Class Coalitions and Social Protection: The Labouring Classes and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Eastern India

Abstract

Dramatic differences in the quality of human life are a prominent feature of today’s world. Poverty and inequality mutilate the life chances of millions around the globe, notwithstanding otherwise impressive economic achievements. To offset the challenges posed by the persistence and production of poverty and inequality, many governments and international development agencies have begun to formulate and implement agendas for social protection. Nevertheless, even as governments institute social protection programmes to ameliorate human misery, the outcomes of such initiatives remain vastly varied. Understanding the factors for such variations assumes urgent relevance. What explains such variations? In this paper, I contribute to the growing body of scholarship that seeks to reignite interest in class politics as shaping the implementation of social protections. I build on and develop a discussion of politics that takes seriously class politics, especially the ensemble of collaborations and competitions between classes. I nuance existing perspectives on class politics by emphasising the importance of both collaboration as well as conflict between social classes.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to John Harriss and James Manor for their thoughts on the conceptual connections between class and caste. Conversations with Reetika Khera, Deepta Chopra and Diego Maiorano have helped me think through India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which have benefitted me while writing this paper. Kunal Sen, Sam Hickey and other colleagues at the Effective States Inclusive Development research program at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester have been generous as always with comments and suggestions about social protection. Finally, I would like to acknowledge two anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Development Studies whose feedback was invaluable in honing the argument. The usual disclaimers apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The ‘upper’ middle peasant class of Ramachandran’s (2011) formulation appears to be proximate to Patnaik’s (1986) ‘middle peasant’. His ‘lower’ middle class seems to map on to the latter’s ‘small peasant’.