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Class politics and social protection: the implementation of India’s MGNREGA

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  • Indrajit Roy

Abstract

In this paper, I direct attention to the role of class politics in shaping the outcomes of social protection interventions. I highlight the ways in which class politics is constituted by the interaction of class relations and the balance of substantive class power in a polity. I demonstrate the ways in which variations in class politics influence outcomes of a large social protection programme in India, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). In localities where either of the elite classes has successfully co-opted or eliminated the other, their stark contradictions against the interests of agricultural labourers result in them sabotaging the labour-friendly MGNREGA or implementing it half-heartedly. On the other hand, in localities characterised by an overarching framework of contest between the precarious classes and the entrenched classes, dominant class hostility to agricultural labourers is dissipated and labour-friendly programmes such as the MGNREGA have a chance of being implemented. However, the transformative aspect of the programme’s intent, in terms of dissolving the relations of power that bolster poverty, appears to be more in evidence in localities where emergent classes with precarious surpluses, together with agricultural labourers, challenge the influence of the entrenched classes. In these localities, the implementation of the programme, even where fraught with difficulties, contributes to dissolving hierarchical relations and establishing egalitarian ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Indrajit Roy, 2015. "Class politics and social protection: the implementation of India’s MGNREGA," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-046-15, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:esid-046-15
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ratna M. Sudarshan & Rina Bhattacharya & Grace Fernandez, 2010. "Women's Participation in the NREGA: Some Observations from Fieldwork in Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 77-83, July.
    2. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226731445 is not listed on IDEAS
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    Cited by:

    1. Sanjiv Kumar & S. Madheswaran & B. P. Vani, 2021. "Response of Poverty Pockets to the Right-based Demand-driven MGNREGA Programme," Review of Development and Change, , vol. 26(1), pages 5-24, June.
    2. Smriti Rao & Smita Ramnarain, 2023. "Gender, Social Protection, and Crises of Social Reproduction: Contextualizing NREGA," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 70-92, March.
    3. Das, Ritanjan & Dey, Subhasish & Neogi, Ranjita, 2021. "Across the stolen Ponds: The political geography of social welfare in rural eastern India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    4. Deepta Chopra, 2015. "Political commitment in India’s social policy implementation: Shaping the performance of MGNREGA," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-050-15, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    5. Hare Krisna Kundo, 2018. "Micro politics of Social Safety Net Programmes: The case of the Food‐For‐Work Programme in Bangladesh," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S2), pages 815-830, September.
    6. Deepta Chopra, 2016. "Demand Shortfalls or Supply-side Constraints," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 11(2), pages 175-202, August.
    7. Rachel Godfrey†Wood & Benjamin C. R. Flower, 2018. "Does Guaranteed employment promote resilience to climate change? The case of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA)," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S1), pages 586-604, March.
    8. Drèze, Jean & Khera, Reetika, 2017. "Recent Social Security Initiatives in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 555-572.

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