Kerala model
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The Kerala model refers to a set of economic practices developed in India's state of Kerala. These practices have resulted in the state attaining a high level of standards in human development, while compromising on its industrial development. This anomaly of high social development despite economic backwardness, is variously known as the Kerala model, or the Kerala phenomenon. The unique demographic profile of the state as well as historical factors associated with the state's intervention have been considered to be responsible for this phenomenon. [1]
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[edit] Human resource development indices
[edit] Health
Kerala’s birth rate is 14 per 1,000 females and falling fast. India's rate is 25 per 1,000 females and that of the U.S. is 16. Kerala’s infant mortality rate is 10 per 1,000 births versus 70 for India and 7 for the US. Its adult literacy rate is 91 per cent compared to India’s 65 and the US's 96. Life expectancy at birth in Kerala is 73 years compare to 61 years in India and 76 years in the US. Female life expectancy in Kerala exceeds that of the male, just as it does in the developed world.[2]
Kerala is among the few regions in the developing world with a favourable sex ratio (1,058 females to every 1,000 males). India has only 933 females per 1,000 males. Kerala's results are due to its avoidance of selective abortion of female fetuses. Kerala is the only place in the world to be declared ‘baby-friendly’ by the WHO and the UNICEF.[citation needed]
[edit] Political awareness
Kerala is poor even by the standards of India. The per capita income of Kerala is around Rs 13,500 compared to India’s Rs 18,000, with that of the US a distant Rs 1,575,000. Yet the indicators of material well-being in Kerala are far closer to that of the US than those of the rest of India and the developing world. With most people being educated, the region also boasts of one of the highest newspaper readerships in the world.[citation needed]
In the words of environmentalist Bill McKibben, “Though Kerala is mostly a land of paddy-covered plains, statistically Kerala stands out as the Mount Everest of social development; there's truly no place like it.” [2]
[edit] Human development index
Demographically, Kerala mirrors the United States on about one-seventieth the wealth. In countries of comparable income, including other states of India, life expectancy is 58 years, and only half the people (and perhaps a third of the women) can read and write and the birth rate hovers around 40 per thousand. Also Kerala is ranked 1st among the Human Development Index [India is ranked 127th overall].
[edit] Attempted explanation
[edit] Education
Kerala was exposed to peaceful trade with the outside world long before the British arrived. Of all the subtle corrosives that broke down the old order and gave rise to the new Kerala, surely none are as important as the spread of education to an extent unprecedented and as yet unmatched in the Third World. As the British penetrated the economy and Christian missionaries began opening schools, ancient patterns of caste discrimination and autocratic power were eroded.
Even the rulers of the Princely state of Travancore (Thiruvithaamkoor) were at the forefront in the spread of education. A school for girls was established by the Maharaja in 1859, an unthinkable proposition during those times. Newly proletarianized peasants - whose Western educations, ironically, gave them access to Marxist ideas - began organizing and engaging in mass demonstrations that were highly successful in bringing about reform in land ownership, governance, and the distribution of wealth. In the colonial times, Kerala exhibited a relative paucity of mass defiance against the British Raj. Yet most mass actions protested such social mores as untouchability and education for all. Popular protest as a tool for holding public officials accountable is a vital part of Keralan life.
In the 1960s, the government spread the educational programs into Malabar, the northern state that had been ruled directly by the British, and began granting scholarships to untouchables and tribal peoples.[citation needed] By 1981, the general literacy rate in Kerala was 70 percent - almost twice the all-India rate of 36 per cent. The rural literacy rate was essentially identical, and female literacy, at 66 per cent, was not far behind. The government continued to press the issue, aiming for "total literacy," usually defined as a population where about 95 per cent can read and write.
The pilot project began in the Ernakulam region, an area of 3 million people that includes the city of Kochi. In late 1988, 50,000 volunteers fanned out around the district, tracking down 175,000 illiterates between the ages of 5 and 60, two-thirds of them women. Within a year, it was hoped, the illiterates would read Malayalam at 30 words a minute, copy a text at 7 words a minute, count and write from 1 to 100, and add and subtract three-digit numbers. On February 4, 1990, 13 months after the initial canvass, Indian Prime Minister V.P. Singh marked the start of World Literacy Year with a trip to Ernakulam, declaring it the country's first totally literate district. Of the 175,000 students, 135,000 scored 80 per cent or better on the final test, putting the region's official literacy rate above 96 per cent. You could find an elementary school in every two miles in kerala.[citation needed]
[edit] Healthcare
The basis for the state’s impressive health standards is the statewide infrastructure of primary health centres. There are over 2,700 government medical institutions in the state, with 160 beds per 100,000 population, the highest in the country. With virtually all mothers taught to breast-feed, and a state-supported nutrition programme for pregnant and new mothers, infant mortality in 2001 was 14 per thousand, compared with 91 for low-income countries generally.
In Kerala the birth rate is 40 per cent below that of the national average and almost 60 per cent below the rate for poor countries in general. In fact, a 1992 survey found that the birth rate had fallen to replacement level.
[edit] State policy
In 1956 Kerala elected a communist government headed by EMS Namboothiripad. In 1957 he introduced the revolutionary Land Reform Ordinance and Education Bill which caused his government to be dismissed by the Centre. However, this reform had changed the outlook of Kerala society dramatically and laid the foundation for what has become known as the Kerala Model.[citation needed] The reform had been to abolish tenancy, benefiting 1.5 million poor households. This achievement was the result of decades of struggle by Kerala's peasant associations. The reform act itself was initially passed by the 1957 communist ministry, but that ministry was dismissed by the Indian central government. A second communist ministry pushed for the reform again in the late 1960s, but it was a centrist ministry that finally implemented it in 1971, acting under heavy public pressure. The land reform initiative abolished tenancy and landlord exploitation; effective public food distribution that provides subsidised rice to low-income households; protective laws for agricultural workers; pensions for retired agricultural laborers; and a high rate of government employment for members of formerly low-caste communities.
[edit] Criticism
Despite its achievements, the model is heavily criticised for the low industrial development in the state. The educational reforms failed to make a direct mark on the state, as people were left with no option but to go abroad for work options. Today, with over a third of the population of the state living abroad,[citation needed] the policy in effect, created a brain drain scenario.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Kerala Model of development - Online Resources", chitram.
- ^ a b "Kerala: A case study", Bill McKibben.
