Ladli Behna

It is a small thing. Yet it tells the recipient that the government has dealt directly with her, rather than through her husband, father or some local intermediary.

That matters in a country where women’s economic independence remains limited. Even where women participate extensively in work, much of it is informal or unpaid.

For a woman in such circumstances, Rs.1,500 a month may not be transformative in the conventional economic sense. But it is not meaningless either. It means a little bit of independence.

For a woman in such circumstances, Rs.1,500 a month may not be transformative in the conventional economic sense. But it is not meaningless either. It means a little bit of independence.

And that is precisely why the politics of these schemes is more interesting than the usual “freebie versus fiscal prudence” argument suggests.
Welfare can buy political goodwill. But it cannot buy permanent loyalty.

West Bengal is a useful reminder.

Lakshmir Bhandar became one of the Trinamool Congress government’s signature welfare programs, providing monthly financial assistance to millions of women. Yet in the 2026 Assembly election, the Trinamool Congress was decisively defeated. The BJP campaigned on its own promises to women, including a commitment to raise the monthly benefit, while female turnout reached an extraordinary 93.24 per cent.

The lesson is not that welfare failed. The lesson is that welfare alone is not enough.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Ladli Behna Yojana provided a cumulative monthly payment of Rs.1,250 to millions of women. The BJP went on to win the 2023 Assembly election by a wide margin.

Women may appreciate a transfer and still vote against the government that provided it. They may value a benefit and still worry about jobs, prices, security, corruption, education or their children’s future.

The same point is visible in Tamil Nadu, where the long-standing welfare model of Dravidian politics did not prevent the DMK from losing power in 2026.
This is where the political significance of women voters becomes clearer.

The important change is not simply that governments have discovered women as beneficiaries. It is that women are increasingly being recognised as decision-makers.

That makes them much harder to take for granted.

However, this new welfare politics comes at a fiscal cost. The Economic Survey has warned that the rapid expansion of unconditional cash transfers can put pressure on state finances and potentially crowd out growth-enhancing expenditure. That concern should not be brushed aside. A monthly transfer is politically attractive precisely because it is immediate and visible. A new school, hospital, irrigation project or industrial corridor takes years to build and may not produce an electoral dividend before the next election. Thus, the temptation for politicians is obvious. Give people something today. Worry about tomorrow later.

Maharashtra illustrates another problem. Following a statewide verification exercise, the government removed more than 92 lakh beneficiaries from Ladki Bahin — roughly 38 per cent of the scheme’s earlier beneficiary pool. The government has attributed the removals to incomplete e-KYC and other eligibility problems. Opposition parties, however, have questioned why the verification process was undertaken only after the Assembly election.

Whatever one’s political interpretation, the episode exposes a basic weakness in large-scale welfare programs: governments must know whom they are paying, why they are paying them, and whether they can afford to keep paying.

Jharkhand presents the same dilemma on a different scale. Its Maiya Samman Yojana was allocated Rs. 13,363 crores in the 2025-26 budget, a substantial commitment for a state with limited fiscal room. The following year’s budget allocated another Rs.14,066 crores.

The debate, therefore, should not be reduced to whether cash transfers are good or bad.

The better question is whether they create genuine economic security or merely a substitute for it.

If a woman receives money but still has no access to decent employment, reliable healthcare, safe transport, quality education for her children or control over productive assets, the transfer can become a permanent substitute for reform.

That would be a poor bargain.

But if welfare gives a woman the breathing space to educate a daughter, pay for transport, start a small enterprise, buy necessities without asking someone else for money, or simply make a household decision with greater confidence, then calling it a “freebie” tells us very little.

The political consequences are already visible.

Indian political parties are discovering that women are not merely a demographic category to be mentioned in manifestos. They are a constituency with specific interests and the confidence to judge governments on whether those interests have been addressed.

That brings us to Pakistan.

We should resist the temptation to look across the border and congratulate ourselves on being different.

Pakistan’s political parties have not yet fully adjusted to the possibility of an increasingly independent female electorate. Women vote, of course, and in many constituencies, they are a substantial part of the electorate. But political campaigning and party organisation still too often treat women through the household.

Pakistani women have their own concerns: inflation, education, healthcare, transport, employment, inheritance, violence, childcare and access to financial services. These are not secondary “women’s issues”. They are economic and political issues that affect families and the country as a whole.
India’s experience offers a warning as much as an example.

Cash transfers can create gratitude, but they cannot guarantee obedience. Welfare can strengthen a government’s relationship with women, but it cannot prevent those same women from changing their minds.

Indian women may not be looking for political power in the conventional sense. They are simply discovering the power that comes with a vote they regard as their own.