India as a Welfare State Utkarsh Shukla BASICS OF LAW Sat, Aug 29, 2020, at ,10:24 PM “Power has only one duty – To secure the social welfare of the People.” Benjamin Disraeli What is the Welfare State? According to William O. Doughs, an American Jurist and Politician of the Twentieth Century, “The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive… the values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patrolled”. A welfare state is a state committed to providing basic economic security for its citizens by protecting them from market risks associated with old age, unemployment, and sickness. Based on the principles of equality of opportunity and public responsibility, a welfare state focuses on assuring equitable standards of living for all and plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. So basically, a welfare state provides education, housing, sustenance, healthcare, pensions, unemployment insurance, sick leave or time off due to injury, supplemental income in some cases, and equal wages through price and wage controls. The term ‘welfare state’ first emerged in the UK during World War II. According to the Political Scientist Esping-Andersen, there are three ways of organizing a welfare state: Social Democracy, Christian Democracy and Liberalism. A Social-Democratic welfare state is based on the principle of universalism granting access to benefits and services based on citizenship; while Christian-democratic welfare states are based on the principle of subsidiarity and the dominance of social insurance schemes, offering a medium level of decommodification and a high degree of social stratification; and a liberal regime is based on the notion of market dominance and private provision and the state only interferes to ameliorate poverty and provide for basic needs, largely on a means-tested basis. Across developed OECD countries (2006), total welfare-state spending varies from about a fifth to about a third of their GDP. This share is tightly related to the degree of “universality” of public social spending, i.e., the extent to which benefits are received by individuals in all income classes, rather than largely targeted to particular groups of individuals, such as low-income groups. Welfare State and Socialism Though welfare state often coincides with the idea of socialism, which is characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises, it is not the same. There are enormous differences between the two ways of organizing the economy and public administration. Initially, in a welfare state, there is a lower bound on people's benefits i.e. if a person is sick, unemployed or old, there would be social security to guarantee him/her a minimum level of existence. However, there is no upper bound on how much a person achieve. It believes in eradication of absolute poverty; a situation where people are dying and suffering without the basic necessities. But in socialism, there is often a lower bound, but more importantly a very strong upper bound. There is a strong compulsion to not allow anyone to get too rich, by the government controlling all methods of production. It believes in the concept of relative poverty; which is based on income inequality. The socialists have a more radical anti-capitalist goal in favour of a number of measures designed to improve the strength and democratic influence of the workers and poor while tolerating the continuation of private property and markets. The welfare state is rather a socially embedded mixed economy with a belief in socialism but strong capitalist leanings. Experts believe that the welfare state is a compromise and agreement between moderate socialists and rational conservatives. Is India a Welfare State? The Indian Constitution contains the Directive Principles of State Policy from Articles 36 to 51, which lay down the framework for welfare, socialist state. These Directive Principles are not enforceable by law, rather they are the long-term but fundamental goals of a welfare state which help in defining the path of development the country is to follow, and it is the duty of the State to apply them while making laws. Article 38 of the Indian Constitution reads: “The state shall strive to promote the welfare the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice-social economic and political-shall pervade all institutions of national life.” Article 39A states, “The State shall secure that the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on a basis of equal opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other disabilities.” Article 46 states that “The State shall promote, with special care, the education and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people”. Hence, we can say that according to the constitution, India is a welfare state. India is committed to the welfare and development of the people. The Indian Government launched a lot of schemes for the welfare of the people. In fact, each union budget sets aside an impressive amount of funds for various social welfare schemes. Some of the welfare policies are the following: S. No. Scheme Beneficiary Description 1. Atal Pension Yojana Senior Citizens. A pension program that allows people to make voluntary contributions within a certain range with a matching government contribution to receive a pension in the future. 2. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) Rural Unemployed People Legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs. 120 per day in 2009 prices. 3. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana Women below the poverty level Launched to provide free LPG connections to women from below poverty line families. 4. Midday Meal Scheme Children Lunch (free of cost) to school-children on all working days. 5. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kausalya Yojana Rural BPL and SC/ST youth To engage rural youth, especially BPL and SC/ST segments of the population, in gainful employment through skill training programmes. 6. Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana Rural Poor People Provides financial assistance to rural poor for constructing their houses themselves. 7. Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana Rural Population Programme for creation of Rural Electricity Infrastructure & Household Electrification for providing access to electricity to rural households. 8. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna Youth To provide encouragement to youth for the development of employable skills by providing monetary rewards by recognition of prior learning or by undergoing training at affiliated centres. 9. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana Rural Population Good all-weather road connectivity to unconnected villages. 10. Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana Rural Population Providing additional wage employment and food security, alongside the creation of durable community assets in rural areas. 11. Ayushman Bharat Yojana General Population The national scheme that aimed at making necessary interventions in primary, secondary and tertiary health-care systems, in a holistic fashion. 12. Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Girls of SC, ST, OBC, minority communities and BPL families. Educational facilities (residential schools) for girls belonging to SC, ST, OBC, minority communities and families below the poverty line (BPL) in educationally backward blocks. 13. Antyodaya Anna Yojana BPL Families Some BPL families covered under the targeted public distribution system are issued ration cards and "Antyodaya Ration Card" must be given to the Antyodaya families for a quota of subsidized food and essentials. 14. Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana Pregnant Females A cash incentive of Rs. 4000 to women (19 years and above) for the first two live births[ 15. Deendayal Disabled Rehabilitation Scheme Disabled People Create an enabling environment to ensure equal opportunities, equity, social justice and empowerment of persons with disabilities. 16. Standup India SC/ST/Women entrepreneurs for greenfield enterprises The objective of the Stand-Up India scheme is to facilitate bank loans to people of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) and women borrower for setting up a greenfield enterprise. So, we can see that India has launched many programmes for the general good. However, according to the report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 12 such pro-poor schemes, in which the central government invested a good amount of money, have failed to achieve their set targets in the past many years. For example, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana failed to meet its target in 14 states, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Gramin could not reach its target in 27 states, the skills development programme National Rural Livelihood Mission met its goal only in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The much-lauded Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) has also failed as an instrument to transform rural India. The major reason for such failures includes mismanagement of central as well as state government, the corruption on implementation, as well as lack of public support. The mainstream development paradigm has also aggravated discontent among Adivasi communities. Welfare State and Liberalization The incapacity of the welfare state to ensure development and growth has led to the process of liberalization. The World Bank experts since 1958 had advised India against public-sector programmes and sought a greater role to private enterprise. India embraced the liberalization policy in 1991 that allowed her to enter the trade market dynamics. The defenders of liberalization in India argued that the new set of policies would bring in “a successful transition from an essentially inward-looking posture to an outward-oriented economy, exploiting foreign trade and investment opportunities fully; a new policy framework which will promote greater efficiency, growth and therewith a surer and deeper attack on poverty alleviation.” Economic analysts have argued that the expenditure on social sector schemes, as part of welfare-related programmes, has been increasing in real terms in the era of liberalization. The data also shows that employment opportunities have declined in the public sector in accordance with the predictions. Private sector opportunities have not increased to compensate for the decline in employment in the public sector. However, growth in self-employment and casual labour seems to have increased and some diversification also seems to have taken place in the employment structure especially increase in wage labour and severity of educated employment. Conclusion India is truly a Welfare State. Each year, various schemes are introduced to fulfil this aim and provide better living conditions. A large part of Budget focuses on to eradicate poverty, bring equality and provide security. Still, when India tries to achieve these goals at the core, poor implementation and heavy corruption interrupts in its way and hence, creating hindrances in the path of success. “Planning without implementation is just like a vehicle without fuel.” Shaik Mohammed Ibrahim