Welfare initiatives include civil rights, while free gifts create the patron-client syndrome.
A neoliberal economy encourages private capital and the market, while forcing the state to withdraw from welfare. The state is limited in making concerted and constructive efforts to fulfill the aspirations of the people. Even as the poor see the state as the arbiter of their well-being and a facilitator for their mobility in all walks of life, today’s political parties resort to unwanted freebies to attract them. The line between welfare and populism has become blurred.
Welfare initiatives include targeted public distribution system, providing workers with social security, quality education, fair employment, affordable health care, decent housing and protection from exploitation and violence. On the other hand, free gifts are given to attract voters to cast their votes in a particular election. They create limited private benefits for the receiver and do not contribute to the strengthening of public goods/facilities.
a freebie culture
The culture of freebies in Tamil Nadu started during the 1967 assembly elections. The then Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief CN Annadurai introduced three measures of rice for ₹1. Subsequent chief ministers of both the DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) followed the practice of free gifts, which provided free TV sets, free laptops to students, free rides for women in buses, free gas cylinders and stoves. promised. , one goat and one cow for poor farmers, etc.
Initially, the government attempted to strengthen the redistribution of resources for all. After the 1990s, Dravidian parties turned to clientele, narrowly focusing on electoral gains. A study by Shroff, Kumar and Reich (2015) on DMK’s health insurance scheme showed that the main beneficiaries were the party’s main supporters and swing voters who could easily be influenced. Worse, after 2009, fewer people had access to public health care centers.
In 2021, however, there was a qualitative difference in the DMK’s manifesto, which abstained from most freebies except tablet devices to students studying in higher secondary schools and colleges. The manifesto reflected more of a programmatic policy intervention towards better public services than narrow private benefits in the form of free facilities. But both the DMK and AIADMK were silent on increasing the budgetary allocation for land distribution and maintenance of public infrastructure such as schools, colleges, hostels and hospitals. The share of GSDP for health was better under the AIADMK regime than under the DMK regime, but both were below 1.5%. Tamil Nadu’s budget for 2021-22 shows that it has allocated around 13.3% of its total expenditure for education, which is lower than the average allocation for education by all states, which is 15.8%.
politicization of the poor
When senior advocate Arvind P. Datar presented his arguments S Subramaniam Balaji Vs Govt. of Tamil Nadu (2013), which challenged the freebies of both the DMK government in 2006 and the AIADMK government in 2011, asserting that freebies violate the constitutional mandate of giving benefits for a public purpose and instead create private benefits. He stressed that Tamil Nadu had a literacy rate of around 73% and there were 234 settlements across the state with no schools, and that the distribution of free consumer goods to people with ration cards could not be justified as a “public purpose”. Is. Moreover, distributing laptops does not serve the purpose of enhancing the quality of education. According to a report by ‘Anaivarukkam Kalvi Iyakkam’ (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) in 2019, less than 15 students attended 3,003 government schools. Due to lack of proper infrastructure and specialized teachers, parents prefer to transfer their students to private schools. According to a report in this newspaper in 2019, over 1,500 hostels for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) were in dilapidated condition. Therefore, free gifts will not only politicize the poor and marginalized communities but will also indirectly deprive them of their fair share of state resources. Freebies have widened the gap between rich and poor to a great extent. Populism encourages mediocre political critics and erodes critical and rational thinking, which are important for raising questions relevant to those in power.
Compared to other states, Tamil Nadu has made impressive progress in several development indicators such as education, health care (mortality and life expectancy) and infrastructure. However, it lags behind in other aspects. According to the Tamil Nadu State Agriculture Department publication, ‘Chief Statistics on Agriculture, 2019’, the Scheduled Castes, who constitute about 20% of Tamil Nadu’s population, account for 10% of the agricultural land owners and 7.8% of the agricultural land in the state. . According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 (2015-16), despite the high literacy rate in Tamil Nadu, only 32% of women aged 15-49 had completed 12 or more years of schooling compared to 38 . % of men. NFHS-4 showed a sharp distinction between Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes in Tamil Nadu. Neonatal mortality rate was 12.3% for OBC, but 17.4% for SC. The infant mortality rate was 18.4% for OBC but 23.6% for SC. And the mortality rate for OBCs below the age of five years was 24.8% and for SCs was 31%. The data shows unequal access to public health infrastructure.
According to a paper by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, ‘Interpreting the Contract of India’s Workforce’ (2019), the share of contract workers in Tamil Nadu increased from 8.3% in 2000-01 to 20.17% in 2013-14, Which marks the return of the state in providing social security and leaving the workforce at the mercy of neoliberal market forces.
a bifurcation
Theoretically, there is a qualitative difference between being a subject in an authoritarian regime and being a citizen in a democratic polity. Unwanted free gifts create a patron-client syndrome and encourage personality defects in a democratic polity. Moreover, they affect important faculties of citizens, especially the poor and marginalised. To give free gifts is to treat people like subjects, while citizens are entitled to constitutional guarantees. Welfare initiatives are an embodiment of civil rights, while unwanted freebies show best and least apathy towards the poor by the ruling parties.
Read also | Have freebies and bribery politicized the voters?
There was a positive sign that the DMK has reconsidered unwanted freebies/populism when it recently presented a white paper on state finances in the Assembly. Since then, there has been a lot of public discussion on the issue, prompting public policy to be redirected in a healthier direction. Political parties and civil society must consider aspects of quality in education, health care and employment and ensure fair distribution and redistribution of resources for marginalized communities. We draw public attention and debate to the dichotomy between welfare and unwanted freebies or populism, to realize the constitutional ideal of a secular, egalitarian and democratic India.
C Lakshmanan is Associate Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, and Convener, Dalit Intellectual Collective, and Venkatanarayanan S. Teach at Christ University, Bangalore
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