The Kerala Model

This class has looked a lot at what is known as the Kerala Model of Development, which has been hailed by many organizations as an exemplary process for leading a transition in a developing state towards modern goals of education, women’s rights, and rising standards of living. In short, the model has stressed access to education, empowerment of women, decentralized governance, and land reform to help build a well-educated and strong middle class, and one that is very politically active.

Many of the effects of this program are visible in Kerala today, as the literacy rate is practically 100%, women hold a strong place is the community and economy, and the living standards have risen here such that many people can live comfortably on a steady of mix of work and income from the government. 

One of my issues with this class has been that we have basically been force fed this information in a very one sided presentation about all the positive aspects of this style of development. It’s not that I even disagree with it, I think much of what has been done here is very impressive, rather that I don’t feel as if I’ve had a true academic analysis of the relative merits/trade-offs that come along with this. For example, one thing that has not been addressed at all is remittances and the role they play in the economy here.

 Kerala has had a strong emigrant population leave its shores over the last 50 years, and unlike those from Punjab and Gujarat in the north who have chosen the United States as their destination, most Keralites have taken up work in the Gulf States. There is now a large number of Keralites working abroad and sending remittances back to relatives in the state. It’s estimated that these remittances make up almost 20% of the foreign currency inflow into Kerala, which is quite a sizeable chunk of cash for the economy without having to develop any local industry. 

So Kerala is able to provide a strong welfare state here, but that is supported on the backs of those who must work thousands of miles away from their families. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s something that hasn’t been addressed in our lectures here. Additionally, as you might have guessed, the Kerala model is a pretty left leaning model, and in fact the state is home to the world’s first democratically elected communist government, which came into power back in the 1950s when India first transitioned into a democracy, and has been in power off and on since then (communist flags are still very much prevalent around Kerala these days). 

The communist party here has been very influential in the rise of access to education and the development of a strong middle class here relative to the rest of India. But it has also empowered unions to a degree that has made Kerala devoid of real strong industrial development and foreign investment. Even several of the groups we talked to, an ecotourism group and a social empowerment non-profit more or less admitted that if they had known about the unions and what it takes to get things done in Kerala they might not have located here. 

So does the Kerala model work? Academics say yes, I say yes but with an asterisk. I think there are many critical parts of the model that can and should be replicated elsewhere in the developing world. Access to education, empowerment of women, strong transportation networks, these are all very important. But I still struggle with the decentralized development process and unionization that has made large scale infrastructure projects very difficult here. Yes people here can read and are well educated, but that doesn’t mean they have access to high paying jobs, clean water and proper waste management here in Kerala.