Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The Kerala Conundrum by Ashok Sanjay Guha

The Kerala Conundrum by Ashok Sanjay Guha

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Oct 3, 2010   modified Modified on Oct 3, 2010

Per capita income, once regarded as the best index of the welfare of a society, has long since been dethroned from this status. People have argued persuasively that it is a measure that ignores not only income distribution but also the quality of life. Alternative approaches have been designed to explore these nuances of measurement and alternative indices constructed. Amartya Sen has developed a ‘capabilities approach’ to the question of relative levels of well-being that focuses on the capacity of people to function effectively in various spheres of life. The human development index, inspired largely by Sen’s work, highlights three aspects of life: longevity, education and the standard of living. More subtle criteria of capability have also been designed. All such measures however emphasize, in addition to life, liberty and per capita income, various components of health, education and gender equality.

When the relative performance of the different Indian states is gauged by these yardsticks, one state, Kerala, emerges as the clear winner on all counts except that of per capita income. It has the highest life expectancy, the lowest infant and maternal mortality, the best public health facilities, the highest literacy, the best performance in almost all educational indices, the best gender ratio, the best record in female education, health and empowerment and the lowest total fertility. With such a record of performance in areas regarded by outstanding thinkers as crucial to the quality of life, Keralites must surely enjoy the most satisfying lives among all Indians. Right?

Wrong. Kerala also has the highest rate of suicide among all states, no less than three times the national average. It has the highest rate of alcoholism and possibly the highest rate of drug addiction. Instead of living in idyllic happiness (diminished just a bit by a not-so-high per capita income) relative to all other states, the population of Kerala brims over with a seething discontent with their lives that far exceeds the levels of dissatisfaction reached in any other state of the country. No doubt the authors of the capabilities approach and the HDI were only summing up the factors that, according to their values (and those of many others), seemed highly desirable ethically. They were not creating a prescription for happiness. But should a highly successful application of their prescription (whatever its aims) have been associated with unhappiness of this intensity?

The Kerala conundrum raises two troublesome questions for economists and policymakers. First, what accounts for the coexistence in Kerala of indicators of high and inclusive capabilities and human development with signals of the profoundest misery? Second, what light does this paradox shed on a policy debate that has not yet entirely died out — a debate on whether policy should concentrate initially on income growth or focus primarily on the development of human capabilities.

Perhaps a clue to a solution of these puzzles can be found in yet another feature of Kerala society. The Keralites are a population of would-be émigrés. The Malayali exodus abroad, or even indeed to other states, far exceeds, in per capita terms, the outflow of other linguistic groups from their respective homes. The people of Kerala are in desperate flight from their homeland, that paradise of inclusiveness, good medical care, excellent educational facilities and gender equality, not only abroad but also to other states where similar facilities do not exist.

There is of course no mystery in this at all. What the emigrants are looking for in alien environments is employment and higher income, things that their state with all its human development has signally failed to generate. The high existing rural density of population limits the absorptive capacity of agriculture. And industry is hamstrung not only by a poor endowment of industrial natural resources but, more importantly, by the militancy of labour unions and the indulgence of the government and the judiciary towards the latter. The consequence, of course, has been that investors avoid Kerala if that is at all possible. Anyone entering the state by the land route will have been struck by the cluster of industries on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border, just outside the reach of Kerala unions and Kerala courts. The major industry of Kerala of course is construction, fuelled primarily by remittances or by the home-building investments of returning retirees.

In the very long run, this stagnation of employment opportunity could perhaps have been taken care of by the contraction of Kerala’s population resulting from a total fertility rate below the replacement level. In the immediate present, however, with employment opportunities at home severely restricted, the Keralite has little option but to explore wider horizons elsewhere. In this, his superior education is an asset, enabling him to invade and capture segments of the medium-skilled labour market in India and abroad. Indeed, the Kerala education system, beyond the basic primary level, is driven by the hope that higher education would create the possibility of an escape from the narrow confines of the Kerala job market. It is inevitably a system of education for export.

But what of those who cannot accomplish this transition to a broader labour market, who swell the ranks of the educated unemployed or are forced into jobs which, because of their education, they regard as beneath themselves? For them, Kerala promises nothing but frustration, a diminished sense of self-esteem, drowned occasionally in alcohol or narcotic bliss, leading possibly to suicidal depression.

The Kerala story is a cautionary tale for the policymaker. There have long been two schools of thought regarding development priorities. One advocates a strong focus on output and income growth. It suggests that rapid growth trickles down rapidly to the lagging segments of the population and that free choice, through the market or the political process, of an increasingly prosperous population generates a demand for better education, health and a cleaner environment that the market or the government finds worthwhile to fulfil. The other school questions the effectiveness of trickle-down or demand-linkage: it proposes instead direct investment in human capability, implying, if not openly asserting, that for an empowered and capable population, income growth is inevitable.

In the Indian case (unlike African or Latin American examples), a distinctive twist is added by the fact that our contemporary growth is part of a massive global shift of manufacturing and labour-intensive services from the advanced world to labour-abundant East and South Asia. A major feature of such growth is increasing demand for labour, both unskilled and skilled — implying increasing participation of the low-wage poor and a rising demand for better education and health facilities. Unless we insulate ourselves from this global trend, therefore, rapid growth in India is likely to be both inclusive and oriented to the development of human capabilities.

The Kerala experiment seems to suggest that the alternative strategy might not be quite so successful. Right from the days of the rajas of Travancore, successive governments of Kerala have followed a policy based on the development of human capability. Unfortunately, this has not been matched by, nor has it induced, a similar expansion of Kerala’s industrial structure. Therein lie the seeds of Kerala’s tragedy.

The author is professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Telegraph, 30 September, 2010, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100930/jsp/opinion/story_12996317.jsp

Tagged with: Human Development



Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

Im4Change.org हिंदी वेबसाइट का परिचय. Short Video on im4change.org...

"Session 1: Scope of IDEA and AgriStack" in Exploring...

"Session 2: Farmer Centric Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

"Session 3: Future of Digitalisation in Agriculture" in Exploring...

Objectives | About Us | Workshops | Disclaimer
share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close