Student protests have brought India's welfare model into focus—and it clearly needs a basic rethink

Student protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi did not only secure the resignation of India's former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan but should also be credited with other achievements. The first, and interesting, outcome is how it has helped revive students' abilities to articulate concerns about the education system's structural flaws, exercise agency over their own future and re-assert their civil rights while interrogating authority. Second, it once again underscored the contradictions and paradoxes that bedevil India's society and economy. But, more importantly, it has refocused attention on an issue that has been left hanging in the air: can welfare economics paper over structural fault-lines? These three issues need expanding. The past decade has witnessed the infantilization of students and suppression of their political rights. While the state encourages them to participate in the country's largest political activity—elections of all kinds—it simultaneously uses repressive measures to restrict other forms of political expression. Many ruling party apparatchiks have used this as an excuse to persecute politically-conscious students; some even interpreted it as a licence to unleash violence on students, as experienced in some leading universities. The state perhaps has an instinctive aversion to mass student movements, given how some of these have historically managed to wreak political changes—1968 in Paris forced the Charles de Gaulle government to bring in sweeping social changes, 1998 in Jakarta ended the 32-year reign of authoritarian president Suharto, the 1970 campus protests against America's expanding wars in Vietnam and Cambodia fuelled nationwide anti-war sentiment. The spark lit by students in Delhi has now engulfed many other college and university campuses. It has even inspired school children in various states to demand better infrastructure. The student agitation has also drawn attention to a dreary paradox: the Indian economy's fast-growing output and rising number of billionaires alongside a bulging army of educated-unemployed youth and widening inequality. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7.8% for the first quarter of 2026-27—in the midst of a global conflict, rising prices, the private sector's stubborn reluctance to invest and a deteriorating job market—re-asserts this conundrum. Leaked question papers for medical entrance exams may have provided the initial catalyst for this year's student uprising, but it also provided a platform for many other students to express their frustrations with a creaky, corrupt education system and a constricted job market. Millions of Indians between the ages of 15 and 29 are either unemployed, forced into informal jobs or stuck in low-paying inferior jobs. India's demographic dividend is fast turning into a liability. It is also a political liability and the political class recognizes it. Ironically, though, instead of fixing structural flaws, politicians have resorted to an aggressive spinning of the welfare dial. About 10 Indian states have already added a new category for resource transfers: educated unemployed youth. This is in addition to unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) to women and farmers, which have now become a generalized trend. With the state failing to provide basic services, as laid out in the Constitution's Directive Principles of State Policy, UCTs have become necessary to stave off poverty, supplement basic income and sustain essential consumption. Most of these cash transfers are targeted at specific demographic cohorts (such as women, though some are also universal), but are essentially unconditional with no restrictions on how the money is spent. According to the Economic Survey for 2025-26, the number of states with UCTs increased five-fold between 2022-23 and 2025-26. Budgetary allocations for women-centred UCTs alone across states are now close to ₹2 trillion. Cynicism sets in when UCTs are launched with a view to harvest only electoral dividends. Maharashtra's Majhi Ladki Bahin Yojana, for example, was launched in June 2024, five months ahead of the state's assembly elections in November 2024; once the incumbent coalition of parties returned to power, around 40% of the beneficiaries were removed. In West Bengal, a newly-elected political dispensation is removing about 60% of the beneficiaries from an existing women-centred UCT scheme and trying to replace it with a new one in an attempt to consolidate and expand its political patronage. Yet, there is no denying that UCTs have become indispensable for some vulnerable segments of Indian society, such as women in certain socioeconomic categories or distress-prone farmers. According to non-profit organization Project Deep, 'UCTs foster dignity, agency and independence, driving outcomes in gender, education, healthcare and other critical areas.' It is also true that UCTs provide much-needed temporary funding for the educated-unemployed. But that cannot be a permanent solution, especially if it effectively replaces the state's long-term investment in the enabling infrastructure for sustainable economic growth and job creation. It seems unlikely that India's restless youth will quietly accept their lot as a fait accompli, settle for UCTs rather than jobs that provide opportunities for life improvement, forsake protests or demonstrations, and still vote for the same political party. In reality, all of this actually looks like a risk with a very long tail. The author is a senior journalist and author of 'Slip, Stitch and Stumble: The Untold Story of India's Financial Sector Reforms' @rajrishisinghal