Politics of Welfare: Comparisons Across Indian States

Indian states are the main arenas in which popular expectations around healthcare, education, and social security intersect with electoral politics. Yet the ways in which state politics shape Indiaâs social welfare policies are inadequately understood.

After a decade of experimentation with new rights-based approaches to social policy at the national level, there is a pressing need to understand how regional political environments influence the ways in which policies are initiated and enacted on the ground.

Written by political scientists and a sociologist with expertise across Indiaâs regions, this volume presents comparative analyses of the emergent politics of welfare across Indian states. Bringing together ground-level empirical data and innovative perspectives, it investigates the ways in which state-level political dynamics shape policies in the fields of education, health insurance, social security, employment, and food subsidies. In-depth and timely, the book allows for a deeper understanding of the diversity of welfare scenarios in contemporary India.