Kerala- Development Through Radical Reform

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This report is based in part on research funded by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 85-18440, Separately Budgeted Research grants from Montclair State College, and through affiliation in India with the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, Kerala, 1986-87. We are currently preparing a detailed monograph of Nadur, a village in central Kerala in which many of the issues discussed in this report are examined at the local level. Expert research assistance was provided in Nadur Village by M.S. Ravi Kumar, M. Subramanian Nambudiri, and Sreekumarı M.G. Indian researchers Thomas Isaac and Nata Duvvury provided us with up-to-date Kerala government statistics. In the United States, computer data entry and other research help came from Mira A. Franke and Lorraine Zaepfel. Suggestions for improving the manuscript were offered by Peter Freund, Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, Hanna Lessinger, Christopher Kashap, Joseph Collins, John Ratcliffe, Ann Kelly, and Gaen Murphree. The summary was written by Walden Bello. Layout was done by Susan Galleymore. We alone assume full responsibility for the contents of the report.

Since the first printing of this book in 1989, Kerala and India have experienced both continuity and change. In this introduction, we shall update Kerala's most significant events and trends in approximately the order in which the main information is presented in the book.

Since the 1986 data in our first printing, Kerala has continued to improve its quality of life indicators, staying far ahead of the rest of India and low-income countries world-wide. Table 1 provides 1991 statistics to update table 2, page 40, of this book. 1991 is the most recent year for which all the statistics are available.

We see from table 1 that Kerala has improved its per capita GNP at a rate faster than the all-India average. In 1986, Kerala's per capita GNP was 63% of the all-India average; in 1991 it had risen to 90%. This figure may reflect the improved ability of Kerala statisticians to collect information on the income from overseas, mostly Middle East Gulf states workers sending remittances back to Kerala rather than major increase in earning power of people inside Kerala. We shall discuss overseas workers later in this introduction.

Kerala's literacy rate improved by 13 points while India overall went up 9 points. As we shall see below, Kerala has now achieved effective 100% literacy, up 21 points or 27%. Comparing table 2 with table 1, we see that Kerala's infant mortality rate dropped from 27 to 17 per 1,000 live births, a remarkable 37