Kerala's experience of development and change

Religion and the Politics of Development

“…Scholars have pointed to diverse factors as being influential, including the relative autonomy of Cochin and Travancore 5 during the colonial period that allowed the native rulers to invest in health and education, the presence of matrilineal and matrilocal kinship structures, social and religious reform movements during the latter part of nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century, Christian missionary activity, the commercialisation of cash crops in the nineteenth century which required a workforce with basic education, high female literacy rates, high population density that increased access to education, and a strong tradition of communist mobilisation (Jeffrey 1992;Sen and Drèze 1992;Prashad 2001;Parayil and Sreekumar 2003). The unique character of welfarism in Kerala is explained by Drèze and Sen (1989) through the concept of "public action" which refers to a dialectical process involving state intervention on the one hand and, on the other, the demands and actions of mobilised groups and public bodies.…”

“…The "Kerala model" of development has attracted widespread attention from scholars across the world for its unique features and characteristics (Drèze and Sen 1989;Sen and Drèze 1992;George 1993;Tharamangalam 1998;Parayil and Sreekumar 2003;Kannan 2005). The cornerstone of "Kerala model" is the developmental experience of the state, characterised by rapid rise in social development indicators, and an equally rapid reduction of social inequalities while maintaining relatively low economic growth.…”

“…4 Similarly, and despite disavowing its potential to serve as a "model," in Development as Freedom Amartya Sen (1999: 48) repeatedly draws attention to Kerala's "unusual success in raising life expectancy and the quality of life" and uses it as a normative example of what can be achieved by other polities. Kerala stands out as an example of how one state has fared exceedingly well in social development indicators, on par with "developed" nations, without traversing the arduous path of militant social revolution or rapid industrialisation (Parayil and Sreekumar 2003).…”

“One More Dirham”: Migration, Emotional Politics and Religion in the Home Films of Kerala

“…One of the reasons pointed out for this apparent anomaly was that the remittances boosted both consumption and wage levels, while it failed to trigger investment in industrial growth. However, this was predictable since Kerala was already identified in the changing global economic order as a market for consumer durables and an exporter of skilled and semi-skilled labour to the Middle East (Parayil and Sreekumar 2003). The Kerala Government had set up a Non Resident Keralites Affairs DeMigration, Mobility & Displacement, Summer, 2016 partment (NORKA) in 1996, in an effort to address the legal, political and economic problems faced by overseas Keralaites which include, inter alia, support for seeking investment opportunities in Kerala and rehabilitation of returning migrants.…”

“…Organized groups, through intermediation of the state and the political society, were able to grab a sizable share of the new riches. But groups and communities that were marginalized from the mainstream, such as tribal people, fisher folk and a section of Dalits became the conspicuous 'outliers' of the developmental process (Parayil and Sreekumar 2003).…”