Making India Work

Welfare politics take centre stage in India's electoral landscape today. Direct benefits and employment generation form the mainstays of social provision, while most citizens lack dependable rights to sickness leave, pensions, maternity benefits or unemployment insurance. But how did this system evolve? Louise Tillin traces the origins and development of India's welfare regime, recovering a history previously relegated to the margins of scholarship on the political economy of development. Her deeply researched analysis, spanning from the early twentieth century to the present, captures long-term patterns of continuity and change against a backdrop of nation-building, economic change, and democratisation. Making India Work demonstrates that while patronage and resource constraints have undermined the provision of public goods, Indian workers, employers, politicians and bureaucrats have long debated what an Indian 'welfare state' should look like. The ideas and principles shaping earlier policies remain influential today.

Louise Tillin is Professor of Politics at King's College London.