Bengaluru, India – Sumathi Muniswamy, 52, has not missed a single election since she obtained her voter card at the age of 18.
“It’s the only way to make my voice heard,” she says.
But the May 2023 elections for the Karnataka State Assembly presented a new campaign promise. The Congress Party has promised to women of the state if it came to power, they would receive 2,000 Indian rupees (around 2 2 US) each month, transferred to their bank accounts.
It has become more and more common across the country so that politicians promise citizens, especially women who do not have much money, in cash in exchange for votes. Since 2020, in 14 of the 28 Indian states, the manifests of political parties have promised unconditional cash transfers to women, and the star activists now promise between 1,000 and 3,000 rupees per month per family, depending on the state. In some jurisdictions, the parties also promise money to farmers and the elderly.
In 2022, the Congress Party promised cash transfer to women in the northern state of Himhal Pradesh, which he won. A year before that, the Trinamool congress party made similar promises in the eastern state of Western Bengal. During the February elections at the Delhi Assembly, Bharatiya Janata’s party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party promised to transfer 2,500 rupees to the bank account of each woman. The party in place Aam Aadmi had promised 2,100 rupees. The BJP has won.
Some call bribes of cash transfers. But, in a country where half of the population cannot afford a healthy food and more than 80% of young Indians are unemployed, others call them transformational.
Unfair or well-being?
To receive money from the Congress Party in Karnataka, women had to prove that they were state residents and that their annual family income was less than 120,000 rupees (around US $ 1,400).
Muniswamy has qualified – and the money would largely add to the 8,000 rupees (around US $ 93) which she wins each month by cleaning the houses. She was not alone. Within three months following the elections, by August 2023, 13.3 million women had registered to receive the allowance.
It was an easy process. The universal biometric system of India, called Aadhaar, contains digital identities for nearly 1.4 billion Indians – almost the country – and bank accounts and mobile phone numbers are connected to the database. Muniswamy says that the workers of the Congress Party came to his neighborhood, obtained all the documents in order and ensured that more than 200 women eligible in his neighborhood are registered.
According to Axis Bank Research, these programs have collectively reached around 134 million women – a fifth of the adult female population of India.
In November 2024, political parties had spent the equivalent of 0.6% of India GDP to these cash transfer programs. For the context, the Indian government spent 1.9% of its GDP in health care during the year 2023-24.
“Unconditional cash transfers point out a huge change in the country’s” well-being policy “,” explains KK Kalash, professor of political science at the University of Hyderabad.
For decades after the independence of colonial domination, the Indian state was made in shape as the only supplier of basic advantages. During these years, said Muniswamy, a house in which she worked waited seven years for a telephone line. The government was the only service provider in the country at the time. The government was also supposed to provide free education, she said.
Instead, families had to pay bribes to send their children to public school.
At the time, politicians in campaign only promised better services or infrastructure improvements – smooth roads, 24 hours a day, better schools. Caste leaders have promised their quotas of respective caste groups in government or higher education jobs.
But these promises were easy to break.
“If we thought they had not kept their promises,” said Sheela Srinivasan, an Autrickshaw driver in Bengaluru, “we had to wait five years to vote them.”
Things changed around 1991, explains economist Ritu Dewan, president of the 64th conference of the Indian Society of the Labor Economy. Private industries began to compete in various sectors for the first time since India’s independence in 1947.
And rather than solving systemic problems to provide better government services, says Dewan, politicians have chosen to simply pay in cash.
‘We don’t owe them’
Srinivasan says that she would prefer that the government assured that her 8 -year -old daughter could go to school, rather than giving money.
“What is the point of obtaining 2,000 rupees per month when the costs of a good school are around 80,000 rupees per year?” she asked.
Srinivasan lives in the Koramangala region of Southern Bengaluru, a relatively expensive district. She worked 10 hours a day and her husband has full -time job as a concierge in a software company, but sometimes she takes loans to pay for her daughter’s tuition fees. She will take the 2,000 rupees, she said, but had hoped to obtain more from the government.
Cash programs, however, have become one of the most reliable ways to obtain anything from managers. Tara Krishnaswamy, a political consultant based in Bengaluru who focuses on these programs, says that they succeed more than other government initiatives.
Since the parties promise a basic income before the elections, party workers is, rather than the bureaucracy of the awkward government, to register the beneficiaries. This increases responsibility, says Krishnaswamy, adding that 85% to 95% of beneficiaries obtain the promised money. In previous programs, she said, only 60% to 70% of people would get a given advantage, even years later, because the implementation was left to the administrative machinery.
The elimination of intermediaries due to digitization also allowed politicians to claim credit more easily, in particular because their parties directly transfer money, via Aadhaar.
Politicians use a language that makes these advantages seem to be a favor for the population, says Kalash. “Many voters consider them donations given by the kindness of the heart of a politician and not as their right to social protections.”
Srinivasan is one of them. She says politicians should not money for citizens, so if they offer money, it must be out of kindness.
“However,” she said, “we don’t owe them. We will vote for the people who work for us – not who give us money. ”