high acceptance of inequalities has not
yet been overcome and forms an impediment to redistributive policies. The reproduc-
tive pattern of a heterogeneous political society has been an obstacle for formation of a
common horizon of solidarity too. If this pattern was to be overcome by a rights-based
approach, it would offer opportunities for more substantial institutional change of In-
dia’s social policy in the future. Yet, we should keep Chatterjee’s criticism in mind as a
warning that also a rights-based change has to happen on the ground, not only on the
level of granting formal rights. This, in turn, points to the importance of local politics of
implementation, which will be taken up in the next step of this research.
15
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Socio-Political Ideas and Political Society in The Indian Welfare Trajectory

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Socio-Political Ideas and Political Society in The Indian Welfare Trajectory

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Socio-political Ideas and

Political Society in the Indian

Socio-political Ideas and Political Society in the Indian Welfare Trajectory

1 Welfare regimes in the Global South – an emerging field of study

1.1 Welfare trajectories: origins and reproduction patterns

fluential key to the understanding of national social policy development. (Kauf-

2 Origins and Reproduction of India’s welfare trajectory

at a later stage of the PhD research project.

2.1 (Pre-) Colonial roots of India’s welfare regime

9 I am thankful to Varsha Ayyar who brought these points to my attention.

2.2 The social question emerges: The Indian independence movement

2.3 Setting the course: The Indian constitution

2.4 Establishing a legacy: Welfare in early independent India

2.6 The pattern under pressure: Recent developments

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