Annual Shaheed Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture
Professor Ashwani Kumar from the School of Development Studies, TISS Bombay today delivered the Annual Shaheed Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture at the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
City Air News
Feb 11, 2025 06:56
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Chandigarh, February 11, 2025: Professor Ashwani Kumar from the School of Development Studies, TISS Bombay today delivered the Annual Shaheed Bhagat Singh Memorial Lecture at the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
The lecture, titled ‘Rethinking Welfare Regimes in India’ argued that welfare regimes are neither monolithic or static and the typology of welfare regimes as well as the main theories that seek to explain the success or failure of welfare policies adopted by nation-states needed to be rethought especially in the light of the experiences from the non-western world. He argued that India was not a ‘flailing state’ and it is misleading to say that welfare programmes have failed in India due to corruption or lack of state capacity. He drew attention instead to the great variations at the sub-national level which means social scientists have to think in terms of ‘polymorphic welfare regime clusters’ and called upon scholars to pay attention to the different factors involved in explaining the nature and outcome of welfare policies across different states in India. He also stressed on the role played by civil society at the grassroots level and stressed that citizens are not passive recipients of freebies. He went on to reject the dichotomy drawn between welfare and freebies in the public discourse and called for a nuanced and fieldwork based approach which reveals the mutually dependent relationship between democracy and welfare in India.
The Guest of Honour of the event, Professor Rumina Sethi, the DUI of Panjab University in her address said that welfare should not be thought of only in economic terms but that social justice also needs intellectual welfarism which requires us to nurture independent critical thinking in society. The session was presided over by Professor Bhupinder Brar, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Political Science.
