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QUO VADIS KERALA? | posted by Karthik P HSwagatham.On the 1st of November 1956, a phenomenon was born. A phenomenon called Kerala. A state, which in years to come would shake the collective conscious of every policy maker in this world by opting for a very different model of development. A model, which is even now trumpeted by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen as one of the best. Forty-eight have passed. Where do we stand? What is the future of our state? Did we get what we really deserved?The transformation of the state started in the 1960s. When other states sought to take the path of aggressive industrialization to fuel growth, Kerala instead aimed at improving its human indices, the expectation being that such spectacular achievements in social development would, and should, lead to much higher levels of economic development. The results are all here to see. We top the country in almost all indices of human development and some of them even match that of the world superpower US. However, investments have somehow evaded us. Our unemployment figures are three times the national average. Our state survives only through NRI remittances from the Middle East, which however is not getting converted to huge investments, preferring to remain in the form of FDs in banks. Thus we have a very strange situation in Kerala. The state attracts the highest amounts of credit money. Devoid of any concrete investment plans, the bankers divert this money to fund projects outside the state. Even otherwise, how long can we survive from NRI remittances alone? If we try to introspect the basic cause for the present scenario, we get to understand that the Keralite's thirst for social justice is the root cause. It is interesting to note that we did attract some substantive investments in the initial 1970s. Employment opportunities for Keralites grew and industrial townships like Kalamassery and Mavoor rose signaling a bright future for the state. Trouble brew when some of these industries started earning profits. We started doubting their intentions. Are we given our fair share of the profits? So strong was our quest for social justice that we started resorting to strikes and gheraos to make our point. Unable to bear with demanding employees, industries withdrew not even bothering about their assets. The rotting factories at Mavoor are the grim remainders of our mistakes. But how effective is this model of welfare state for development. World over we are witnessing the wings of change. Till 1981 when China was following socialist economics, its poverty rate was 68%. Fortunately (unfortunately for India) they realized their mistake and now their poverty rate is 16% (by the way, it is 27% for India). Russia is slowly limping back after an economic disaster and Cuba is nowhere in the reckoning. To label Kerala as a total economic failure would be incorrect. We have had our success stories. Do you know that every HP printer sold in this planet has a particular electronic component that is manufactured only at the Kakkanad plant of NEST? We still remain the largest exporter of spices and seafoods. Kerala's triumph in tourism has left other states gape at us with awe and envy. Apollo tyres has been running the state's largest private industrial firm at Chalakudy (though their decision to open their second plant in Maharashtra speaks of their perception of the efficiency of their Kerala plant). What is sad is that we couldn't capitalise on these achievements to enhance the perception of the state's industrial climate. A recent CII study placed Kochi in the rock bottom of the rankings in terms of perception while it performed reasonably well in other factors. That brings us to the question as to why the outsiders perception of Kerala is negative. The reason lies in the strange social fabric of Kerala. The truth is that as a collective group, we refuse to accept change. Stubborn refusal to disinvest loss making undertakings, burning of Citibank offices and Coca-cola godowns just because they originate from a certain country are all signs of an increasingly introvert society, which refuses to move ahead with the world. Consider the expansion of our city airport, which is getting hindered due the inability to acquire a mere 27 acres of land. A handful of families are holding the whole city's development to ransom. If this is the case with 27 acres, how then can we realize the dream of the express highway? The previous government had proposed a plan to introduce punched cards to check attendance in government offices. So vehement was the opposition that it was immediately dropped out. We are lucky that the regular bunch of environmentalists were not round the corner when the Idukki power project was built. Otherwise, it would have met the same fate of the Silent Valley project. The vernacular media has also fuelled this fire. If it was not Muthanga, it was Marad. When is the last time we came across a development oriented news item on the front pages of the state's newspapers? P.H.KARTHIK S6E2 Send your comments to [email protected] |