India’s development journey has often oscillated between two approaches: a social welfare model—welfare schemes delivered at the discretion of the government based on their priorities, assessments, and promises—or through a rights-based framework—rights and entitlements mandated legally and, at times, secured through collective struggle and public pressure.
However, there continues to be a significant disconnect between the constitutional vision of India, which ensures a basic threshold of well-being needed to live a life of dignity, and the ground realities of how this vision is put into practice. Recognising that state schemes, policies, and laws are often inadequate, inaccessible, or poorly implemented, civil society and grassroots organisations often step in to bridge this development gap.
This raises a question that we have often encountered in our work across collectives, movements, nonprofits, and funding spaces alike: What is the difference between the two development paradigms—welfare versus rights—and how does it apply to the social sector? In this article, we draw on our experiences to unpack how these two approaches shape the sector’s understanding of development, and what it means for organisations working on building a more just and equitable society.
Social welfare as ‘an obligation’ versus entitlements as a right
Social welfare refers to policies, schemes, and programmes designed by the state to support marginalised communities. Often framed as acts of largesse, these measures include schemes for food distribution, healthcare, and employment. Unfortunately, welfare schemes have functioned as services granted by the government at its discretion rather than as enforceable rights. This dependency has created power imbalances, often leaving marginalised communities vulnerable to exclusion, bureaucratic inertia, and systemic failures.
Historically, these welfare initiatives were usually framed as temporary solutions to meet immediate needs, such as providing relief work during times of famine or drought. The implementation was arbitrary—such as when and for what duration these services would be provided, or who the beneficiaries would be. The problem with dissociating basic needs from rights is that it promotes the view of the state as a provider of ‘freebies’ instead of affirming that all citizens have the right to be free from the systemic inequality that causes hunger, poverty, and deprivation.
In contrast, a rights-based approach transforms welfare into legally enforceable entitlements, holding the state accountable for upholding human dignity. Under this approach, services that support citizens to a basic threshold in terms of quality of life are not treated as one-off measures. Instead, they are granted permanently, recognising individuals as rights-holders and the state as duty-bound to fulfil certain obligations. The rights-based model is rooted in constitutional guarantees and citizen’s rights.
Rights-based approaches and their relevance across the social sector
But what does being rights-based mean for civil society organisations (CSOs)? Why should they move in this direction when it is the state’s responsibility to ensure rights?
Development must not violate social or economic rights.
While constitutionally mandated, the state’s approach is often constrained by political apathy, bureaucratic delays, and systemic exclusion. Therefore, for change to be sustainable, organisations must go beyond service delivery and invest in building people’s collective voice, critical consciousness, and ability to organise. Being rights-based means doing the deeper work of ‘conscientisation’—helping people see themselves as rights-holders in a democracy. It means not just filling gaps but challenging unjust systems so that communities can demand state accountability on their own terms.
The scope of fundamental rights and the directive principles of state policy has often been expanded through sustained advocacy and pressure from people’s movements and communities. Paras Banjara, associated with Soochna evam Rozgar Adhikaar Abhiyan and other platforms, underscores how framing entitlements as rights equips citizens to demand accountability and seek redress when rights are denied. He says, “It is not benevolence from the state but people’s organised struggles that have pushed the government to enact and implement rights-based laws. This ongoing people-led push has led to landmark rights-based laws on education, food security, employment, forest rights, protection from domestic violence and caste atrocities, among others.”
For instance, MGNREGA comes from the Right to Life and Article 41, which states that the state must provide social assistance towards securing employment, since work is an essential component of a dignified life. Different collectives and campaigns from across the nation came together to form a movement for the passing of this law, under the banner of NREGA Sangharsh Morcha. The Morcha is still active to ensure proper implementation of the law.
For CSOs, a rights-based approach emphasises not only the outcomes of development but also the processes through which they are achieved. Unlike some development models focusing primarily on results and targets, rights-based approaches uphold the principle that development must not violate social or economic rights or exacerbate inequalities, especially if the goal is to enable long-term, structural change.
In a political climate where rights are being constantly being eroded, organisations can reflect on how to have a more rights-based lens to their work. Here are some questions they can ask themselves.
1. What is our perception of people across marginalisations and communities?
The welfare approach often frames marginalised communities as passive recipients. This is evident in the language used: consider ‘targets’, ‘beneficiaries’, or even ‘aid’. Such framing not only reinforces hierarchy but also risks reducing people to data points in a delivery system instead of recognising them as rights-holders who have been left out of ‘development’ due to systemic injustice.
Nonprofits working with communities marginalised by caste, class, gender, religion, disability, or geography must reflect on why they engage with these groups. Is it only because they are seen as the most vulnerable at present? Or is there a deeper understanding that these communities have been systematically disadvantaged by the same structures that privilege others? Rights-based work requires this critical reflection—and a commitment to justice, not just charity.
Additionally, a rights-based perspective recognises the historical injustices and systemic exclusions that have shaped present-day inequalities. One powerful example of this is the Forest Rights Act, a legal intervention that sought to correct the historical wrong of denying Adivasi and forest-dwelling communities their land and resource rights during the consolidation of state forests. By recognising these rights, the law aimed to undo decades of marginalisation and displacement. According to Sabah Khan, founder of Savitri Fatima Foundation for Inclusive Development, “Rights-based work often involves asking difficult questions and making firm demands of those claiming to uphold human dignity—demands that are grounded in the Constitution of India. In the case of food, a welfare or a charity model would distribute food packets or meals.
A rights-based model would ask for the accountability of those responsible, building the consciousness of the community to ask for and monitor the implementation of these rights, while also perhaps employing crisis measures for the short-term. For instance, Rationing Kruti Samiti, an organisation in Maharashtra, works to ensure access to food and other essential commodities through the Public Distribution System (PDS) as part of the National Food Security Act. At the same time, it also advocates for improvements towards making the system more accountable and transparent.”
2. What does leadership include?
A rights-based perspective demands an interrogation of our own roles within the social sector and development space, especially when holding positions of privilege. Are we creating space for genuine leadership from the ground up, or are we reinforcing hierarchies under the guise of service? Too often, only the head of an organisation—frequently from a privileged caste, class, or gender background—is given visibility and opportunities for traction.
Leadership within a rights-based framework centres (or at the very least includes) those most affected by the issue itself—people from marginalised communities who bring lived experience, social and political clarity, and local knowledge. When leadership is held only by those removed from the experience of inequality, injustice, or discrimination, even well-meaning interventions can reproduce the very structural issues they seek to address.
This principle must extend beyond individual representation to organisational culture. Are systems being designed to actively include people from historically excluded backgrounds? Are the organisational norms, language, and practices accessible and equitable? Who has the right to occupy which positions within the organisation? Who is doing the fieldwork, and who represents the organisation at national or international platforms? Who gets paid how much? These questions go to the heart of how we build structures that uphold equality, dignity, and justice—not just efficiency.
Civil society is a reflection of mainstream society, and just like most private bodies, due to lack of affirmative action, many tend to be led by oppressor castes, upper-class, English-speaking, able-bodied, cis-het persons, irrespective of the issue they may be working on. This may not be an indicator of the organisation’s intent—at least, when it is starting out. But if an organisation has been working with marginalised communities for many years yet does little to promote leadership from within those communities—beyond token representation—it is fair to question its approach.
3. Who is defining the need?
Too often, organisations arrive with preconceived solutions rather than working alongside communities to co-create change rooted in lived realities and aspirations. Are we viewing people and communities as passive recipients of services ‘given’ by the government or nonprofits, or as active rights-holders who play a central role in shaping their own development? Solutions that exclude the very people they claim to serve in the decision-making or ideating process are neither sustainable nor just.
A rights-based approach recognises that equality cannot be delivered top-down. It’s not about privileged actors ‘giving voice’ to the marginalised but about dismantling the structures that silence them. This means shifting from individual upliftment to systemic change—through advocacy, redistribution, and inclusive, participatory processes. Real transformation lies in the everyday practices of inclusion: who is in the room, who gets to speak, who holds power, and whose realities shape the agenda.
Is the organisation willing to redefine the issue they originally thought to work on? This requires upholding and centring the agency of the community. For instance, an organisation may believe that a community needs support to tackle the impact of climate change, but the community may have a different issue that it sees as more urgent, such as food security.
We learned this first-hand when facilitating a fellowship that engaged rural youth from marginalised communities on constitutional values and rights. Yet year after year, they told us the same thing: “What we really want is quality education—and the same opportunities you’ve had.” Eventually, we shifted our work to reflect what we were hearing, and these efforts were co-led by the very youth who went on to avail of these opportunities.
4. Are you advocating for structural change
Raj Mariwala, director of the philanthropy at Mariwala Health Initiative, which funds rights-based organisations, says, “Too often, impact is measured in numbers—things that are tangible, countable. Rights-based work aims for transformative change, not just surface-level relief. It tackles the deep-seated barriers of inequality. Funding rights-based work means funding justice. Organisations should help build an ecosystem where basic human rights—such as education, livelihood, health, and freedom from violence—are not treated as privileges, but as entitlements guaranteed to everyone. The issues we fund aren’t isolated ‘problems’; they’re symptoms of systemic failures.”
A rights-based approach demands accountability, redistribution, and the centring of people’s agency and participation. It is rooted in the Constitution, which envisions justice as a guarantee, not charity. Today, as inequality is increasing, the social sector must work in solidarity with people as equal co-creators of change. Anything less risks reinforcing social and economic hierarchies.
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Know more
- Learn how constitutional language can be made more accessible to marginalised communities.
- Read this interview about the implications of considering welfare without centring rights.
- Read about a global feminist perspective of a rights-based approach to development.
