On January 12, the Supreme Court questioned the practice of governments and political parties handing out freebies, particularly at the time of elections. It was hearing a public-interest petition relating to the provision of free urban shelters for the homeless. Before we examine the arguments in general, let us first specify that the question of providing what we may loosely call subsidies is a politico-economic question intrinsically related to the kind of governments we want in a democratic polity and, therefore, their roles and responsibilities. The burden of the top court’s position is that providing ‘sops’ or subsidies, instead of creating job opportunities to help integrate........

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