Welcome ‘Citizen as Labharthi’

[Ahead of Maharashtra Assembly polls, announcement of schemes like the Ladki-Bahin scheme reduce citizens to being ‘subjects’ rather than persons with basic constitutional rights.]

Times have definitely changed.

There was a time earlier when  a postcard sent by an ordinary citizen had then spurred the judiciary into action, not any more..

One does not know whether the legal notice sent by a conscientious journalist (https://sarkarkhabar.com/legal-notice-challenges-maharashtras-ladki-bahin-yojana-as-politically-motivated/)- to the Maharashtra government will similarly have any impact or not.

The focus of this legal notice is on the recent scheme launched by the Maharashtra government called Ladki Behin under which women will be given Rs 1,500 per month. Launched on the eve of the elections to the state, the notice raises issues of timing of the scheme, the claim that Rs 1,500 given to women would be sufficient ; how such doles create a dependency culture and how it effectively punctures the whole idea of a welfare state.

Perhaps the regime would maintain opacity much on the lines of earlier occasions when it had  refused to give satisfactory answers, why projects meant for Maharashtra were suddenly shifted to Gujarat ((https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/foxconn-vedanta-project-gujarat-maharashtra-8824502/ ; https://www.deccanherald.com/india/maharashtra-loses-three-major-projects-to-gujarat-1157377. html) or how a statue built and inaugurated with much fanfare can collapse in few months (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd7pzve974o ;https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/chhatrapati-shivaji-statue-collapse-in-maharashtra-pm-modi-eknath-shinde-controversy-2591828-2024-09-01)

Whatever might be the state’s response in this particular case, it cannot be denied that it has raised very urgent questions, which cannot be left unanswered.

The legal notice also underlines that while the scheme is projected to cost the government Rs 46,000 crores per month, the government has already taken a loan of Rs 3,000 crores from the Reserve Bank for its implementation and this initiative will further strain state’s finances and instead of a projected fiscal deficit of three per cent it will rise to 4.6 per cent because of this scheme’s rollout.

Apart from these monetary and other considerations, it has questioned the exclusion of transgender women from the scheme and more importantly also underlined that this scheme which perceives relationship between the government and women as a sister brother dynamic which overturns the wisdom of the makers of Constitution who had envisaged this relationship as one of state and citizen.

An expected response can be that there is nothing new about such schemes. True, with the ascent of Modi led dispensation at the centre launching of such schemes have become order of the day.

Like the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, whose ‘Ladli Behna’ scheme supposedly clicked the elections in the ruling dispensation’s favour (https://www.business-standard.com/elections/madhya-pradesh-elections/shivraj-s-ladli-behna-yojana-becomes-a-game-changer-for-bjp-in-mp-polls-123120300898_1.html) one also has the scheme launched by the central govenment where 80 crore Indians will be given 5 kg free food grains for the next five years.(https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1980689#:~:text=The%20Cabinet%20led%20by%20Prime,from%201%20st%20January%2C%202024.)  etc.

Prevalence of such schemes – a few of them even launched by opposition government – does not mean that  one should stop raising valid questions around them.

This particular case which was launched immediately after the drubbing BJP led dispensation received in Maharashtra carry extra relevance because of related urgent considerations.

Sudden announcement of this scheme – without any long term planning – have also meant a severe impact on the payment of subsidies to other marginalised or needy sections already in vogue.Nitin Gadkari, a very senior leader of the party – who holds a cabinet minister rank at the centre, himself underlined it in a recent public meeting. Explaining the tight financial situation of the state and the state already in debt he questioned the viability of this scheme. ( https://www.businesstoday.in/india/story/nitin-gadkari-subsidy-payments-may-be-affected-due-to-ladki-bahin-scheme-448198-2024-09-30) .

For laypersons, it effectively means the state government has embarked upon a popular looking scheme – which essentially throws few crumbs before women, to ‘impress them and win elections’.  and simultaneously has found out a way to ‘starves or deprives another needy section of society’ which are already in receipt of such subsidy.

A look at these developments makes it clear that the state has denied actual participation of the citizes in decision making related to them. Secondly, the hurried manner in which it has been launched amounts to the state is ”infantilising’ the citizens and has created divisions and a feeling of suspicion among them from above.

This is nothing but slowly but not so silently breaking the compact between a Democray and a Citizen – where it is incumbent upon the citizen to demand rights / amenities and duty of the state is to fulfill it, where citizen as the right to freedom of expression or even right to be consulted regarding decisions about them.

Perhaps in the eyes or rather vision of the powers that be the days of such compact between a democracy and its citizens are long over and they yearn for days gone by where people were subjects who were at the mercy of the monarchs, kings or feudal lords. The crude insistence on the display of PM’s photographs on such largesse or the foolish sounding manner in which the Finance Minister at the Centre reprimanded a Public Distribution System shop owner for not displaying PM Modi”s photograph (https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/nirmala-sitharaman-fumes-over-absence-of-pm-modis-picture-at-telangana-pds-shop/article65841589.ece) or PM himself glorifying how people perceive such help  (https://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/elections/assembly-elections/uttar-pradesh/news/pm-narendra-modi-in-hardoi-up-election-2022-rally/articleshow/89730473.cms) just exposes their worldview.

It thus does not appear surprising that the then leaders of RSS or the Hindutva Fraternity – with whom Modi and all his colleagues at the Centre and various states – still owe an allegiance – opposed making of a Constitution which based on the promise of one man one vote and yearned for a situation where one man will have one value and how they pushed for making Manusmriti as Independent India’s New Constitution..

Thus what we observe today is that despite being a rights bearing individual, an ordinary citizens is effectively being left at the mercy of the state. This is basically an introduction of a new relationship where old relationship is de facto ( nor de jure) being substituted with an entirely weird framework s/he is merely a labharthi, not a Citizen but a mere subject.

It is worth emphasising is that analysts had envisaged emergence of such situation with the ascent of Modi led government. Remember in his very first public speech PM Modi had pompously declared that  his government will usher into ‘Good Governance ‘ or what he called as  ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’. An idea which had come under lot of scrutiny (https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-g-sampath-on-modi-government-why-everyone-loves-good-governance/article7389373.ece)

Unpacking the idea of ‘good governance’  analyst had elaborated how it meant attack on ‘welfare expenditure’ or how it was ‘a bad idea economically’. It also entailed role of ‘unelected experts’ instead of ‘political intervention’ in policy making

While ideas of accountability, transparency, empowerment or even citizen participation were packaged with this ” good governance agenda but they were pushed not in the ”context of social transformation’ but basically a ‘part and parcel of neoliberal vision of good governance’

The whole idea of empowerment has different connotation in the older framework, here it meant giving power to the marginalised through ‘technology or e-governance’ and becomes a ‘cruel joke’ on the original meaning of the term. Concluding the article the author had famously said good governance entails s ‘substitution of politics – which is what democracy is all about – with management”and ‘citizenship without rights’  (https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-g-sampath-on-modi-government-why-everyone-loves-good-governance/article7389373.ece)

Of late, scholars, analysts have frankly written about how such schemes are basically converting a rights bearing citizen in a subject, a labharthi or how “..This ‘techno-patrimonialism’ is not based on the poor exercising their rights; it is built instead around a direct connect with a personality-centric leadership.(https://www.theindiaforum.in/public-policy/citizen-vs-labharthi) or how such “[w]elfarism, one that strips itself of any emancipatory goals such as advancing social citizenship and building solidarity. Instead, it casts citizens as passive recipients (labharthis) of state largesse rather than active claim-making, rights-bearing actors. (-do-)

It also elaborates how “Welfare in this framing is not about advancing social rights and fuller citizenship. It is about a narrow set of tangible assets given to citizens. Empowerment is achieved through the interplay between the state’s responsibility to provide ‘ease of living’ and the duty-bound citizens’ willingness to leverage this ‘ease’ in pursuit of their own well-being and emancipation via the market.” (-do-)

To be very frank, there is need to further interrogate this techno-patrimonial welfarism which has effectively depoliticised the distributional struggle or how it impacts democracy when we have voters – not as rights bearing individuals but are cast as labharthis and how it shapes democratic accountability !

Subhash Gatade is a left  activist associated with New Socialist Initiative