Freedom from Poverty

THE WORD ‘POOR’ refers to people across castes, communities and religions in Indian society. Marxism has the concept of ‘class’. For government, ‘poor’ means an economic category determined by the poverty line developed by experts in consultation with the administration. According to a World Bank report, around 129 million people are living in extreme poverty in India as of 2024. There has been an impressive decline in poverty in India when compared with 1990 when the number of poor was 431 million. The government is trying to make India poverty-free with the help of various poverty eradication measures and social welfare programmes. Even then, it needs more perceptive efforts to achieve the objective of Viksit Bharat by 2047.

In India, one has to engage with caste for any progressive measure. It is a society of almost 3,000 castes and communities and another 25,000 sub-castes. A new Bharat needs a new sociography (sociology) to dilute the multiple and divisive categories. Keeping this in mind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had come up with what he called the only four castes of Indian society: yuva (youth), nari (women), gareeb (poor), and kisan (farmers). With this new interpretation, the prime minister has tried to redefine Indian society while maintaining the aim of Viksit Bharat. Of course, these four ‘castes’, as categories for distribution in a developmental project, may not work as watertight compartments and may even overlap. Yet, these four categories can include a high number of aspirant groups in India.

The prime minister redefined the poor as a single caste. In Marxist and socialist terminology, however, it will be called class, which is perceived economically. Modi did not use the word ‘class’ but his usage of ‘caste’ gave the word a new meaning. He is trying to evolve a new social language of development guided by current challenges. But the question arises whether the poor can exist as a caste at all. For it to be possible, the boundaries of those 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes will have to be demolished. How is that to be done?

The state has the capacity to create new categories. Its developmental schemes can then emphasise these same categories and transform them into reality by changing perceptions. Such reinvented reality slowly enters the public consciousness. The Modi government has already started working on it. After 2014, the BJP-led NDA government targeted policies at the four castes of youth, women, poor and farmers. So, it has formed these four categories for the distribution of democratic and developmental resources. A central concern is the category called poor. Many policies, such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Atal Pension Yojana, Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, Ujjwala Yojana, Jan Arogya Yojana, etc, were launched and implemented by the Modi government. Besides, PDS and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) also target the poor as a category. These free rations, pensions and other DBT schemes emphasise the poor as a category over and over again in public perception.

Through this process, a big group of beneficiaries emerged which then transformed itself into a beneficiary community, thus evolving beyond caste and creed. The connecting or uniting identity is ‘poor’. Whenever one engages with these beneficiaries, they describe themselves as poor. This is how the state uses governance to form identities and categories different from traditional ones. Gradually, these identities function as an active layer of social subjectivity. The poor may eventually emerge as a homogenous group, which can then be called a caste, while their old caste identities get diluted over time.

But questions will remain: Will this homogeneity of the poor formed by governmental intervention prevail in everyday social life? Can electoral politics weaken this homogeneity? Yet it is true that if the poor percolated successfully as a social category, it would change the nature of Indian society and polity. It may also help speed up the process of poverty eradication. If the category of the poor as a caste strengthens and forms a cohesive identity, it will sooner make society poor-free.

Indian povertyNarendra Modinew castepoor peoplesocial structure