Take us through the methodology of your 18-month survey in the state?
As of today, 12 states have rolled out these cash transfers. Because of the political context in which the cash transfers are rolled out (used during elections), there are no baseline studies on people's lives before the cash transfer. The perspectives of politicians and researchers are different. Unlike some African countries, where they roll out such schemes in phases, in India it's rolled out at ‘mission mode’ by governments. We not only wanted to see if there were positive changes in the lives of beneficiaries, but also ascertain whether they were precisely due to the guarantees and not other extraneous factors like getting a job, inheriting some money and so on.
So, we considered women from comparative socio-economic backgrounds and divided them into two groups. One were beneficiaries of Gruha Lakshmi, while the other were not. We had a very detailed questionnaire of 100-120 questions, where we asked about their expenses before and after the schemes were rolled out and also their food habits. According to economists, this sample size (2,045) is adequate.
Female representation amongst surveyors is key to success in such surveys. How did you go about it?
This was something we struggled with, as the survey community is largely male dominated. It's very inconvenient, where you work 12-13 hours a day. We insisted that at least more than half of the surveyors should be women and got it. But there's no such thing as ‘understanding’ the female voter. We asked women if they voted for a particular party because of the promise of cash transfer and we didn't find any correlation between the two. This is made worse by the fact that every party is announcing cash transfers. In fact, there are more BJP states doing the cash transfer but on the face of it they don’t want to do it.
Critics question the cost at which guarantees are rolled out, with even the CAG report for 2023-24 flagging concerns.
It's true that the fiscal pressure is high. But it's hard to say what the focus really should be on? For centuries women have performed unpaid work and Karnataka’s (GSDP) wouldn't be there if women didn't do all the work at home. Feminists think women don't engage in paid employment due to the burden of unpaid work. Once you recognise this, you can redistribute it. When women are married in India, they enter into a transaction of sorts, where she has to do certain things and the husband takes care of her. So, these schemes are highly laudable since they change the patriarchal structure. Such arguments of financial instability were also made when MGNREGA was enrolled but it saved a lot of families during the Covid period. So, I think large experiments of this sort require some amount of political risk-taking.
Many experts and bureaucrats feel the guarantees can be made more focussed?
Yes, of course. It’s perfectly fine to have exclusion criteria. Karnataka is actually the most liberal (maximum budgetary expenditure on guarantees), and it’s a huge percentage of the Budget. In fact, the poorest people use guarantees for their basic needs, while wealthier ones use it for their luxury consumption. In fact, when we did pilot work in Chamarajanagar, we did some Focussed Group Discussions (FGDs). The first set of FGDs were with slightly better off women, who were using the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) and they had little shops everywhere. The second group were poorer SC women, who said they couldn’t afford to take 10 days off, attend training in some further off city and take training because we lost our coolie labour that day. So this is a gradation.
Don’t you think women from more marginalised communities should get more money?
31% felt all women should get it. Because they are saying we are all voters, citizens and we should get it. There are ways in which you give it to everyone but you can tax women for getting it. Because for wealthier women. Women from different groups are sitting together because they are now beneficiaries of Gruha Lakshmi. That solidarity between rich and poor women is critical. If you are giving it to every woman, you recognise that all women perform this kind of unpaid work for the benefit of the society. In other states where they gave different amounts to different women, for example West Bengal, it hasn’t worked well, because it produces resentment at the local level.
How did these schemes impact the village economy?
Women are saying that they are going to the city to buy because they have a free bus. Some people are saying that husbands are private transport providers and they lost their jobs because of Shakti scheme. There are ways of modelling it and we can learn a lot from other countries. A lot of African countries have done a lot to look at what happens at the village. This is one of our recommendations to look at the economic impact on the village as a unit.
Some BJP leaders had alleged that the guarantees will increase fights between husband and wife but your study indicates that 48% women felt day-to-day conflicts had been reduced.
Marriage to begin with is a highly unequal relationship. The BJP may think we are all living in islands of harmony but we are not. The guarantees are a gamechanger because the money reorients the marital bargain. We found that women now have more say over the husband’s earnings as a result of getting this money. Husbands are also trusting the women more in terms of their ability to run the finances of the household. It’s just shifting the relationship between the husband and the wife. It’s a social churn that will take time.
Since there are five guarantees, three of which are women-centric (Gruha Lakshmi, Gruha Jyothi and Anna Bhagya too since women are in control of the food), do you see any interdependence and is the packaging helping their holistic development?
Yeah, no doubt about it. Even other states have similar schemes, for example Tamil Nadu, but they were not presented like the 5 guarantees. Bringing them together, presenting them as five guarantees, highlights the interdependence.
After Karnataka, several states have also rolled out such schemes. Does this in way validate what Karnataka has done?
I think so. Some states are worse off than others. I think West Bengal is not in great shape, Punjab didn’t even roll it out, neither have Telangana or Delhi. It's easy to make the promise and win the election, but then they are being very guarded. Some have been saved, some have gone ahead and they are managing. But the fiscal thing is also a combination of other things they are spending on.
This should propel some other developments. Some women, according to your survey, felt this was not really earning more respect for them
But a good number felt it was (20% or so). We didn't find that in TN for example. I agree with you. I think this is necessary but not sufficient.
Fundamentally I think there has to be jobs, whether for men or women. But we cannot solve that problem. That’s a much bigger macroeconomic issue. Also, this investment in Health and education. We cannot stop talking about it. We have to keep pushing for it.
Do you think there are ways in which the men can be sensitised more about these schemes?
We have been working on an infographic that talks about some of the myths about cash transfers. Myth vs reality kind of infographics. The men are resentful of guarantees in every state, not just Karnataka. They thought the guarantees were causing inflation. We can take some of these myths and bust them. I think we can also have some things around unpaid work. Getting children to develop some skills (household work), especially boys, can help.