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Basic Income: A Transformative Policy for India
This book reports on three overlapping pilot schemes in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, including a special project in tribal villages, in which over 6,000 people were provided with a modest basic income paid monthly over 18 months. The project was funded by UNICEF and UNDP and implemented by SEWA (The Indian Self-Employed Women’s Association). Written by Guy Standing, who designed the pilot schemes and Renana Jhabvala, the head of SEWA, who implemented them, the book examines the transformative effects of these pilot schemes at the individual, family and local economy levels.
India is mired in bureaucratic rigidities and hierarchical structures of exploitation and oppression, leading to a well-known problem the overly complex system of public welfare services. It is widely recognised that this system requires innovative intervention, via transparent policies that are able to avoid political capture.
The pilots are discussed in the context of the new Food Security Act, the government’s job guarantee plan, MGNREGA, and ongoing debate over the efficacy of the Public Distribution System and its ration shops disbursing rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. The authors look at a number of alternative options for addressing rural poverty, including subsidies, targeting, selectivity and conditionality, contrasting them with the basic income model. They argue that the provision of basic incomes not only provides economic security but has many knock-on effects, allowing families to escape the debt trap, enrich food consumption and unlock constraints to schooling and healthcare. Above all it may enable individuals, including women, the disabled, the elderly and those in excluded castes or tribes, to engage more effectively in wider society.
India is mired in bureaucratic rigidities and hierarchical structures of exploitation and oppression, leading to a well-known problem the overly complex system of public welfare services. It is widely recognised that this system requires innovative intervention, via transparent policies that are able to avoid political capture.
The pilots are discussed in the context of the new Food Security Act, the government’s job guarantee plan, MGNREGA, and ongoing debate over the efficacy of the Public Distribution System and its ration shops disbursing rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. The authors look at a number of alternative options for addressing rural poverty, including subsidies, targeting, selectivity and conditionality, contrasting them with the basic income model. They argue that the provision of basic incomes not only provides economic security but has many knock-on effects, allowing families to escape the debt trap, enrich food consumption and unlock constraints to schooling and healthcare. Above all it may enable individuals, including women, the disabled, the elderly and those in excluded castes or tribes, to engage more effectively in wider society.
- GenresEconomicsNonfiction
248 pages, Paperback
First published November 14, 2014
154 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 2, 2020
Inspiring account of a universal basic income (UBI) pilot in rural India. This is a very different discussion than UBI for western countries: We're talking about villages with dirt roads that are cut off from the world during monsoons, people who sometimes can't read and write, with no savings, no bank accounts, who need to borrow to buy food or medicine, and whose only access to credit are usurious moneylenders at interest rates of 3 to 10%—per month! Without prompt repayment, which many can't afford because their work and hence wages are highly seasonal, this builds up to 40 to 200% in interest a year. Sic(k). Some are effectively in debt bondage, working for a landlord. This is not at all comparable to a UBI discussion in, say, Norway, where the baseline wealth and standard of living is so much higher and the intended effect is more along the lines of more self actualization and less pressure for industrial or office workers to stay in unhappy jobs. Very, very different discussion.
India does have a number of programmes in place to alleviate poverty, such as subsidized food shops and labour provision schemes; but poor administration, corruption, broken incentives, lack of information, and high efforts needed to obtain them mean that a lot of intended recipients are falling through the cracks. The authors cite an informed estimate that for more than 3 Rupies spent, only 1 reaches an actual recipient.
Long story short: Universal basic income helps significantly in every way, and even more so where there was a local union organization branch (SEWA) present to help. People spend the money in extremely sensible ways: to pay off debt, to save, to invest in productivity—most have a small patch of land for which they buy seeds and fertilizer; also sewing machines to make cloths and raw materials for bracelets, which they then sell on local markets—, to provide for more food and better education for their kids, to get better healthcare, and—often with pooled money—to build up local infrastructure, esp. toilets, wells, irrigation for the fields, and sewage disposal. In particular, they don't waste the money on booze or to slack off, thereby rebutting a common prejudice levelled at them.
The pilot also documents an emancipatory effect in general—such as people being able to negotiate better wages or make better trade-offs between paid labour on someone else's field and work on their own field come harvest time—and for several marginalized groups gaining more agency and independence, in particular scheduled castes (=those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy), women, disabled people and the elderly.
All in all, a very interesting book with many very specific observations about how well-intentioned policies can succeed or fail in harsh reality. On the plus side, this is solid research with clear quantitative findings. On the minus side, the writing is at times rather academic and like bar charts put to words. I wonder if the chapters were originally published papers about the pilot that were compiled with minor edits to form this book. Don't expect a fluffy journalist-written business book read with pop quotes. This is real socio-economic science and, though fairly short, takes effort to get through. It's worth it though!
India does have a number of programmes in place to alleviate poverty, such as subsidized food shops and labour provision schemes; but poor administration, corruption, broken incentives, lack of information, and high efforts needed to obtain them mean that a lot of intended recipients are falling through the cracks. The authors cite an informed estimate that for more than 3 Rupies spent, only 1 reaches an actual recipient.
Long story short: Universal basic income helps significantly in every way, and even more so where there was a local union organization branch (SEWA) present to help. People spend the money in extremely sensible ways: to pay off debt, to save, to invest in productivity—most have a small patch of land for which they buy seeds and fertilizer; also sewing machines to make cloths and raw materials for bracelets, which they then sell on local markets—, to provide for more food and better education for their kids, to get better healthcare, and—often with pooled money—to build up local infrastructure, esp. toilets, wells, irrigation for the fields, and sewage disposal. In particular, they don't waste the money on booze or to slack off, thereby rebutting a common prejudice levelled at them.
The pilot also documents an emancipatory effect in general—such as people being able to negotiate better wages or make better trade-offs between paid labour on someone else's field and work on their own field come harvest time—and for several marginalized groups gaining more agency and independence, in particular scheduled castes (=those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy), women, disabled people and the elderly.
All in all, a very interesting book with many very specific observations about how well-intentioned policies can succeed or fail in harsh reality. On the plus side, this is solid research with clear quantitative findings. On the minus side, the writing is at times rather academic and like bar charts put to words. I wonder if the chapters were originally published papers about the pilot that were compiled with minor edits to form this book. Don't expect a fluffy journalist-written business book read with pop quotes. This is real socio-economic science and, though fairly short, takes effort to get through. It's worth it though!
February 22, 2023
This book is based on a Pilot Project of UBI in Madhya Pradesh. It dismantles many myths one may have about UBI (people with spend on Alcohol/gambling, people will no longer work, men will take away money from wife and children.) From this, UBI seems to be excellent. Since it was fieldwork, macro implications of policy were not dealt in detail, but stats were put out to show that a good enough UBI can be made with much just a small part of subsidies and welfare scheme already being run.
May 27, 2025
incredible
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews