Making India Work (South Asia Edition)

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. >Captures long-term patterns of continuity and change in the development of India''s welfare system from the late colonial period. >Situates current debates around the design and legitimacy of social politics within their historical context. >Accessible across various disciplines including history political science and development studies.