Democracy as Performance: Modi’s Welfare Schemes and the Politics of Credit

In recent years, major government welfare schemes, ranging from initiatives for marginalised communities and women to old age pension and employment schemes have been frequently tied to highly publicised moments centred around the figure of the Prime Minister. A notable example of this was the celebrations around Narendra Modi’s 75th birthday, with the launch of several government welfare schemes targeting different sections of society, ranging from tribal groups, women, to old-age pensioners and physical and mental healthcare. Government advertisements and media houses amplified the narrative, portraying these schemes as a “birthday gift” from the Prime Minister to his nation.What we are looking at is a part and parcel of a larger phenomenon, which we term “populist mimicry,” that is, the appropriation of democratic delivery of welfare to a personalised project while hollowing out its meaning. Under a democratic set-up, welfare ought to be understood as an obligation of the state, irrespective of the government in power, rather than an act of benevolence.Accordingly, it must both be carried out and communicated as the impersonal duty of the state. Article 38(1) captures this idea quite clearly: The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life.However, under the Modi government, the welfare delivery is advertised as a personalised project of the Prime Minister. The way the schemes are being advertised blurs the line between the responsibility of the state and a personal extension of the PM’s favour directly to the people.The making of this personalised project has two components to it: first, the attribution, that the welfare services being received by the beneficiaries are given directly by the PM, and as a subset to this attribution, there is a slow and subtle making of psychological ties from which emerges the obligation of the people towards the PM to return the favour granted.From Tax to Gift: PM Modi’s GST Ads Blur Line Between Governance and Promotion Let’s look at the basic amenities provided by the government in Delhi. Newly launched government transport buses, water tanks being carried to shortage-affected areas, ration shops under the Public Distribution System, Jan Dhan Aushidhi Kendras and even the certificates of COVID-19 vaccination carry the photograph of PM Modi in huge posters and signboards. The everyday encounters of beneficiaries with these services are consistently linked to the picture of the Prime Minister. This, even if unintentional, creates a subconscious idea that the scheme is being given to them by him and not as a right ensured by a democratic state.This aligns closely with Robert Zajonc’s Mere Exposure Effect, which suggests that repeated exposure to a stimulus—be it an image, a word, or a person—makes individuals more likely to develop familiarity and positive feelings toward it, even without any positive reinforcement. The constant visibility of the Prime Minister’s image alongside essential government services reinforces the personalisation of welfare distribution.Evidence from the 2024 DALES dataset on the Lok Sabha Elections supports this emerging trend. From our analysis, on the question of “Who does the voter credit their welfare benefit to?” around 92 percent of the respondents (29,942) credited welfare to the “Politicians” as opposed to only 8 percent who credited it to the bureaucrats. On top of that, when asked about who gets the most credit amongst politicians in Central Schemes, the majority of respondents (54.2 percent or 2950) attributed it to the Prime Minister. These numbers suggest a growing trend among the beneficiaries to attribute the state’s welfare provisions directly to the Prime Minister.Furthermore, this attribution, along with the words used in the advertisements of the welfare schemes by government agencies and media houses, creates an imagery of ‘gift’ in the public consciousness. To cite a few examples, PM “Modi’s Diwali gift to the Poor” on the occasion of Diwali last year, or the GST reforms of 2025 that were advertised as a “great gift” of the PM, and even on the occasion of Independence Day, PM Modi launched an employment scheme advertised as a “gift to India’s youth” all point to the exhibition of gifts as being provided to the citizens by the Prime Minister.Drawing on Marcel Mauss’s famous work The Gift, gifts carry within them the social power to create obligations to receive and return, binding people together in networks of reciprocal exchange. Advertising the schemes as a “gift” from the PM adds to the foundation of attribution and creates subtle psychological ties, in the sense that a favour received has to be returned. This obligation to return does not arise from any kind of institutional coercion but from the power of social ties themselves. It is a kind of moral and social pressure that emerges from the bonds of receiving and giving in everyday practices.When welfare services, advertised as “gifts”, reach the common people, it comes with the subconscious urge to reciprocate the favour. This subconscious urge has the potential to become a driving force for voting for the Prime Minister, and thus “returning” the favour.Within the social ties between the Prime Minister and the beneficiaries, reciprocal exchange often finds its expression during elections. This is because elections provide an opportunity where candidates often go to citizens to request their support, and those who have previously received a favour are positioned to now reciprocate it, thus fulfilling the cycle of exchange.This nexus of giving and returning the ‘favour’ is a part of a larger phenomenon that we mentioned above as “populist mimicry”, a practice of governance where leaders imitate democratic practices within populist frames. This means that leaders of the government, while operating within populist frameworks, mimic democratic principles.This nexus of giving and returning the ‘favour’ is a part of a larger phenomenon that we mentioned above as “populist mimicry”, a practice of governance where leaders imitate democratic practices within populist frames. This means that leaders of the government, while operating within populist frameworks, mimic democratic principles. To put this definition within the framework of our argument, Narendra Modi is a prime minister elected through democratic procedures, but operates within the broader characteristics of a populist leader, targeting only certain sections of society through the schemes, their advertisements, and even his larger political campaign. Populism often carries an element of ‘personal’ in it as leaders claim to represent the ‘authentic’ voices of the common people, or the masses. The project of personalisation of welfare works in alignment with this idea of resonating with and thus also belonging to the ‘common’ class.As India continues to be a country where large sections of society still struggle and negotiate with day-to-day hardships emerging from socio-economic conditions, welfare distribution is a major source of relief for such people. PM Modi’s active efforts to associate himself with the welfare services of the State are his sincere attempts to create an imagery of ‘resonating’ with the masses; in the sense that he ‘understands’ the hardships of the struggling class, and he is doing ‘everything within his powers’ to provide relief to it.“Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikaas” is a political slogan that is always accompanied by the smiling picture of PM Modi alongside a person from socially and economically backward sections. What actually happens is an imitation of a democratic delivery, as argued previously, where welfare services are being attributed to the Prime Minister. This “impartial state responsibility” is reimagined in the minds of the beneficiaries as a “gift” provided by the Prime Minister.What we term “mimicry” refers precisely to this appropriation of democratic delivery as a personalised project that frames any benefit provided to the people as a favour rather than an impersonal obligation of the state. This phenomenon is a threat to the core values of democracy enshrined in our Constitution.A leader, irrespective of which government is in power, often represents less than half of the eligible voting population, owing to the first-past-the-post system. Yet, such a leader can increasingly become the face of the State itself, rather than the face of government, if the line between things bestowed by the state and those granted by the government continues to blur.(Sharmistha Shivhare and Anamta Husain are students at Ashoka University. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Topics: Narendra Modi Welfare