The Politics of Inclusion Without Empowerment

Nagesh Bhushan

Why do voters from India’s lower castes increasingly support a party whose ideological roots lie in preserving social hierarchy? The answer is neither false consciousness nor cultural delusion. It is policy—specifically, a model of governance that delivers visible gains quickly while deferring harder questions of structural inequality.

Since 2014 the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has assembled an electoral coalition that includes a substantial share of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes. This realignment is best understood not as a triumph of ideology, but as a consequence of improved state capacity, targeted welfare delivery and a narrative of inclusion that is tangible, if shallow.

At the heart of the BJP’s appeal lies execution. Flagship schemes—subsidised cooking gas, rural housing, sanitation drives and direct cash transfers—have reached households that were previously poorly served by the state. Digitisation, Aadhaar-linked transfers and bank-account expansion have reduced leakage and delays. For families accustomed to bureaucratic indifference, the difference is unmistakable. From a voter’s perspective, delivery matters more than doctrine.

These programmes score well on the metrics governments like to track. Coverage rates are high. Transaction costs are lower. Household access to basic amenities has improved. Multidimensional poverty indicators show modest gains, driven largely by better housing, sanitation and energy use. Such improvements are politically potent because they are visible, immediate and attributable—often, in the public imagination, to the prime minister himself.

Yet delivery is not destiny. The same data that demonstrate administrative success also reveal the limits of the model. Welfare spending has focused overwhelmingly on consumption support rather than income generation or asset creation. Cash transfers and subsidies smooth hardship, but they do little to alter long-term economic position. On indicators that matter for mobility—learning outcomes, secondary school completion, skill acquisition and formal employment—the gaps between lower-caste households and the rest persist stubbornly.

Education illustrates the problem. Enrolment rates have risen, but learning levels remain poor, especially in government schools serving disadvantaged communities. Skill-development schemes struggle to place trainees in stable jobs. Labour-market data continue to show lower-caste workers concentrated in informal, low-wage sectors, with limited occupational mobility. Land ownership and wealth accumulation remain deeply unequal.

This is not an accident. The BJP’s policy architecture favours universality over targeting and visibility over transformation. Caste-specific interventions, once central to India’s redistributive politics, have been deemphasised in favour of schemes framed as benefiting “all poor Indians”. Administratively, this is simpler and politically safer. But it also obscures structural disadvantage. Without caste-disaggregated monitoring, it becomes harder to diagnose who is falling behind—and why.

Supporters of the current approach argue that earlier caste-based politics delivered representation without results. That criticism has force. Many lower-caste voters are responding rationally to a system that now delivers predictable benefits, rather than symbolic promises mediated by local elites. The BJP’s offer is clear: material inclusion today, questions of hierarchy postponed.

The trade-off is subtle but significant. A welfare state optimised for speed and scale can stabilise livelihoods without enabling escape from vulnerability. By shifting political competition towards programme access rather than outcome quality, it weakens accountability for long-term results. Beneficiary satisfaction becomes linked to receipt, not adequacy. Institutional scrutiny gives way to personal gratitude.

Over time, the risks accumulate. A politics that manages deprivation without challenging its roots may entrench a low equilibrium: less poverty, but little power; more inclusion, but limited agency. For lower-caste voters, the bargain currently makes sense. For policymakers concerned with durable equality, it should give pause.

India’s electoral arithmetic increasingly rewards governments that deliver quickly and speak confidently. But the harder task—turning welfare into mobility, and inclusion into empowerment—remains unfinished. The question is not why the narrative resonates today, but how long its underlying economics can sustain it.