Journal of Contemporary Politics
Year: 2026, Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-4
Original Article
Anil Kumar Vaddiraju1*
1Professor and Head of the Centre, Centre for Political Institutions, Governance and Development, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]
Received Date:06 March 2026, Accepted Date:13 March 2026, Published Date:31 March 2026
The current welfare populism is an acknowledgement that more than 30 years of economic reform has not delivered trickle-down to the poor. In addition, what is important to note is not only the welfare being delivered, but the modus operandi of the welfare. It is sought to be delivered by means of caste-counts rather than class-numbers. This clearly indicates that identity politics is combined with welfare. This mode of delivery of welfare not only is temporary, and is likely to increase demands for more populism, but also strengthens the primordial identities of the social groups that are being addressed. What is at stake in this debate is not whether or not welfare is needed, which is unquestionable, but the ways and means through which welfare is being delivered. This mode of delivery of welfare, is likely to increase caste and religious identity politics in the future, while welfare itself would be short lived, as fiscal and financial constraints emerge to the fore all too quickly. In this context what is needed is to re-think, not the question of whether or not welfare--which is not questioned here-- but how and through what means. A more sustained welfare through long term safeguards, that does not depend on the vagaries of identity politics, is called for in this address.
Keywords: Welfare, Populism, Identity politics, Liberal democracy, Indian politics
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© 2026 Published by Bangalore University. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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