Social Policy, Social Welfare and Social Development-Pathakâ's Ideas: A Critical Essay

Any discussion around India’s Social Policy, Social Welfare andSocial Development ought to be laid in the context of India’s sixtyyears of planning history. In this critical essay, I explore the viewsand treatise of octogenarian Shankar Pathak on social welfare policiesand development of the poor in India. In those sixty years ofplanning, India has certainly made strides, such as producing somebillionaires that enter into who’s who list compiled by Forbes,alongside its poor making world’s record officially included into thetop ten poor nations. India’s situation can be aptly captured andsurmised by borrowing the famous saying of American PoliticalEconomist ‘doing better but feeling worse’ ( Wildavsky, 1977, pp105), this paper examines Pathak’s (2013) views on social policy,welfare and social development in India and to an extent his viewson social work profession in India.