The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is fighting the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on two main planks: Hindutva and social welfare. These twin pillars of the BJP's political mobilisation are often treated as separate categories, analytically. Hence, the deeper political and ideological crux of BJP's welfare politics has largely been missed.
More than populism
However, a more careful analysis would reveal how the BJP's particular brand of welfare politics is not merely electoral populism. Especially in U.P., the BJP’s welfare regime — centred on Direct Benefit Transfers (DBTs) — has been designed as part of an ideological project that seeks to reshape the political identity of the welfare recipients and neutralise the basis on which a successful political challenge to Hindutva can be mounted.
