The politics of giving: How Tamil Nadu set the template for India’s freebies race | India News
NEW DELHI: Indian politics seems to be in an era of freebies, where every party gives cash doles or concessions before elections. Last year, the NDA offered Rs 10,000 to over 75 lakh women in Bihar just before polls, helping the alliance win an overwhelming majority.Continuing this trend, AIADMK and DMK have also placed their bets ahead of the upcoming assembly elections. In what the DMK calls the single largest financial assistance extended to women in the state’s history, the government last month deposited Rs 5,000 to 1.31 crore women under ‘Kalaignar Magali Urimai Thittam’.
Meanwhile, the AIADMK’s manifesto promised Rs 2,000 per month under the ‘Kula Bilakku Scheme’ for all ration card holders, which would be directly deposited into the bank accounts of female heads of households. The party has promised a “free fridge” for every rice ration-card holder if it returns to power.Interestingly, this is not the first time that parties have tried to woo voters with pre-poll gifts. Welfare politics in Tamil Nadu dates back to the Dravidian movement, which made the state an active instrument of social justice.
Congress Chief Minister K Kamaraj can be seen as the pioneer of the populist scheme in the state. He launched the midday scheme with free school uniforms for students.The scheme – designed to tackle malnutrition and encourage low-income families to send their children to school – has significantly increased school enrollment and attendance, reducing dropout rates.Three seers of paddy at RsIn 1967, CN Annadurai State promised rice for Rs 1 to three through the Public Distribution System (PDS). The project, however, proved costly and difficult for the government to sustain.After winning the elections, Annadurai became the Chief Minister and implemented the scheme for some time in some pockets but later scrapped it due to financial burden. However, this move established welfare as a political tool still used today.Lunch planning testAIADMK founder MG Ramachandran became Chief Minister in 1977 and expanded welfare measures to improve school attendance. The landmark midday meal scheme of 1982, which was later expanded, became one of the largest such programs worldwide, significantly increasing enrollment among children from poor families.Subsequent governments led by M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa built on this model, adding benefits such as free uniforms, footwear and educational assistance.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, welfare schemes also included consumer goods, reaching a turning point in 2006 when the DMK promised free color TVs, rice at Rs 2 per kg, cooking gas connections, free electricity and loan waivers for farmers and weavers. The cost of the TV scheme alone is around Rs 3,600 crore and reaches around 45 lakh householdsJayalalitha’s Amma Canteen SchemeIn 2011, the promise turned into a bidding war. DMK offered a mixer or grinder, AIADMK promised both; While free laptops were offered to college students, Jayalalithaa extended it to high school students. Additional offers include uniforms, shoes, 20 kg of free rice per month and free cable TV.After returning to power, Jayalalithaa expanded welfare, distributing mixers, grinders, fans, laptops, textbooks, goats and cows, gold for Mangalsutra, subsidized scooters and free electricity up to a certain limit to rural households.Jayalalithaa’s government also launched the Amma Canteen Scheme in 2013. These canteens were designed to provide nutritious, healthy food at deeply discounted prices to the urban poor, daily wage laborers and students. Despite the political changes in the state, canteens continue to function largely because of their immense popularity and the provision of essential services to the working class.By 2016, the DMK had promised milk at Rs 7 per litre, while the AIADMK had promised farm loan waivers, free 100 units of electricity, two-wheeler subsidies for women and gold for brides.Evolution of social service projectsNow, social justice projects seem to be shifting towards cash transfers and public benefits. DMK’s free bus travel for women, introduced in 2021, saw 4-5 crore trips monthly, improving the mobility of low-income women.The AIADMK has now proposed to extend such benefits to men and Rs 2,000 per month to women housewives.Financial questions, however, cannot be ignored. Tamil Nadu is not a poor state, but it cannot do financial magic. The state has long defended borrowing as productive and growth-linked—an argument that can more easily support projects like subsidized breakfasts and bus rides than promises like a refrigerator for every ration-card holder.Such schemes carry considerable financial implications. According to the report, monthly cash transfers alone could cost around Rs 36,000 crore annually, while Tamil Nadu’s total welfare expenditure is already between Rs 45,000-50,000 crore per year. The state’s outstanding debt has crossed Rs 8 lakh crore with annual interest payments of around Rs 40,000 crore.Tamil Nadu will go to polls in a single phase in all 234 constituencies on April 23, with counting scheduled for May 4.
