Long before the language of “rights”, “safety nets” or “social protection” entered policy discourse, Indian rulers confronted a stark and recurring reality: droughts meant destitution and unrest. A response to this challenge was the use of public works as famine relief — not charity, but work that preserved dignity while sustaining livelihoods.

A striking early example is the construction of the Bara Imambara in Lucknow in the 1780s. Built during a devastating famine under Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula, the project stretched over several years and was consciously designed to generate employment for thousands who otherwise would have starved. Legend and record both suggest that labourers worked during the day, while the nobility discreetly dismantled portions of the structure at night so that work could continue the next morning. The underlying principle was that in times of distress, the state must provide work, not alms.

This idea resurfaced repeatedly in colonial India through relief works, canals and roads, though with mixed motives. In independent India this old insight was eventually codified into law — first, at the state level in Maharashtra, and decades later at the national level.

Today, as parties spar over the Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act (VB-G RAM G Act) replacing the 2005 Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), it is important to look back at how  the latter, in effect, nationalised a Maharashtrian idea refined over four decades.

The intellectual architect of this transformation was Vitthal  Sakharam Page, a modest,........

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