Abstract

This article highlights four schools of thought within the discipline of social work and their political implications. Tracing the evolution of social work briefly in the context of planned change in India, role of social work vis-à-vis state is critically assessed. The article concludes that apolitical stance maintained by social work unwittingly has been endorsing neo-liberal state.

Vidya Rao. PhD (Retired) Professor Centre for Social Justice and Governance, School of Social work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

Introduction

State led development strategies in the early decades and the economic reforms introduced in the nineties made and are making new demands on the discipline of social work in India. Despite the fact that social work as a discipline has been preoccupied with the micro-level remedial work for too long, it has managed to carve out its niche during the last seventy odd years of its institutional existence in Indian academia. Donor agencies – government and non-government local, national & international – have been promoting linkages between the social work educational institutions and their NGO partners in order to keep both afloat and competitive in times of cutbacks.

Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of its flourishing creativity and recognition, discussions about relevance of social work continue to take place even now among social workers themselves. These discussions have streaks of introspection that prompt us to ask whether social work has a body of knowledge of its own; if yes, as a body of knowledge, has Indian social work proved its utility. Is social work’s ability to generate knowledge about social reality adequate? Does the relevance of social work knowledge require endorsement by administrative and political elites who usually author social policy statements and design social welfare programmes?

Social workers are not called upon to formulate development policies or to advice appropriate means for direct intervention. Even then, their influence permeates social policy issues more indirectly than directly because social work, it is assumed, is unwaveringly committed to certain social values and value premises. While it adds to their credibility, the influence of social work is “ideological” because the discipline helps to deconstruct ideas with facts and appeal to people’s rationality. As an applied science, social work has had to remain committed to the canons of objectivity and empirically verifiable facts. As a social theory, it is expected to offer universalistic explanation. And social work theory, it is assumed, would act as a guide to social policy options. Though social theory and social policy are inseparably intertwined, some tensions have persisted between social theorists, be they sociologists, economists, psychologists or political scientists, and social workers throughout the development of social work as a discipline in India because social scientists lack practical knowledge and social workers’ theoretical knowledge is weak. Sociologists like Radhkamal Mukherji and D P Mukerji believed that policy and planning were not merely a technocratic exercise, but stressed the importance of integrating economy and culture, as planning is essentially a cultural task. If policies and plans have to reflect peoples’ aspirations, drives, motivations, capacities, then, Mukherji believed, these inputs could be provided better by social workers and social scientists other than economists.

Social work is expected to critique state policies as an act of representing the perspectives and voices of the marginalized. Relationship between social work and social policy offers an opportunity to assess social utility of the social work discipline. Whether the state and other users have been making increasing demands on the expertise and insights of social workers since the 1950s? What have been social workers’ attitudes and responses towards the task of policy making, planning and implementing programmes of the state? What is or would be the long term impact of that engagement on social work as a substantive, theoretical academic discipline? To identify modes of responses of social workers to growing demands for producing social knowledge relevant to changing contexts, one must look at where social work is situated in society, social structure and the processes of domination and marginalization in terms of ideology.

Social work educational institutions were traditionally the centres for knowledge production in the early decades. Since the 1980s, there has been gradual emergence of research and knowledge production outside social work educational institutions. NGOs have contributed a great deal to the production of social work knowledge. The emergence of new modes of knowledge production, for example various tools used for assessingimpact, vulnerability, organizational strength of NGOs, SHGs, protection of human rights, developed by other than social work academia and practitioners, was expected to alter the discourse about the perspectives and substantive contents of social work education in India. However, social work is lagging behind even in using the tools developed by others. What this will do to social work as a discipline in India remains to be seen. The end result and the extent to which social workers are able to engage in policy processes, and contribute to the processes of structural change will depend on its ability to identify object of its intervention and the establishment of its moral purpose.

Among Indian social scientists, only economists have met their role expectation and contributed to social policy (Dhanagare:2004:4). Since the early 1950s, Planning Commission has been deciding the direction of change, beneficiaries, quantum of resource allocation commensurate with priorities and policy relevance of a sector. Overall thrust is generally decided by political leaders and civil servants who have not been totally oblivious of the role social science research could play, but the structures are generally packed with economists

Unlike sociologists who wrote extensively on caste, rural economy, agrarian relations, population, family welfare, Indian working classes, food and nutrition, etc, social workers did not write as extensively even about poverty though they were confronting poverty, identity problems on a daily basis. When Community Development Programme was introduced in the 1950s, social workers were closely associated with the designing of the policy, programmes, implementation and evaluation. Some were involved in formulation of policies regarding children, women, criminal and custodial justice, habitat planning for the urban poor, rural development, population control, primary health, medical social work to name a few in the fifties, sixties and the seventies. Some of the social work educators like Kumarappa, AR Wadia, Bhyram Mehtha, MS Gore, PD Kulkarni, Kaikobad, Panakal, SD Gokhale, and AS Desai were extensively involved in policy making at state, national and international levels till about the 1980s and the first half of the nineties. They were influenced by freedom movement and they considered engagement with policy formulation an important part of social work in its change agent role.

MS Gore pleaded that social work and sociology should accept social policy as one of their direct concerns as policy issues are basically issues of human freedom, equality of opportunity, and human welfare. However, the framework of social pathology within which Gore tends to identify and analyze problems suffers from two problems:

1) Such a framework assumes ‘social work’ discipline to be the practical or ‘applied’ side of sociology; and 2) Whether or not sociological analysis has to provide theoretical foundation for prognosis and for problem solving is inadequately spelled out. Yet, to Gore, policy statement is quintessentially an ideological statement and social work has to engage with it.

This paper attempts to discuss some of the following questions – what is the impact of the national development trajectories on social work as an academic discipline? What is the evolving nature of social work as an academic discipline? What are the political implications of different views within social work? What is the impact of the prevalent socio – political context on social work? Can social work afford to be apolitical? What new knowledge and skills are required to meet at least some of the new demands?

Social work discipline

Social work is primarily a helping activity. This process involves a set of values, principles, methods and techniques. The body of social work knowledge has grown out of continual interaction between social work practice and theories of behavioural and social sciences. Social work knowledge base is basically eclectic in nature. And, because social work deals with satisfaction of human need, the scope of social work extends over wide range of fields of knowledge.

Owing to the fact that social workers conduct their activities in relation to others, every intervention by them is based on a political world view irrespective of the fact whether they are aware of it or not. The purpose of social work, therefore, is to (i) enhance the problem solving and coping capacities of the people. (ii) link people with systems that provide them with resources, services and opportunities. (iii) promote effective and human operation of these systems and (iv) contribute to the development and social policy (Pincus and Minahan 1973: 9).

Social work as a discipline in India has developed over a period of time, and has shifted focus from charity to development paradigm. However, the preoccupation of the discipline with the methods and the agency setting until recently has inhibited the development of its more important role – that of a change agent. Faced with difficult choices, social workers do their utmost to work out fair compromises among valid and competing claims and pressures to achieve their vision and mission. Consequently, although it claims to be a change agent, social work has been promoting unwittingly the status quo.

Conventionally, social workers in the process of helping clients, as mentioned above, make compromises rather than attempt changing the system even when it is exploitative and unjust because they consciously or unconsciously feel inadequate to deal with the larger issues. In this, several political realities stand out.

In the process of helping, social workers encounter systemic problems, such as mass poverty, unemployment, population explosion, illiteracy, malnutrition, ill health, lower productivity, partisan state and social / economic disabilities. If we assume that they become aware of them, then, it is expected of them to move from performing the conventional system maintenance function to the task of changing the system and emancipatory practice. The role of social work then is that of a catalytic agent for the developing and/or modifying the current policies / services / institutional structures (Desai as cited in Nair: 1981: 211-212).

Gore argues, there will have to be a distinct shift from an emphasis on individual adjustment to social structural modification; if social work is to engage in helping effectively; social workers must participate in the policy formulation and planning processes (Gore:1973:47-49). Essentially then , the thrust of social work should involve understanding and changing the position of oppressed and oppressive structures at the societal level while simultaneously counter acting the effects of oppression and ill effects of social change at the micro level. Viewed this way, social work is primarily concerned with conventional micro-level helping process, while simultaneously being engaged at societal-level social change. From this, three distinct foci emerge namely, (i) core of direct service delivery to the marginalized disadvantaged groups, (ii) planning and administration of welfare programmes and (iii) social action and social advocacy (Gore as cited in Nair: 1981:13). Conventionally, four modes of social work response in India can be delineated: 1) concentrate on what one is doing, 2) produce reports but remain indifferent about its utilization by policy makers, 3) lobby vigorously and get policy recommendations accepted, and 4) critically evaluate policies as complementary to effective governance.

Four Views Within Social Work

The growth of social work as a discipline in the western countries was mainly shaped by the practice of a particular method, a field of practice, agency setting and practitioners’ own perception of social work practice. This is also true of social work in India. Within this ethos of social work in India, there are four broadly held views, schools of thought about social, economic, political beliefs, the role of the state, and nature and scope of social work. They are: 1) the moral ethical, 2) the psychopathological, 3) the social– psychological and 4) the radical political views (Pritchard and Taylor; 1978:1). These four views are distinguished from each other on the basis of the importance given by each to work with individuals, work with groups, community work, advocacy and social action methods of intervention and their political consequences; and importance given to state, civil society and economic institutions.

The moral ethical view is perhaps the oldest. According to this view, poverty and individual suffering are wrong and are the consequences of individual’s own doing. While this view believes that nothing much can be to alleviate the situation, something should be done to reduce the suffering. Fundamentally changing the social structure is out of question. Human beings, as children of God, have to accept what is given even if only the fittest survive. In fact, those who are better placed in life should better their own positions by doing what they can to the poor without jeopardizing their own positions. Existential in character, the environment – political, social, economic institutions – is taken as given and not amenable to change. Despite the sincerity of this philanthropic view, the objective criteria for action and the effects of such social action are inherently conservative and tend to reinforce status quo.

This school subscribes to individualism, and believes that the inherent inequality among people is nature’s gift and cannot be altered. There should be freedom from government intervention and coercion. Private ownership and enterprise is sacrosanct; one should compete in the free market and fend for oneself and one’s family. Religion is a private matter and state cannot interfere. However, state should adhere to the norms of the dominant religion.

Thus, moral ethical view of social work, though seemingly apolitical, implicitly endorses rule by elite and believes in preserving social hierarchy. Economic issues should not be subject of public political discussion, effectively depoliticizing (taking economic decisions out of politics) them. As per this view, state should focus on maintaining stability, law and order and create conducive environment for individuals to be free; state should not attempt social reform or structural change. The end result of this perspective is paternalistic conservative state as the macro – cosmic context within which the micro level helping processes, which are residual and remedial in nature, take place. The nature of social structure, policies etc, are left to be maintained by the state even if the state policies are unjust and obnoxious.

In practice, this amounts to compelling people, even disadvantaged sections to look after themselves with the help of private charity; the aim of social work in this paradigm is to control peoples’ behaviour under the guise of caring. Deserving should be separated from the undeserving with the help of means-test. Even the deserving should be closely monitored to ensure proper use of benefits. This school essentially subscribes to the idea of social evolution and is loathe to deliberate human intervention in the law of nature.

It is, however, encouraging to note that the rudiments of social work were born as a reaction to this stand, to the Elizabethan poor laws in the U.K, laissez faire, and utilitarianism. These responses contributed to the birth of ‘Scientific Philanthropy’ in one way or the other, which in turn questioned the very assumptions of the moral – ethical school of thought. (Mullaly, 1993)

In the Indian context, fatalism can be likened to this school of thought. Especially, the conservative interpretations of the Karma theory come close to moral-ethical view. While attempting to Indianize social work, Banerjee (1972), Moorthy (as cited in Nair: 1981) come dangerously close to espousing this view. In the absence of further writing from them, it is difficult to brand them as ‘conservative’.

The second, the psychopathological view of social work aims to liberate and maximize individual’s potential for complete, mature social functioning. This school of thought is also referred to as the disease-model or the medical model because it uses the etiology of medical science – suffering, illness, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment. And, this view believes that the problem as well as its solution lies within that person. Social intervention process is like medical diagnosis and treatment. This school, as different from the moral ethical school, considers individual’s dispositions as amenable to ‘treatment’ – change and growth – provided a therapeutic milieu is facilitated. However, believing that social work can not single handedly attempt societal changes even if there are some unjust elements in it, this school of thought expects social work to bring about compatibility between the individual and his/her environment via individualized cathartic experience which cleans “the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff” (as cited in Pritchard and Taylor:1978:1974).

Having evolved from the psychoanalytical school of psychology, this paradigm denies implicitly any concern for restructuring the society to facilitate an environment in which the individual could learn to realize her/his potential. The basic principles of psychopathological views were developed by Hamilton (1937), Libbey (1925), Richmand (1922), Garrette (1942), Austin (1948), and others (as cited in encyclopedia of social work: 1971). Social workers belonging to this school of thought think it appropriate to engage in “treatment” of malfunctioning individuals and take up advocacy on their behalf. Medical social work in its initial stages in India subscribed to this school of thought.

As per psychoanalytical school, inequality can be modified by humanitarianism and pragmatism to ensure individual freedom and choice. This view holds that, competitive capitalism can help individuals realize their full potential, provided government adopts some protective policies. As there are differences among individuals, it is argued that, representative democracy is most suited form of governance. And, as welfare services need to be personalized, government is not the most appropriate mechanism to deliver personal care services. But, social welfare can be an instrument to modify negative aspects of capitalism. The governing principle is ‘equality of opportunity’ where all are equal in status before law but unequal in material resources, life chances and political power. Everyone who is a casualty of the industrial order has a right to a guaranteed minimum; collective responsibility for individual maintenance is the joint duty of the individual and his/her family and community. Those who are unable to work should be given a social minimum by the state to keep the social costs down.

Where the social and political systemic constraints have a dominant influence on the individual’s moral functioning, application of Freudian analysis to explain the individual malfunctioning was misplacing the emphasis, and the solutions were far removed from reality. It can be said with certain amount of confidence that this school of thought brought discredit to social work. Especially in India, where the basic sexual and

other instincts are sublimated through religion, family, caste system, psychopathological view enjoys less credence because it fails to recognize the influence of the social system- the family, the caste, the religion-on the individual sufficiently.

The third view of social work, social psychological view is an integrative concept which combines different methods of social work and adopts holistic view of a person and her/his situation. It combines societal and psychological aspects of individual. If there is imbalance between an individual’s coping capacities and societal demands on her/him, both need to be modified. Individual’s inner strengths on the one hand and the organizational resources in a society on the other need to be mobilized to restore normal social functioning of both the individual and the society located at two ends of a continuum. Social work then operates at both ends to bring about a change. In doing this social work has to develop the individual’s and the society’s resources to absorb the change.

Social psychological view believes in bringing about societal change in planned manner causing least societal disruption – what is called incrementalism in political science parlance – within the existing social structure. This feature sets it apart from moral ethical and psychopathological views of social work. For instance, the policy of reservation, land reform laws, anti poverty programmes attempt incremental changes so as to bring the weaker sections on par with the rest. According to this view, while social work cannot bring about these changes single handedly, social worker is expected to provide the necessary feed-back for the formulation of new policies. Social work is expected to soften and humanize the impact of such incremental changes on individuals, groups and communities. Social worker is also expected to act as a watch dog in the event unjust and exploitative practices prevail. Social work is to ensure equitable and just distribution of resources through legitimate democratic process.

This school of thought subscribes to egalitarianism, secularism, democracy, social justice, collectivism and liberty. Jane Addam’s (1910) work, Perlman’s work (1957), on settlement house in Chicago , contributions of Dunham (1962), Biddle (1965), Rothman (1968), Kramer and Specht (1969), Khinduka (1970) to community organization practice, Rein and Marris(1962), Wilensky and Lebeuax’s (1965) commentary on urban planning, industrialization and their impact on human life and living can all be said to have added much body of knowledge to this school of social work thought. The writings of Chatterji, Gangrade, Gore (1981), Kulkarni (1977), Siddiquii (1990), Rao (1996), have contributed to this school of social work thought in India; even these scholars have not explicated their ideological stand clearly.

Social psychological view of social work is far from being apolitical. Reformist in nature, this school expects social work to take a partisan political stand and take up advocacy on behalf of the poor, the marginalized and the exploited. The political and economic implications of this stand are far reaching. However, many a time compromises are made with the existing social structural arrangements, like the caste system.

With the adoption of welfare state ideology, the state in India was made to assume bulk of the responsibility for the provision of welfare services to the masses in the first three or four decades after independence. In the name of equality of treatment and freedom, the services/benefits were standardized and delivered on a mass scale through bureaucratic machinery. Consequently these services have become impersonal, dehumanizing and deny human dignity. These were unintended consequences.

While social work discipline stirred a great deal of hope and expectation in the first two decades after independence, social psychological school of social work thought blindly subscribed to government intervention in keeping with the national ‘consensus’ prevailing at the time. Unwittingly, social work took on statist position because it had no clear understanding of the implications of universal adult suffrage, secularism, democracy, party politics, electoral politics and politics of development. There was a lot of naiveté on the part of social workers and social work distanced itself from politics regardless of the fact whether social workers were part of government or were working from outside government. From the mid 1970s onwards, social work naiveté not only disappointed the disadvantaged groups who had pinned their hopes on the so called “trained professional” social workers, but also discredited “trained professional social work”. Public control of the means of production and distribution was not only stifling private initiative, but the ruling class had become self-serving and corrupt also. Social work belief that welfare state can be transforming was belied. Social workers, regardless of the fact that state itself had become oppressive and exploitative, continued to believe that state had a positive role in softening the negative aspects of economic growth.

Simultaneously, rediscovery of poverty and fundamental/civil rights had placed social work in a dilemma – whether to promote the welfare and protect the rights of their clientele or serve the interests of the state, when the latter had started working against the people. Their divided loyalties were increasingly exposed with the increasing demand for rights from the marginalized groups. The streak of reformist force within the humanitarian philosophy espoused by some social workers took activist form. Out of this was born the radical political perspective of social work.

Radical political view within social work attacks the very system out of which it originated. The emphasis is on changing the entire system rather than changing the person. Radical social work school is suspicious of the feudal and capitalist forces that perpetuate status quo. According to this view, social work, in any welfare oriented system only legitimizes the existing oppressive capitalist processes and acts as an institutional buffer to absorb potential revolt against the status quo. Radical social work activities range from client advocacy, reform, to civil disobedience, violent confrontation and total revolution. Work of Alinsky (1962), Thursz (1971) (as cited in encyclopedia of social work: 1971), Freire (1972) belong to this school. Social work in India having had conservative origins and having pragmatic outlook, initially rejected the radical political social work as unsuitable to the land of Gandhi. Perhaps for this reason, there have not been many social workers who take to radical social work. Abrogation of democracy and use of Emergency powers in 1975-76 by Indira Gandhi inspired Patkar and other non-party political formation activists to adopt radical social work to question the development model of the state by adopting non-violent civil disobedience Gandhian methods. They have been fighting for land, forest and water rights of project affected and indigenous people. Tribal and dalit leaders also raise fundamental questions about the development models adopted by the Indian state. Gandhian thought continues to inspire structural social work in India and elsewhere in the world.

Emergence of social work as a discipline in India

The above four views of social work undeniably confirm that social work neither had originated in a social vacuum nor is it able to operate independently of social/political forces. Keeping this in mind emergence of social work in India is briefly discussed.

Joint family system, the caste associations and the religious institutions of Indian society slowed down the emergence of social work even as a minor avocation until the 1950s. Neither the spate of social reforms against social evils such as child marriage, sati, and prohibition of temple entry etc, nor the indifference of the colonial rulers was conducive enough for the emergence of social work as a discipline in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The feeble efforts of NM Joshi and others at training volunteers to relieve the suffering of the factory hands in the 1920s and the 1930s were swept into the upsurge of the freedom movement.

Decisive efforts to establish professional training of social workers came as late as the 1950s. The earlier efforts in 1936 did not have the trappings of a full fledged discipline. It must also be noted that national efforts to develop the country had commenced by then. Community development and refugee rehabilitation programmes were introduced during the early decades of 1900s. The Indian constitution and parliamentary democratic system was established and the state was engaged in bringing about social revolution of a kind unknown in human history.

Many social work educational institutions were established to meet the challenges of a newly independent nation engaged in nation-building, economic development and institutionalizing democracy. However, social work did not have the required manpower or intellectual acumen to be engaged in the nation building endeavour nor democratizing processes in a meaningful way. Development functionaries, social planners, and social work academics were sent abroad to the USA and few other developed western countries under various bilateral technical cooperation agreements. It was expected that they would develop the required human resources upon return for the national effort.

As bulk of the social work educators went to the US, one of the unintended consequences was the ipso facto import of the corpus of American social work values and knowledge. Inter alia, they also brought with them a new consciousness for establishing social work as a ‘profession’ – typically capitalist idea, to make social work a vocation rather than a mission. This was contrary to Gandhian idea of social work. Further, it is interesting to note that maximum number of schools of social work came into existence during the fifties and the early sixties and, the Indian Association of Trained Social Workers, Indian Council of Social Welfare and other similar bodies were formed during this period. This period is also marked for the appearance of the concept of social work as a ‘profession’ in the professional journals and writings (Pathak: 1981).

A decade later, during the late sixties, ‘professional’ social work values came to be perceived to be slightly at variance from some of the traditional Indian world views. It was felt that due to this reason, the ‘profession’ could not become the central actor in the social transformation that was being attempted by the state. Even at this stage, there were debates about congruence between ‘professional’ and Gandhian values but adequacy of social work knowledge base was rarely questioned. Instead of upgrading the social work technology (knowledge plus methods, tools, techniques) to meet the challenges of planned change, seminars and conferences were devoted to bridge the gap between the so called ‘professional’ social work and Gandhian constructive social work.

It can be stated that the 1980s was the golden era of ‘professional’ social work, because more than 50 schools of social work were established in different parts of the country. It is now realized that the national commitment to and thinking about national unity, integrity, democracy, secularism, equality, individual freedom, centralized state, federal system and planned change have had a visible impact on social work as a discipline the 1980s. Subjects like democratic decision making, social action and social change, rural development and community work, development and environment, disaster management, management of income and employment generation programmes etc were incorporated into social work curriculum. Despite late recognition of the importance of these subjects, there was no clarity about the theoretical ideological perspective or framework that should undergird the subjects.

It was during the early 1980s that activists put the rights, entitlements of the vulnerable sections and role of the state in guaranteeing basic livelihood and food security to citizen on the political agenda. This was the period when the activists succeeded in getting the Employment Guarantee Scheme enacted and implemented in Maharashtra. However, social work was by and large ignorant about the entire process and about the implications. It was also during this period that Narmada Bachao Andolan questioned the appropriateness of the development model chosen by the Indian state; this peoples’ movement put the issues related to the management of common natural resources, environment versus life and livelihood issues on the political agenda. These issues went above the heads of most of the “trained professional” social workers as they could not think beyond the metropolises and middle-class pre-occupations. Few of the “trained professional” social workers were exposed to and sensitive to the issues concerning dalits and tribals, or for that matter Muslims, migrant labourers, displaced persons, women and children in difficult circumstances. The elite sections of social workers were preoccupied with ‘women’s issues’ and succeeded in getting some sort of a women’s policy drafted; even among them there was hiatus between those “activists” who had taken up issues pertaining to dalit and Muslim women. Although, so much was happening, scholarly work by social workers, both educationists and practitioners was a mere trickle.

In the 1990s, social work found itself unprepared to foresee the consequences of economic reforms, information technology revolution or globalization for the marginalized sections whose rights social work was committed to protect. There was brief period of disengagement of the imported variety of social work discipline. Once again, the social activists were quick to take the lead and articulate the implications of economic reforms on governance, citizens’ basic human rights and on the poor; social work followed their lead. Social work was groping for a suitable ideological perspective to adopt. There was very little attention paid to poverty theories – about the causes, manifestations, processes and measurement within social work. Till 2008, social work continued to treat mental health, domestic violence, atrocities against SC/STs as a pathological or as crime or personal problem rather than looking at these from the Fucouldian perspective – as processes of social domination and exclusion.

Planned Change and Social Work

The Indian state was attempting to introduce democracy, nation building and develop simultaneously; as part of this effort, the state was keen to encourage voluntary organizations to extend welfare services to the disadvantaged. All these developments raised expectations of the ruling class from social work to unprecedented levels. Social work was expected to identify the problems, draw up plans, implement them, provide feedback, change the policies, counter–act the ill–effects of change and so on without large financial implications. The reason given was that a developing nation could ill – afford to spend too much on welfare. Social worker’s own expectations of themselves about their role in planned development proved to be a tall order. Social work could not scale up in a short period to meet the government’s requirements and entry into government employment opportunities was through civil service. As such, social work as a discipline could not rise to the occasion.

Required to conform to government regulations, the voluntary agencies receiving government financial support felt inhibited in many ways. In this context, social work was supportive of the state. Social work was unable to comprehend that state was being dominated by the traditional ruling elite and constricting voluntary sector in effect amounted to excluding the marginalized sections. The promised social revolution was being stone walled in subtle ways and social work became part of this process unwittingly due to lack of ideological clarity. Social work believed in classless, casteless society. Not having an explicit opinion about identity politics and its dismissal of assertion of class, caste and ethnic identities was misread as euphemism for its belief in status quo. Nor did it have clear ideas about measurement tools for measuring poverty, disparities, deprivation. The message that got across was that through casework and other social work methods, class and caste bias was being reinforced on the ‘needy’. Without clear ideological perspectives about individual rights, dignity, freedom, role of state, state welfare, market, civil society, people’s organization, democracy, secularism etc, social work was easily co-opted into neo-liberal statist thinking. Except for the involvement of few well-known social work academics in the policy/ plan formulation at advisory committee levels, most of the ‘trained’ social workers found themselves to be qualitatively inadequate to contribute meaningfully to the process of development without deprivation (Gore: 1977). Consequently, beginning from the 1980s, social work came to be side tracked. In search of newer arenas of engagement, social work engagement expanded into arenas outside government, especially in such arenas as social work in industry, corporate social responsibility and so on, indicating ideological deficit.

In the seventies, when democracy was abrogated during a short period, and was restored thereafter, many non-party political formations came up as watch dogs. This development gave the impetus to social work to include social action and advocacy in the curriculum despite the fact that social work educators had very little political perspective about the role of opposition in a democracy. Activism, however, was equated with street politics and social work did not acquire the ability to engage in mainstream democratic politics of development through incisive writing and analysis. Search for relevance of social work continued during the eighties.

With neo-liberal forces gaining in strength in the 1990s, the international trend of looking at the voluntary sector as the substitute for state welfare percolated into social work academia. Seizing the opportunity, social work took to NGO management, but somewhat reluctantly. Once again, the lead to build the knowledge base for NGO management came from some of the ‘corporate NGOs’. Willingness to evolve management of NGOs as a new discipline within social work got strengthened by the economic reform regime ushered in the 1990s.

At the same time, radical stand of some of the peoples’ movements also influenced social work. Under pressure from left of center political forces, slowly social work realized the adverse impact of neo-liberal policies such as the SEZ and hollowness of Constitutional amendments to decentralize governance to give more powers to local self-government bodies for managing common natural resources without dismantling the edifice of caste and patriarchy. It was during this period that social work started looking at theoretical knowledge about democracy, state formation, linkage between ideology and governance, marginalization processes, loss of control over the common natural resources was required to engage meaningfully in facilitating sustainable development.

Social work parlance continued to refer to development in generic terms; this was suspect and social work’s neo-liberal sympathies stood exposed especially because social work has not actively involved itself in policy formulation processes pertaining to dalits, minorities, tribal people, land reforms and other structural issues. Social work continues to be vary of using Gandhian methods of non-violent civil disobedience. Social work as a discipline is not in a position to engage the state in a meaningful dialogue to achieve the vision and mission of the constitution. Social work stands co-opted by the same forces that reinforce capitalist, neo-liberal tendencies. Social work has become an object of change rather than being an agent of change.

Far from being neutral, the state has come to represents the interests of the elite, and has at its disposal the instruments necessary to keep the elites in power. In this context, social work finds itself to be ideologically inadequately prepared to intervene on behalf of their clientele, because it has become conservative and perpetrates status quo. Confronted by the need to create a new social order and to promote the development with social justice, social work has realized that active people’s participation is necessary, but has no leverage. In exceptional isolated localized instances, social work has been successful in demanding and obtaining efficient and just delivery of the entitlements for the poor, deprived, displaced and exploited as a matter of inalienable right. The emergence of medical social work as part of the municipal hospitals and social work in industry are some examples of social work conservatism. Huge rural, urban, forest, environment, management of common natural resources, local self-governance, malnutrition and other sustainable development agendas remain largely untouched by social work. Social work should redefine the new mantra – ‘private-public-partnership’ as ‘public-public-participation’ to acknowledge peoples’ power.

State and Social Work

Role of Indian state has been determined by its structural and functional evolution. As a conceptual entity, it is based on universally accepted moral principles, humanism and democratic ideals. Gradually, one party dominance has paved way for polarized pluralism, and more and more elements have entered the state system through free and fair elections. Indian constitution has become the principal site for the elaboration of political discourse of the state and has become central to an analysis of the changing role of political and bureaucratic structures. Over the years, with increased social mobilization and political contestation, state has been facing crisis of governability. There is a vast difference between the state of the 1950s and as it is today. Analysis of the changes in the party system and the federal system shows that there has been erosion of the Nehruvian centralized state. Multi-party system, strong regional parties, market ideas and practices have displaced central planning and controlled economy in the last two decades. Interventionist state has become increasingly decentralized regulatory state. The balance of power has shifted in favour of the Supreme Court, the Election commission and the President at the expense of the Parliament, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.

There is increased consciousness and understanding of the meaning of democratic revolution among people. Various identity groups seek autonomy and self-determination, and demand social, cultural, economic and political guarantees to fulfill their aspirations. The intensity of this challenge has shaken the state to such an extent that it has resorted to liberalization, globalization, religious mobilization and authoritarian repression to meet the challenge. The challenge has become much more complex and sophisticated due to information technology revolution. To meet the challenges in the new technological age, transforming the bureaucracy into a technocracy and creation of a different work culture are called for. That the state has the moral authority to intervene in case of religious conflict has been accepted by people; but corruption and criminalization of politics continue to erode state’s credibility. State is seen as universalizing and homogenizing cultural identities of a diverse people in the name of unity. This projects the agenda of the state as inherently repressive. Its inability to reduce disparities, poverty and violence indicate the need to strengthen state’s capacity to govern by broadening political space for direct peoples’ participation. Despite the accent on minimalist state, the Indian state is repositioning itself in order to adapt itself through rightsizing bureaucracy, streamlining public sector, promoting welfare of the disadvantaged, protection of human rights, social justice and economic equity in the changed globalized scenario.

Indian sociologists, social scientists and social workers with the exception of economists, have had little or no role in actual drafting of policy statements or in preparing development schemes in the post independence period. They seldom functioned as social engineers themselves except when they joined the government agencies directly set up for direct social intervention. Social work generally interacts with state – local, district, state and national levels – only when state’s action or inaction affects the people with whom social workers work. While the developments cited above had happened over the years, social work has never sat back to look at the features of the state nor the changed nature of the state; social work as a discipline has never articulated what kind of state is acceptable. Sociologists A R Desai and P C Joshi unfailingly exposed class interests that the development policy was serving and the hiatus between lofty policy and actual implementation of plans. P C Joshi warned of inherent danger of statism in social sciences and becoming mere tools of the government.

Practically every decision taken by the government has implication for the common person in terms of the degree of equality and liberty available to her/him and in terms of what s/he gets and how much of it s/he gets. Policy questions such as whether to subsidize the big farmers or the small, whether to set prices of public corporations at the levels that tax or subsidize rich consumers, whether to build roads for private motor cars or vehicles for mass transportation, to improve quality of education in rural or urban school etc, affect the common person. In such a context, social work is in a position to analyze the nature, role and function of the state. Near absence of theory in social/work research and emphasis on dealing with immediate practical problems has prevented social work from asking fundamental questions about the role and functions of the state. Neither academics nor practitioners have articulated their assessment of the Indian state in systematic organized manner because social work considers itself to be apolitical. Social work in fact is political and cannot avoid being involved in politics of development as an agent of change.

Reports about the educational status of SCs/STs were published in the 1960s and 1970s in different states and resultant policy implications were highlighted. Subsequently Mandal Commission report was also published and 27% reservation was adopted. To quote Dhanagare, “Sociology, social anthropology, social work and economics grew in each other’s shadow….sociology remained confined to the model of ‘pure’ theoretical science, whereas ‘applied’ concerns – policy issues and planning exercises appeared to have been ‘consigned’ to social work and economics”. But there is little evidence of social work being involved in planning exercises on these issues.

At the implementation level, social work has not been officially systematically involved in large development programmes such as the NRGA, NRHM, Bharat Nirman, SSA, SHGs and other poverty reduction programmes in different parts of the country. Social work involvement has been patchy and scattered. Organizing the people at the grass roots level to ensure proper utilization and maintenance of public utilities, explaining the norms of the equitable distribution, interpreting government’s mission and policies are the some of the tasks that social work is equipped to perform. In the absence of such functionaries acting as the bridge between the people and the state, traditional caste and patriarchy continue to deny entitlements to the marginalized sections. Where the state is slow in taking action against unjust, unfair, inhuman practices, social work can act as watchdog and bring them to book.

But why is social work as a discipline not willing to engage in explaining the processes of dominance, marginalization and exclusion? Firstly, social work takes the state as ‘given’ not amenable to change. Social work has failed to understand the complexities of multi-party democracy and how the forces of neo-liberalism work in an open social democracy. In this sense, it can be said that social work has been conservative and unwittingly been co-opted by neo-liberal regime. Secondly, social work, as a ‘profession’ has become averse to risk-taking. Social workers are closely supervised by their employers whose survival depends on state and financial support. Thirdly, social workers are not in a position to act on their own on such issues. Lacking public support, social work does not have the require leverage of public support. Fourthly, social work is late in understanding the virtue of networking and advocacy.

Current social work knowledge, methods and techniques are inadequate for meeting the challenge posed by liberalization, privatization and globalization. Social work principle of individualization has resulted in atomization, stigmatization and fragmentation. Social work unwittingly has become party to the stigmatization, dehumanization and marginalization processes of domination. Inadequate role definition, means-ends dilemma, lack of clear ideology, middle – class value orientation are preventing social work from taking up rights-based approach and from being a change agent. Social work’s engagement with the state and policy processes have depended on the nature of prevalent social thought, economic and political development, changes in the social relations between different sections of society and changing relationship between state, civil society and economic institutions.

Under what circumstances do leaders emerge from among the marginalized groups? What are the limits of tolerance of discontentment? Under what circumstances, which group of people will mobilize themselves to engage in a dialogue with the state? What are the techniques and strategies required to facilitate emergence of necessary leadership, to precipitate a feeling of urgency to engage with the state in a non-adversarial manner? Can the very leverage that the politician uses to better her/his own position become available to social work to facilitate inclusive growth? What are the direct or indirect implications for social work?

Firstly, social work needs to analyze and understand how neo-liberal forces dominate, marginalize and exclude in the complex multi-party democracy. Secondly, social work should accept that social work is political and learn to be a stake holder in the politics of development on behalf of the marginalized and excluded. Thirdly, build required knowledge base for participating in the politics of development as a change agent. Lastly, social work has to learn how to convert private personal issues into political public policy issues with peoples’ support and supportive public opinion. In short, it is time engage in structural or anti-oppressive social work.

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