From clients to citizens: Lessons from Brazil’s bolsa familia for Delhi

Abstract

The current debate in India on social protection for the poor and poverty alleviation, more generally, is poised between votaries of cash transfers and those who see the possibility that such transfers will erode the existing Public Distribution System. Each policy choice is viewed as aligned to contrasting ideologies for growth and development. The provision of grains through state-designated fair-price shops is argued to be close to a left-leaning and humane ideological position, whereas votaries of direct cash transfers are type-casted as leaning to the right, and a retreat from the normative welfare obligation of the state. Drawing on the experience of a process of practical policy change with respect to social protection in the state of Delhi—one which led to an idea interchange between them and the Bolsa Familia in Brazil—this chapter argues that not only are these binary positions on social policy somewhat untenable, there are shared foundational principles on both sides. More importantly, there is a sense in which both arguments are still far away from what the city’s poor expect from the state. It is critical to think about social policy renewal as being embedded within the lives of the poor.