"Women's empowerment in India has largely remained an exercise in compensatory rather than distributive justice." Critically examine this in the context of Viksit Bharat@2047.

Article 38(2) directs the State to minimise inequalities in status and opportunity, and Article 39(b) directs it to distribute material resources for the common good. Yet India's gender policy has leaned towards compensatory justice (welfare, reservation, protection) rather than distributive justice (women owning assets as of right). The statement is largely valid, though the gap is narrowing.

Why the statement largely holds

• Protection-centric design: Mission Shakti, the umbrella scheme, rests on safety (Sambal) and empowerment (Samarthya) support across the life-cycle. It treats women mainly as beneficiaries [1].
• Asset gap: women operate only about one in seven farm holdings [4], despite the 2005 amendment that gave daughters equal inheritance rights. Social pressure often makes daughters give up their shares.
• Counted, not paid: female LFPR rose from 23.3% (2017–18) to ~40% (2025) [2]. Much of the rise is self-employment and unpaid family work, which brings no income or asset of a woman's own.
• Weak enforcement: the NCW can review legal safeguards and recommend amendments, but its recommendations are not binding [7].

Where the shift to distributive justice is visible

• State-created assets: about 89 lakh PMAY-U houses are in women's names or held jointly [5]. However, joint titles do not guarantee control over sale or mortgage.
• Better-paid work: the World Bank-supported PM-SETU commits to at least 25% women in ITIs [3]. NITI Aayog is pushing non-traditional livelihoods for women [8].
• Care infrastructure: Budget 2024–25 announced working women's hostels and creches [6].

Link to Viksit Bharat@2047 and the way forward

• Bringing women up to half of the workforce could add about 1 percentage point to annual GDP growth. That is critical for reaching high-income status by 2047 [3].
• Measures: collect land data for each individual, not just each household, in the Agriculture Census; give women sole titles in State land and housing allotments; formally recognise women farmers who hold no title; judge creches by how many women move into paid work; tie gender budgeting to outcomes.

Compensatory measures remain a necessary floor for the poorest women, but they cannot by themselves make women owners and earners. Combining welfare with asset creation, skilling and care infrastructure would turn women from beneficiaries into stakeholders. That would advance SDG 5 and the Preamble's promise of social, economic and political justice on the road to Viksit Bharat@2047.