Pratik Bhamare | Direct cash transfer policies are getting popular all over the world. Previously, governments used to create some kind of temporary work (MGNREGA) if not a complete systematic employment and give money in people's pocket in order to make them spend it in the market. But many contemporary governments can be seen completely avoiding the tiring and financially burdening task of employment generation. These policies are also proving to be electorally successful.

Many scholars have pointed out that such policies are one of the reasons for the tremendous popularity of Narendra Modi. By various schemes such as creating Aadhar, Jandhan, Digitization etc, the government had started laying out the basic preconditions for the success of such policies from a long time ago. This eliminates all those in the middle from the Village sarpanch to the bank manager who come between the individual and the money. Many have credited the recent win of BJP and the alliance parties in Maharashtra elections to its ‘Ladki Bahin’ policy which directly transfers some amount to women without any/minimum conditions. This was also complemented with the discussion of how the current government has fooled the people by giving them some temporary money and avoiding the overall development. But why are such direct cash transfer policies getting popular all over the world? What explains their tremendous success? How have people rationalized this? What is the problem with such policies? What alternati policy can be best to promote social welfare ? These are some questions which should be given some thought. 

Here are some fundamental assumptions behind such policies: A large section of the population does not have any means to survive, at the same time, our survival largely depends on our access to and availability of money in today's time and hence giving some money to such people will make a meaningful action. If they have the money, they can buy anything that they want which ultimately results in more individual freedom. This also leads to more money circulation in the market. In Capitalism, it is not considered a healthy sign if the production is going on one side but on the other side, many people not having the purchasing power. Now two questions are important here. Why do governments from all over the world implement this? And why are such policies able to derive success from within the people as well?

Now many governments don't go for expensive initiatives such as employment generation. Such initiatives also do not lead to immediate electoral success and hence are not so incentivising for the political class. Previously it was commonsensical that industrialisation is the key to solve many issues such as poverty. That's why from Nehru's five years plans to the Structural Development plans of many Latin American and African countries were completely focused on improving the productive capacities in the society. But after the failure of such programmes due to many factors such as the pressure from World bank and America as well as the limitations of domestic state capacities, the state started to lose its control from various social spheres of life and at the same time, the Capitalist market started to expand itself more and more into people's lives.

The tremendous economic insecurity which was created due to this was politicised by Right wing forces for exclusivist cultural politics, along with the help of capital and in the absence (or because of its absence) of a more progressive politics in place. Apart from this, globalisation also led to breaking of societal ties because of isolated working conditions, individualised communication technologies, rising competition, growing narcissism, etc, and hence the notion of ‘Individual needs’ started to replace 'Social need’. As an end product of all these processes, we were unable to articulate our demands as a society and became just ‘individuals’. This narrowness regarding the social imagination was manifested through a lower demand for public services and more attention towards personalised preferences. At the same time, the state was not in a capacity to do anything transformative, such as a mass employment generation programme or a strong democratic and decentralised health care system due to its reduced capacity, social influence and market driven agendas. All this ultimately led to states adopting policies such as Ladki Bahin.

A state like Maharashtra has never witnessed a complete land distribution like other states.

Now a little bit about the mass support for such policies from within the people. A state like Maharashtra has never witnessed a complete land distribution like other states. This led to more people being historically marginal from economic upheavals happening around being more and more dependent on the state for basic needs. The broad democratisation of education was complemented with its bad quality, which was always favourable for the privatisation of education. All of us are quite aware of the caste-class background of the ‘Shikshan Samrat’ (the big shots who were capitalising this education system) who grew out of this. Looking at the geographical spread of Maharashtra, it wouldn't be surprising to see tensions created within the regions such as Vidarbha and Marathwada due to the over industrialisation of a few spaces such as Mumbai.

The increasing number of caste atrocities do not indicate the continuity of the caste system but actually its reproduction through various socio-political and economic processes. Regions such as Marathwada and Vidarbha are witnessing rapid destruction of agriculture but at the same time, are not industrialising at the required pace. At the same time, globalisation has led to things such as more contractualisation of work, large flows of migration from underdeveloped to the development parts, intensified casteism due to economic scarcity, etc. In such a situation, if someone is giving people even a small amount, without making them pleading to anyone then supporting that person/policy seems to be a completely rational action. Now instead of blaming these people, one should criticise the whole structure which gives people such a set of choices as well as those parties and forces which are/were historically contributing to the making of this political economy.

Instead of giving people money by direct cash transfer, another appropriate way can be to provide various social needs as public services. For example, if education and the health system are free of cost, nobody has to worry about not having money for these needs. If needs such as transport are provided by the government for free of cost then people have no incentives to ask for money. In short, if we give money to people then more and more aspects of social life will come under the control of the market and capitalism. In contrast if we provide social needs through public services then more and more social life will be de- commodified.

Instead of increasing the power of money over humans, this will empower the aspects of sociability among humans.

As a result, instead of increasing the power of money over humans, this will empower the aspects of sociability among humans. Another advantage of such a model is that people have to come together, discuss and decide which social need should be provided as a social service and hence only by cooperating with each other, people will actualize their needs. This is essentially what we call democracy. Apart from this, instead of spending their money as individuals in the market and getting dissociated from the rest of the people, people will actually constitute themselves as a society.

For example, if the society has many elderly people then it can collectively decide through political and civil discourse that we need enough care centers and care workers for the elderly. This type of social welfare will help us in facing many contemporary issues such as social alienation, ignorance towards core social problems and even extreme exploitation of nature due to the private ownership of decision making in capitalism. And most importantly, since this approach aims to reduce the importance of money from social life, it will bring human relations, instead of market relations, at the centre of social interactions. 

Even if the policy goes with the name of Ladki Bahin (Beloved Sister) the inherent patriarchy of it is not hidden in assuming that women do not need any genuine employment and should be politicized by a small financial initiative along with assuming/knowing that any amount going to the women of the household becomes generally the man's money. A few things become quite clear through this. First of all, it shows the gendered nature of whatever economic growth happened through neoliberalism in creating a situation where most of the women in Rural Maharashtra are not part of the economic sector or are largely concentrated in the informal economy lacking basic employment security and decent wages.

Second thing, which can also be understood as a result of the previous thing to some extent, is that these women in turn have to be financially dependent on their husbands which strengthens the patriarchal setting. The third thing, largely as the result of the previous situation, is that with such kind of gender equations at place, the money coming from government towards the women without any active participation in the labor force (leaving the issue of unpaid domestic labor apart)  is most likely to go into the hands of the man What is more disturbing is the response of those who advocated that instead of giving money to beloved Sister, give jobs to Beloved Brother and hence again ultimately bringing the ‘man’ back into it.

But a model that tries to fulfill social needs through social services will leave no possibility of strengthening gender, caste or any other social identity. In contrast, because such a perspective aims to reduce the overall importance of money in social life, any social relation based on economic dependence and justified with cultural norms might start to loosen up. Hence the politics against such schemes should not solely be about employment generation. We need a socio-political philosophy which will try to alter the ways in which our society is fundamentally organised. The flooding of cash transfers all over the world and the support that all the mainstream political parties have given to it by increasing the money is a worrying story. Fighting it on the level of ideas as well as in practice seems like a necessity.

Pratik Bhamare is a teacher of Sociology in Bangalore.