Social protection is variously seen as a right or poverty alleviation mechanism or shield from the vagaries of market. Although Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have brought out various social protection programmes through policies, legislations, constitutional guarantees and so on, their comprehensiveness and implementation remain a challenge. In this backdrop, this article explores the utility of delineating the foundations of social protection in international human rights law as an advocacy tool to demand the adoption of comprehensive social security systems. This human rights approach is demonstrated through eight key principles, backed with examples from the five countries. The article finds that the social protection measures in South Asia exist as scattered programmes, rather than as comprehensive systems. Most programmes tend to be targeted rather than universal. The article highlights the advantage of the human rights approach to social protection in understanding the gender dimensions and implications for socially marginalized groups, while noting that cost and institutional capacities can pose challenges before its implementation.

Abstract

Participation and decentralisation have been shown to yield democratic outcomes in terms of

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This paper looks at a case of rural‐to‐rural movement of agrarian capital in southern India and the ways in which capital–labour relations are reworked to maintain oppressive forms of exploitation. Faced with an agrarian crisis, capitalist farmers from affluent communities of Wayanad, Kerala, take large tracts of land for lease in the neighbouring state of Karnataka and grow ginger based on price speculation. Landless Adivasis from Wayanad have served as labourers on these ginger farmlands for the past three decades. Recently, farmers have shifted to employing labourers from a Scheduled Caste (SC) from Karnataka. The change happened not just because of the lower wages the SC labourers were willing to work for but also because of the farmers' inclination to move away from Adivasis who have been resisting the poor working conditions on the farm. The story resonates with the broader dynamics of agrarian–labour relations amidst capitalist expansion and highlights the centrality of socio‐political factors at play.