Narendra Modi is playing a dangerous game with India’s most vulnerable citizens. The Prime Minister’s move to replace the rights-based MGNREGA scheme with a discretionary welfare program is not just a policy shift; it is a dismantling of the social contract that has kept rural India afloat for two decades. Critics warn it could trigger a revolt akin to the 2021 farmers' protests.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), enacted in 2005, guaranteed 100 days of work to any rural household. It was a lifeline for 50 million families, particularly women. Modi’s new plan, VB-G RAM G, centralizes control, allowing New Delhi to "switch off" funding at will.

From Rights to Charity

Economist Jean Drèze calls it a "constitutional vandalism." By removing the legal right to work, the government turns employment into charity. Under the new rules, if a state is out of favor with the central government, funds can be capped, leaving the poor to starve.

• The Gender Impact: Over 50% of MGNREGA workers are women. The scheme gave them financial independence and bargaining power. Scrapping it threatens to push millions of women back into extreme poverty and dependence.
• The Climate Buffer: With climate change causing erratic monsoons, the job guarantee acted as an automatic stabilizer. When crops failed, people built roads. Without it, a drought in Rajasthan becomes a famine, not just a hardship.
• The Electoral Risk: Modi is betting he can weather the storm. But rural distress is real. The states most affected—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh—are electoral battlegrounds. If the opposition mobilizes the anger of the rural poor, Modi’s "technocratic reform" could become his political gravedigger.

A Storm Brewing

The parallels with the disastrous Farm Laws are stark. Once again, a policy is being imposed from the top without consultation. And once again, the resistance is forming in the villages. Modi may have the parliament, but he does not control the rain, and he may soon find he does not control the street.