In a development that has sent British policy experts scurrying for their overpriced notepads and single-origin coffee, it emerges that welfare programmes in India are no longer the electoral silver bullets they once were. One can almost hear the collective gasp from the chattering classes in Westminster as they realise that the great Indian voter, that most capricious of creatures, has grown weary of free grain and half-baked subsidies.

Let us first paint a picture of the scene. A think tank in London, all exposed brick and pretentious house plants, where men with beards that cost more than my monthly gin budget gather to pronounce on the subcontinent. 'It is simply baffling,' declares one, adjusting his spectacles. 'We gave them free rice and they didn’t vote for the incumbent. The ingratitude.'

But of course, the British expert has always suffered from a curious myopia, a condition that allows him to see the world only through the prism of a powerPoint slide. He forgets that the Indian voter, unlike his British counterpart, has a memory longer than a queue for the Job Centre. He remembers that the free rice was a pre-election bribe, not a gesture of benevolence. He remembers that his daughter still walks three miles for water and that his son’s school has no teachers.

Consider the Modi government, that great purveyor of gas cylinders and bank accounts for the poor. They have thrown more freebies at the electorate than a seaside pier show. And yet, the voter, that obstinate fool, has the temerity to demand actual jobs, actual infrastructure, actual functioning state institutions. How dare he.

Let us dissect this phenomenon with the scalpel of satire. The Indian welfare state, like a bloated maharaja, has grown fat on its own success. It has created a dependency that is now showing signs of indigestion. The voter, once grateful for a handful of lentils, now wants a full three-course meal. He has become, in the parlance of our times, entitled.

But here is the rub. The British experts, in their infinite wisdom, have overlooked the small matter of identity politics. The Indian voter does not live by chapati alone. He also requires a sense of pride, a feeling that his tribe is ascendant. The welfare state, in its bland, bureaucratic uniformity, fails to provide this. It is the politics of Ram Mandir, of Kashmir, of national security that stirs the blood, not the monthly ration card.

And so we arrive at the crux of the matter. Welfare wins elections only when it is dressed in the clothes of grievance or glory. The Modi government, ever astute, understands this. Their welfare is accompanied by a drumbeat of nationalism, a constant reminder that the benefits come from a strong, Hindu-led India. The Opposition, poor dears, offer only the dull prose of entitlements.

In conclusion, dear reader, the British experts are correct in their observation but as useless as a chocolate teapot in their analysis. The Indian voter has not abandoned welfare; he has merely upgraded his demands. He wants dignity, identity and a functioning nation. And if the politicians cannot provide it, he will turn them out faster than a drunk from a gin palace.

So let the experts cluck and pontificate. I shall pour myself another glass and toast the Indian voter, that magnificent, infuriating, unpredictably wise creature who knows that a vote is not for sale, not for a bag of rice, not for a gas cylinder, not for a thousand promises. It is for a better life. And that, my friends, is something no policy paper can capture.