Take cash, forget social change

Direct cash transfer appears to be particularly effective when its target group comprises women. Representation pic/iStock

The stunning wins of the Mahayuti and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance demonstrate that direct cash transfer to voters can negate the anti-incumbency factor against parties in power. It facilitates ideological consolidation, and enables political parties to mobilise voters more effectively. Yet, at the same time, direct cash transfer reflects the State's disinterest in bringing about social change.

Direct cash transfer appears to be particularly effective when its target group comprises women. In Maharashtra, the Mahayuti, after suffering a setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, introduced the Ladki Bahin Yojana, which pays R1,500 a month to women between 21 and 65 years in age and living below the poverty line. Likewise, in Jharkhand, the JMM government implemented, in August, the Maiya Samman Yojana, which transfers R1,000 a month to poor women aged 21 to 50.

In both these states, women turned out in exceptionally large numbers to vote for their benefactors, heralding the emergence of women as an influential vote bank - and as game-changer. In Maharashtra, the female voter turnout in the 2024 Assembly elections increased by nearly four per cent over 2019. In Jharkhand, around five lakh more women than men turned out to vote in the Assembly elections.

The defining characteristic of the two schemes is that they lay no demand on the beneficiaries. They do not have to undertake any economic activity to receive the money - as, for instance, is required under the rural employment guarantee programmes. They do not have to even stir out of their house, as is necessary for women in Karnataka and Delhi to avail of free bus rides.

In both Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the ruling alliances resorted to direct cash transfer to women four to five months before the elections. Since the handouts impose no conditions on the beneficiaries, the schemes mimic, albeit for a longer duration, the practice of candidates seeking to buy votes by distributing cash in slums the night before polling. Such candidates hope the beneficiaries of their largesse will vote for them.

This, too, is the logic underlying the Ladki Bahin Yojana and Maiya Samman Yojana. Indeed, the purchasing of votes has been legitimised and mainstreamed through direct cash transfer.

This method is decidedly more effective than individual candidates distributing money. The latter is a one-time affair. In contrast, once people enjoy the monetary benefits showered on them by a ruling party, they subliminally fear its discontinuance unless the benefactor is returned to power. The high female turnout in both Maharashtra and Jharkhand reflects both their gratefulness to the ruling parties and their apprehension.

Paltry as they may appear, R1,500 or R1,000 do boost the income of women engaged in poorly paid menial jobs. Since the money is transferred to the bank accounts of women, they acquire agency - and possibly encourages them to resist patriarchy.

Yet, by transferring cash to voters, governments implicitly confess that they do not have the intent to bring about major structural changes in the economy, and create conditions to usher in social mobility for the teeming millions. Cash transfers dissipate economic discontent and the popular rage, as seems to have happened in Maharashtra, which faces an agrarian crisis.

Indeed, cash transfer schemes come with a coded message: Take money, forget social change.

Cash transfer has, unlike reservation, cross-community appeal, thereby turning it into an effective tool for mobilisation. The Marathas were alienated from the Mahayuti as its government refused to provide them a reservation quota within the Other Backward Classes category. It was one reason why the Marathas consolidated behind the Maha Vikas Aghadi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Mahayuti's mammoth scale of victory in the Assembly elections suggests the Ladki Bahin Yojana weaned away the Maratha in substantial numbers from the MVA.

In Jharkhand, the JMM-Congress alliance, in June, won just five of the 14 Lok Sabha seats. The five wins were ascribed to the Adivasis consolidating behind them. The alliance's extraordinary sweep of the state in the Assembly testifies that the Maiya Samman Yojana enticed a large segment of the Bharatiya Janata Party's supporters to switch their allegiance.

Cash transfer also provides an irresistible sheen to the ideologies of political parties. For instance, in Maharashtra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the cry of "Hum ek rahenge toh safe rahenge - united, we will be safe." He was telling Hindus that the Opposition's promise of a caste census would divide and weaken them, thus rendering them susceptible to alleged Muslim machinations. But ideological appeal was also deepened by cash, for they were being told that they will be safe under the Mahayuti as well as get R1,500 a month. A reworking of the marketing strategy of buy one, get one free.

Similar was the case in Jharkhand, where the JMM countered Hindutva through the slogan "Jungle, Jal and Jamin", which was coined over 100 years ago. The slogan articulated the JMM's promise of protecting the community from the appropriation of their jungle, water and land by big business. The promise acquired greater attractiveness as it had the shiny wrapping of the Maiya Samman Yojana. Political parties do play these games, but ultimately, it is the people who barter short-term gains for a systemic change.

The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste

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