Social Policy and Political Mobilization in India: Producing Hierarchical Fraternity and Polarized Differences

Abstract

This article attempts to decode the ways in which social policy that has essentially developmental and welfare imperatives is being used to pursue an exclusivist-authoritarian right-wing agenda in India under Narendra Modi. The authors highlight a contradistinction between the previous United Progressive Alliance regime led by the Congress Party and the current National Democratic Alliance regime led by the BJP to show the shift in the understanding and the role of social policy. In essence, social programmes have been combined with market-oriented reforms, undoing the entitlements-based approach to social policies of the previous regime. The authors then go on to discuss a variety of social policy programmes introduced by the Modi government with a focus on public health and sanitation objectives, but also including gender empowerment imperatives, education, training and employment programmes for socially marginalized groups.