ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of the state in social development and measures to redress poverty in India. It deals with a short discussion of the concept of the welfare regime. The chapter draws on several important trends and shifts in India’s welfare regime and discusses the effects of these shifts on the social structure and patterns of social mobilization. The purpose of social legislation, factory laws, unemployment insurance, and protective measures extended by trade unions was precisely to protect labour from the market. Various types of rights—or entitlement-based policies, whether based on means tests, prior contributions to an insurance scheme, or a universal social right, have a de-commodifying effect, although in different ways and to different extents. One of the striking shifts in India’s social policies and legislation is the increasing importance of a rights discourse. The most prominent examples in the regard are related to work, food, and education.
