kerala model of development

It refers to a set of economic practices developed in India's state of Kerala. The Centre for Development Studies at Thiruvananthapuram with the help of United Nations, conducted a case study of selected issues with reference to Kerala in 1970s. The results and recommendations of this study came to be known as the 'Kerala Model' of equitable growth which emphasised land reforms, poverty reduction, educational access and child welfare. Professor K. N. Raj, a renowned economist who played an important role in India's planned development, drafting sections of India's first Five Year Plan, and a member of the first UN Committee for Development Planning in 1966, was the main person behind this study. He started the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram in 1971, by the request of the Kerala Chief Minister C Achutha Menon.

The Kerala Model brought a sea change in development thinking which was until then obsessed with achieving high GDP growth rates. However, Pakistani Economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990, changed the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people centered policies. To produce the Human Development Report (HDRs), Haq brought together a group of well known development economists including: Paul Streeten, Frances Stewart, Gustav Ranis, Keith Griffin, Sudhir Anand, and Meghnad Desai.

Mahbub-ul-Haq, the pioneer of Human development theory and founder of the Human Development Report.

In collaboration with Raj’s close colleague Amartya Sen, he persuaded the UNDP to carry out work on Human Development Indicators (HDIs) which started playing a larger role than GDP in the framing of development policies. Another decade down the road, the Millennium Development Goals, embracing many of the Kerala Model’s features — with the notable omission of land reforms — became the new charter of development. Raj's seminal contribution to development policy thus had worldwide repercussions.

The Human Development Index, which was found by United Nations has become one of the most influential and widely used indices to measure human development across countries.

The economists noted that despite being extremely poor, the state had high literacy rates, healthy citizens, and a politically active population. Researchers began to delve more deeply into what was going in the Kerala Model, since human development indexes seemed to show a standard of living which was comparable with life in developed nations, on a fraction of the income. The development standard in Kerala is comparable to that of many first world nations, and is widely considered to be the highest in India at that time.

Despite having high standards of human development, the Kerala Model ranks low in terms of industrial and economic development. The high rate of education in the region has resulted in a brain drain, with many citizens migrating to other parts of the world for employment. The overall job market in Kerala is also very depressed, forcing many citizens to relocate to places like Dubai, where they may find quality employment or they may essentially be treated like slaves.

Human Development Index in 1990

From 1990 onwards, the United Nations came with the Human Development Index (HDI). This is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate developed (high development), developing (middle development), and underdeveloped (low development) countries. The statistic is composed from data on Life Expectancy, Education and per-capita GDP (as an indicator of Standard of living) collected at the national level using a formula. This index, which has become one of the most influential and widely used indices to measure human development across countries, give Kerala Model an international recognition. The HDI has been used since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme for its annual Human Development Reports. From the starting of this index, Kerala has topped in all parameters, even more than the developed countries.

R

easons for the Kerala Model

Health Care

Lakeshore Hospital in Cochin. Kerala has around 2,700 government medical institutions in the state, with 330 beds per 100,000 population, the highest in the country.

One of the major reasons for the model is the impressive progress of the Keraas’s health care sectr.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 330 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. 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 15.3 per 1,000 births versus 57.0 for India and 7 for the US. Its adult literacy rate is 91 per cent compared to India’s 65 and the US's 99. Life expectancy at birth in Kerala is 75 years compared to 64 years in India and 77 years in the US. Female life expectancy in Kerala exceeds that of the male, just as it does in the developed world. By contrast, Kerala's maternal mortality rate is poor: 262 for every one lakh live births, compared with 60 in Sri Lanka.

District wise details of health care institution and beds for as per the 1991 census

District	No of Health Care Institutions	Number of beds
1) Alappuzha	343	8,835
2) Ernakulam	546	15,819
3) Idukki	194	4,096
4) Kannur	392	5,149
5) Kasaragod	209	2,107
6) Kollam	704	7,530
7) Kottayam	440	9,323
8) Kozhikode	342	9,034
9) Malappuram	327	5,030
10) Palakkad	316	4,925
11) Pathanamthitta	310	5,096
12) Thiruvananthapuram	411	12,910
13) Thrissur	434	12,991
14) Wayanad	127	2,307
Total	5,095	105,152

Kerala model of healthcare

According to a white paper on the Quality of Death, released by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2010, has projected the community model healthcare system from Kerala as a beacon of hope. The report from ‘The Economist’ has ranked 40 countries across the world on end-of-life care facilities on the basis of 24 indicators on healthcare environment and availability, cost and quality of care. In the overall score, India with a score of 1.9 out of 10 ranked the 40th, behind countries such as Slovakia, Malaysia, Turkey, Brazil and even Uganda. UK topped the list followed by Australia and New Zealand.

However, India ranks at the bottom of the Index in overall score, and performs badly on many indicators, Kerala, if measured on the same points, would buck the trend. With only 3% of India’s population, the tiny state provides two-thirds of India's palliative care services. The Economist has lauded the 'Kerala Community Model' in healthcare. Moreover, The Economist has patted the Kerala Government for providing palliative care policy (It is the only Indian state with such a policy) and funding for community-based care programmes.

The magazine said that Kerala is one of the first of India’s states to relax narcotics regulations to permit use of morphine by palliative care providers. Kerala has also extended the definition of palliative care to include the long-term chronically ill and even the mentally incapacitated. Kerala's formal palliative care policy, the only state with such a policy, the community-based Neighborhood Network in Palliative Care (NNPC) Project that employs an army of volunteers and the Government funding for these local community-based care units, almost 260 in number, has earned it many an accolade.

Health Development indicators- Kerala & India –2007

Health Indicators	Kerala	India
Birth rate (per 1,000 population)	15.00	23.80
Death rate (per 1,000 population)	6.40	7.60
Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 population)	14.00	58.00
Maternal mortality ratio (per lakh/live births) * 2001-03	110	300
Total Fertility rate (per woman)	1.70	2.90
Couple Protection rate (%)	72.10	52
Life at birth (Male)	70.90	61.80
Life at birth (Female)	76.00	63.50
Life at birth (Average)	73.45	62.70

The report said twenty nine out of the 40 countries studied have no formal palliative care strategy, revealed the report. Only seven - Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey and UK have national policies, while four others - Austria, Canada, Ireland and Italy are in the process of drafting one. Kerala had long ago recognised the importance of palliative care as can be seen from the growth of community-based care units. “The State’s community-operated care system is funded largely through local micro-donations of as little as Rs 10 (21 US cents) per month. The volunteers in these units, after training can provide psychological, social and spiritual support. It is this that marks the NNPC out from more medical-oriented and expensive systems in use elsewhere,” said the report.

Studying Kerala's combination of Government support and civic involvement in end-of-life care, a number of similar models are being tried out in Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Seychelles and even in Switzerland. "Kerala provides a useful lesson for other countries, particularly as ageing population puts increasing pressures on existing healthcare services,” said the report. While countries such as Taiwan and Hungary have managed to get on the top 15 of the index, one possible reason cited for the poor show by India and China is their large population, with the care coverage reaching only a fraction of those in need.

Political awareness

Political awareness among the common people in Kerala and even the children are high, thanks to the unique political situation that exists in Kerala. Kerala is the first place in the world to have a democratically elected Communist Party in 1957, with the highest voter turnout in India. Political history in Kerala shows a trend of an alternating elected right and left government, which results in an increase in public welfare activities, much to the benefit of the common man. In each town square, political parties maintain their icons--a statue of Indira Gandhi or a portrait of Marx, Engels, and Lenin in careful profile. Strikes, agitations, and stirs, a sort of wildcat job action, are so common as to be almost unnoticeable. Anthropologist Bill McKibben says “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.”

The Communists (Both Communist Party of India(CPI) and Communist Party of India(Marxist)) has ruled Kerala for much of the past 50 years. The CPI successfully pushed for three major reforms in the 1960s and 1970s. The first and most important was land reform. While nearly everyone looks on land reform as a huge success in Kerala, the policy was controversial when it was first proposed in 1959 as some saw it as an attack on the right to property. The central government intervened and effectively blocked the implementation of land reform for 10 years. But planners and unions in Kerala understood that building a more egalitarian economy required attacking the old feudal system at its roots, and small farmers weren't going to stand for anything less. Secondly, the CPI deliberately and methodically invested in education, setting goals so popular with the electorate that even when the Communists lost power, new governments did not dare modify education policies.

Education

Kerala had been a notable centre of Vedic learning, having produced one of the most influential Hindu philosophers, Adi Shankaracharya. The Vedic learning of the Nambudiris is an unaltered tradition that still holds today, and is unique for its orthodoxy, unknown to other Indian communities. However, in feudal Kerala, only the Nambudiris received an education in Vedam, and other castes were excluded from studying Vedam.

The Pallikkoodams started by Christian missionaries paved the way for an educational revolution in Kerala by making education accessible to all, irrespective of caste or religion. Christian missionaries introduced English education to empower the common man to throw away the yoke of bondage inflicted by themselves by centuries old customs and practices. Communities such as Ezhavas, Nairs and Harijans were guided by great visionaries and monastic orders (Ashrams) - Sree Narayana Guru, Sree Chattambi Swamigal & Ayyankali - who exhorted them to educate themselves by starting their own schools. That resulted in numerous Sree Narayana schools and Nair Service society schools. The teachings of these saints have also empowered the poor and backward classes to organize themselves and bargain for their rights

The upper castes, such as Nairs, Tamil Brahmin migrants, Ambalavasis, as well as backward castes such as Ezhavas had a strong history of Sanskrit learning. In fact many Ayurvedic Physicians (such as Itty Achudan) were from the backward Ezhava community. This level of learning by non-Brahmin learning was not seen in other parts of India. Also, Kerala had been the site of the notable Kerala School which pioneered principles of mathematics and logic, and cemented Kerala's status as a place of learning.

The prevalence of education was not only restricted to males. In pre-Colonial Kerala, women, especially those belonging to the matrilineal Nair caste, received an education in Sanskrit and other sciences, as well as Kalaripayattu (martial arts). This was unique to Kerala, but was facilitated by the inherent equality shown by Kerala society to females and males, since Kerala society was largely matrilineal, as opposed to the rigid patriarchy in other parts of India which led to a loss of women's rights.

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, which was an act unprecedented in the Indian subcontinent. In colonial times, Kerala exhibited little defiance against the British Raj. However, they had mass protests for social causes such as rights for "untouchables" and education for all. Popular protest to hold public officials accountable is a vital part of life in Kerala.

In the 1860s, the government spread the educational programs into Malabar, the northern state that had been ruled directly by the British, and began granting scholarships to Harijan (untouchables) and tribal peoples.^{[citation needed]} By 1981, the general literacy rate in Kerala was 70 per cent - almost twice the all-India rate of 36 per cent. The rural literacy rate was almost 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 about 95 per cent of the people being able to read and write.

A 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. Kerala's literacy rate 91% (2001 survey) is almost as high as in China (93%) or Thailand (93.9%).

Literacy rate from 1951 – 2001.

Year	Persons	Males	Females
1951	47.18	58.35	36.43
1961	55.08	64.89	45.56
1971	69.75	77.13	62.53
1981	78.85	84.56	73.36
1991	89.81	93.62	86.17
2001	90.92	94.20	87.86

State Policy

In 1957 Kerala elected a communist government headed by EMS Namboothiripad, introduced the revolutionary Land Reform Ordinance. The Land reform was implemented by the subsequent government, which had abolished tenancy, benefiting 1.5 million poor households. This achievement was the result of decades of struggle by Kerala's peasant associations. A second communist ministry pushed for the reform again in the late 1967. 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.

Hunger

According to the India State Hunger Index, Kerala is one of the four states where hunger is only "serious"

Criticism

Despite its achievements, the model is heavily criticised for the low industrial development in the state and high levels of unemployment. 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. the policy in effect, created a brain drain scenario.

British Green activist Richard Douthwaite interviewed a person who remembers once saying that "in some societies, very high levels — virtually First World levels — of individual and public health and welfare are achieved at as little as sixtieth of US nominal GDP per capita and used Kerala as an example".Richard Douthwaite states that Kerala "is far more sustainable than anywhere in Europe or North America".Kerala's unusual socioeconomic and demographic situation was summarized by author and environmentalist Bill McKibben:

The Kerala model practices have mixed results. The anomaly of relatively good infant mortality and some other similar measures despite a lack of economic development, is variously known as the Kerala model, or the Kerala phenomenon. The unique demographic profile of the state as well as Geography have been considered to be responsible for this phenomenon. Another anomaly is that a large proportion of the population has moved away. Kerala is extremely dependent on remittances which total over a fifth of its total output. Many emigrants have found construction and other jobs in Gulf countries. S. Irudaya Rajan describes the situation as "Remittances from global capitalism are carrying the whole Kerala economy".

Prepared by Biju P R,Assistant Professor in Political Science,Govt Brennen College…….