A Manifesto for New Kerala: Pathways to Future

John Samuel

1) തൊഴില്‍ സമര്‍ദ്ത്ത കേരളം.
2) സുതാര്യ കേരളം
3) ഭക്ഷ്യ-കൃഷി സമര്‍ദ്ത്ത കേരളം
4) പരിസ്ഥിതി സുരക്ഷ കേരളം
5) ആരോഗ്യ കേരളം
6) ദാരിദ്ര്യ വിമുക്ത കേരളം
7) സമധാന-സുരക്ഷ കേരളം

Context of Socio-economic Development of Kerala

Kerala is at a critical juncture of its history, political process and economy. Over the last fifty years, Kerala achieved significant development in the area of social development, democratisation and, to some extent, economic growth.
Over the last 100 years, many factors, including a relatively healthy political party process, robust mass media, deeper influence of social reform movement and better access to education, played an important role in achieving better social development indicators. This has created a relatively empowered middle class society with better social and political consciousness. The progressive policy consensus among key political parties, with better investment in social sector, from 1957 onwards served its purpose. However, the older policy framework is now more or less saturated and not good enough to help us to develop pathways to the future. Though it is important to have a sense of history, it is time not to get too much preoccupied with any past model so that we can look forward to the challenges and opportunities in the next fifty years. Hence, it is important to have forward looking new policy consensus towards building the future of Kerala.




The relatively better performance of Kerala in social development and democratisation is a result of the cumulative process of social reform movements from the early 20th century, relatively better outreach of education and health facilities (initiated by the missionary and church network and later on by other community network organisations), the development of the mass media, the political process in the backdrop of freedom struggle and progressive movements and the relatively better cosmopolitan fabric of the society. The social democratic political and policy process from the 1950s also enabled to create conducive governance environment for achieving universal primary education, highest literacy rate, relatively better health care, and development and gender indicators. The investment in education and health in the 1950s to 1980s created a competent and skilled labour force that could negotiate in the global market. Kerala is one of the first and most successful states in globalising its relatively skilled or semiskilled labour force, with waves of migrant workes to West Asia and other parts of the world. The economic boom in the Gulf States, due to the hike in the oil price also created demand for skilled labour force for the modernisation and socio-economic development of the oil producing countries. The skilled labour force from Kerala contributed significantly towards the socio-economic growth of India and the Gulf States. The export of labour force towards the development of secondary and tertiary sector to different parts of the world and the consequent expatriated income of migrant labours created a new wave of economic growth in Kerala from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

While the growth in expatriated income created new demands in service sector, it also paradoxically contributed to the decline of primary sector- particularly that of agriculture. The cost of land and labour increased very significantly and the hyper-unionisation and party politicisation also created less conducive atmosphere for the development of manufacturing and secondary sector. In spite very significant growth in service sector (particularly consumer, health, education, housing, transport, travel and allied areas), there was no corollary growth in the capacity of infrastructure . The migration of skilled force also contributed towards cumulative bran-drain from all sectors, including that of political process. This has created the paradox of the development of Kerala: higher socio-economic development, high per-capita income, less infrastructural facilities,conservative social values, better gender indicators along with less women's empowerment, and a civil society divided on the basis of party political affiliation and community organisations.

Kerala society jumped from Semi- feudalism to Consumerism via Communist aspirations - all within a span of sixty years. Hence, our own social and political culture became a strange and confusing mix of feudal- left- and consumerist and conservative- all in one! We also jumped from a predominantly agriculture - (primary sector economy) - to service sector (Tertiary sector) economy within a span of 40 years. We have moved rather fast from a rural based joint-family or networked-family social settings to nuclear and post-nuclear settings. A very significant section of our people moved from lower-middle class subsistence economy culture to a surplus bank balance - fuelled by expatriated income

From the 1990s, there was also significant deficit in the quality of youth leadership both in political and social process of Kerala. The expatriated income, the tremendous growth of consumer market and the decline of the quality of higher education contributed towards a new vulgarisation of politics, society and culture. While Kerala successfully became a part of the globalisation of labour force in the 1970s and 1980s, Kerala has failed to negotiate with other aspects of economic and social globalisation. Though Kerala was well positioned to get the best possible opportunity out of the growth of IT sector in 1980s, the state missed the opportunity due to the misguided political and policy position of a section of people and the governments from the mid 1980s. The campaign against IT and the lack of appreciation about the future potential of the sector and anti-entrepreneurial minds-set contributed towards the failure of the state to reap the benefits of the tremendous economic growth in the new sectors in the 1990s. The hyper-party politicisation of the development debate, the lack of long term vision in policy process and a deficit of creative imagination within the civil society led to a new stagnation of politics, society and economy of Kerala. Though there is dynamism of pseudo- debates and discussion in the political process and seeming economic growth- propelled by consumer market and expatriated income, there is stagnation at the core of the society and politics in Kerala. The pseudo-socialist rhetoric in an increasingly middle-class and consumerist society like Kerala fail to go beyond the usual cynical political rhetoric and TV discussions.

More than ten percent of the people of Kerala now live and work outside the state. The migration culture of Malayalies in the last seventy years and the money and ideas they brought back to Kerala played a very key role in influencing the society and politics more ways than what is being generally being acknowledged. From the nineties onwards, Kerala society is more in a post-nuclear family mode- where the members of a family are dispersed far and wide- and often virtually connected- or networked: rather than sharing a life or space. This also means a society of lots of elderly people and young people and nothing in between.

During the last ten years, there have been significant social and political churning in Kerala, resulting in new kinds of identity based assertions, increasing criminalization and violence in society and party-politicisation of issues to do with economic development of Kerala. There are many symptoms of a larger issue of social, cultural and political transition of Kerala in the context of new consumer materialism and neoconservative values and sectarianism - that came to define our society, culture and politics in multiple ways.

Hence, the most important challenge for the political and policy leadership of Kerala is to challenge the stagnation that is settling in at the core of our society and to have a new movement for renewing the creative energies, recharging our potential and crating a passionate vision for the future of Kerala. Such a passionate vision and new creative movement for Kerala should create conditions for the renaissance of Kerala in 21st century. This means it is important re-imagine a new Kerala- with a long term vision of the next fifty years, medium term vision for next 20 years and clear short-term policy and programme framework for the next five years.

Emerging Issues
Kerala is in the midst of a profound transition. It is important to understand the emerging issues that will have a relevance to the people and governance of the state. In the context of the election in 2011, it is important to consider few important issues and to develop viable and practical approach to those issues.



There are nine key issues that need to be addressed with a sense of urgency and clear plan of action.

1) Huge number of educated unemployed.

There are around 4.2 million registered unemployed in the state. This means around 12% of population of Kerala are unemployed or underemployed. The issue of unemployment in Kerala was addressed through the migration of skilled and semi-skilled and professional workers from Kerala to the rest of India and the world. Kerala has one of the highest rates of suicides in India and world. And one of the main reasons for high number of suicides is the lack of employment opportunities and the social pressure from a highly consumerist and conservative society.

As the labour market is getting increasingly saturated in many parts of India and the world, the biggest challenge is Kerala would be to create millions of new employment opportunities in a mission mode.

Issue of inequality, and poverty can only be addressed if the causes and consequences of unemployment is addressed in a sustainable way.

2) Corruption in Governance and government
There is a wide spread discontent against corruption at various levels. The various allegations against government departments and ministers of this government and previous government created an atmosphere of cynicism and anger among the common people of Kerala. There are various kinds of corruption- including the most obvious forms in appointment of teachers in the ‘aided’ schools and colleges, controlled by community-cast- networks across the state. Hence addressing corruption through pro-active policy framework and action programmes would be crucial to influence a larger cross section of people in Kerala.

3) The crisis of food production and agriculture

The migration of skilled and semiskilled labours to the gulf and other countries impacted the economy and agriculture of Kerala in a significant way. While this has created new employment opportunities in the construction sector and service sector, it also created deficit of labour in the agriculture sector. And the rapid shift to cash crops such as Rubber paradoxically increased the income of a section of middle class and at the same time adversely affected the food production in Kerala. Due to the migration of semi-skilled labours to others states and gulf, and due to new employment opportunities in the construction sector, rubber plantations, and service sector, there has been an acute shortage in the agriculture and farm sector. This has increased the cost of labour very significantly, making the cost of agriculture production very high. As a result, Kerala is dependent on Tamil Nadu and other states for food. This has significantly increased the cost of food in Kerala. Such a situation along with the inflation and fluctuating price of diesel and petrol created a steep price in the food price. This has created a new sense of discontent among the poor, lower middle class and government employees of Kerala.

4) Increasing criminalisation within the society.

The most evident form of criminalisation in Kerala is through the emergence of ‘quotation-gangs’. These are group of young people living in a consumer society – with an urge to make quick money to meet the ‘demands’ of the market. They are primarily used by group vested interests with the covert support of local political leaders. They are involved in a) real estate mafia b) Illegal sand mining c) getting and selling spurious alcohol from other states and d) using force to get back loans or capture assets of those who defaulted on loans to the banks. They are also involved in planned and targeted murder,extortion and threatening. This has increased tremendously in the last five years- resulting in high profile murders, planned attack etc. Hence, addressing this issue would be crucial in the context of Kerala.
5) Rights,Safety, Security of women.

In spite of good gender-development Indicators, when it comes to women's rights, space and empowerment the track record of Kerala is not encouraging at all. In spite of the relatively high educational achievement of women, there are less number of women in political leadership and there is less spaces for women to assert their rights and space. This situation needs to change.

Recent attack against a young woman of twenty three in the train and her consequent death created a sense of anger among all cross section of society in Kerala. There is an increasing tendency of harassment of women in public as well as private spaces. Hence it is important to have concrete measures to address this issue in a proactive manner – with a sense of mission.
6) Environment degradation and vulnerability to natural disaster.

Due to the over exploitation of rivers (though illegal sand mining) and also the tendency to fill in the marshy- land (used for paddy cultivation) for construction purpose has created acute shortage of water in a state with relatively high rain fall. The new wave of urbanisation and the lack of clear programme of sanitation, polluted the water sources. In the context of new urbanisation, based on the apartment-culture, scarcity of water will be an important issue.
The pollution of water, lack of adequate sanitation, and breeding of mosquitoes everywhere, induced new communicable disease, killing so many people. The unprecedented pollution of rivers and water bodies lead to an environmental crisis, resulting in floods and other natural disasters. There is hardly any well planned programme or process to address the issue of environmental degradation, pollution, scarcity of water and natural disaster.

7) Less quality of infrastructure

While Kerala has large quantity of roads and almost universal electrification, the bad condition of roads and regular power-cut created a sense of frustration among the people. The lack of regular maintenance of roads, along with rapid increase in the number of vehicles have created enabling environment for huge increase in road accidents in Kerala.
The lack of good roads and the constant power-cuts have adversely affected the potential of the tourism sector in Kerala. This also proved to be a hindrance for creating new employment opportunities in Kerala.

8)The issues of marginalisation and Poverty
In spite of relatively better social development indicators, there are many communities and people still at the receiving end of poverty and marginalisation. A very significant number of people from Adivasies,dalits and fisher folks are still at the receiving end of poverty and marginalisation. Lack of land, productive resources and sustainable employment and income create seasonal as well as entrenched poverty among a section of the society. Hence it is important to have special focus to address the causes and consequences of poverty and marginalisation in Kerala.

8) The vulnerability of Elderly People:


Due to intense migration of professional and skilled labour to different parts of India and the world, there is a real issue of the new vulnerability of elderly people, particularly those who have crossed seventy years. Many of them stay alone, and a large number of them do not have any health or psycho-social care. And Kerala will have very large number of elderly people and addressing their issue of health, security and developing support system would be crucial in the context of Kerala.



Kerala: Pathways to Future

It is important to have a paradigm shift in the socio-economic growth model of Kerala. The key challenge is how to build on the existing strengths of Kerala and at the same time going beyond the old policy paradigm to a transformative paradigm of socio-economic- and cultural renewal and renaissance of Kerala. On the one hand we need to address issues of poverty, marginalisation, environmental degradation and on the other hand it is is important to envision a socio-economic paradigm appropriate for the making of a just, equitable, sustainable and prosperous Kerala.

Developing a robust and sustainable local economy that can negotiate with global economy – with high quality products and services- would be crucial for the future socio-economic viability of Kerala.

When there is high economic growth in the service sector, coupled with high unemployment rate, increasing sense of social or economic inequality- with identity connotations, and a new wave of consumerist materialism, there would be more chance for criminalisation, sectarian politics and communal tensions.
So today the most important and challenging task is to create enabling policy and infrastructure conditions that can create millions of new jobs in the next ten years. While there will be significant opportunities for high-skilled professionals in the global labour market, there would be less opportunities for millions of semi-skilled and skilled labour force.

There is an estimated bank deposit more than 1.3 lakhs crore of rupees in Kerala and only 55% of this given as loan to be used. And even this is more often used n the consumer sector( like housing) rather than productive sectors. Here too most of the new investments are in the real estate, housing and retail sector. There is less significant investment in manufacturing or new knowledge economy sectors. Instead of inviting foreign investors, there is a very significant opportunity to create a new entrepreneurial culture – by promoting locally and globally networked small and medium scale enterprises in select areas. It is also important to strengthen some of the traditional manufacturing sectors such as coir, cashew and hand loom- in a way that they are competitive, effective and economically viable. However, this also requires new infrastructure (road, power and water) facility and supportive investment climate. It is possible to create two million jobs in the networked enterprises in knowledge sector( R&D, IT, ) , Service sector( community tourism, health, education, ) and manufacturing sector( agro-industries and food processing,, garments, cosmetics ).



While all these require much detailed analysis, public discussions and master plan for the next ten years, it is also important to highlight few of the policy options in the context of the forthcoming elections in Kerala. It is important to begin to think about possible policy options, within the next five years. What follows is not a comprehensive policy framwork, but more of an indicative framwork that may help to address some of the issues to a certain extent.

Following are some of the possible options within the given context:

A. Ensuring Socio-Economic Growth and employment creation.

1. Strengthening Local Economy and Grassroots Entrepreneurship, providing job opportunities for half a million people
2. An investment climate for small and medium investors among Non-Resident Keralites through strategic public private partnership in the area of tourism, agro-industries, garment factories, and new forms of developing sustainable and viable agriculture
3. Master plan to strengthen community tourism and heritage tourism – through network of small and medium service providers across Kerala.
4. Crate enabling conditions for possible outsourcing jobs in new sectors like research, IT, law, education and publishing
5. Another area of intervention is grass-roots public-private partnership. There can be a right mix of bringing together small investors- and the pnachayat to address three key issues: 1) Health- and psycho-social care to the elderly 2) Universal Health Screening and support 3) Universal access to internet and village knowledge centres
6. A master plan and execution strategy to ensure the infrastructure development, particularly roads, power and urban development. It is important to have innovative approach optimising our resources and strengths to ensure that we will have all infrastructure facilities to facilitate a higher economic growth.

7. Transforming Kerala in to a knowledge and health care destination by 2015, increasing job opportunities and economic growth. Kerala can be an important international destination for education and health care. This would strengthen the service sector and international influence of Kerala in so many ways. So there can be specific policies to encourage educational and health care facilities in the private sector catering to international customers

B. Ensuring Food Security and Strengthening and Transforming Local Government Institutions as the Fulcrum of social development

1 Transforming the Local Self Government Institutions as the Fulcrum of social development, Disaster Management, Water conservation and Environmental Protection.


2 Declining agriculture productivity will have implications in terms of food security and sovereignty. So there has o be conscious efforts to develop sustainable agriculture- with clear incentives for farming. Increasing the food production-(crops, locally produced vegetables, fruits etc) - can be done by new forms of agricultural cooperatives and adequate mechanisation. The rather very significant amount of uncultivated agricultural land can be taken on two year- lease- with the guarantee of the Panchyat- for initiating new agriculture-cooperatives. This can be also linked new newtowrk of agro-processing indusries at the grassroots level.

3 There has to be a clear master plan for water conservation and retention. Water and sanitation is one of the biggest problems in Kerala now there is an increasing lack of cleanliness. There has to be an effort to ensue clean- and green public places. Unclean water and increasing pollution is one of the causes for increasing instances of communicable disease in Kerala. More mosquitoes mean more adverse impact on health, tourism etc. Morbidity rate in Kerala is high (though mortality rate is lower) due to increasingly unclean environment and pollution

4 Kerala is also prone to natural disasters. The local self government institutions can be the nodal points for the protection of environment and also for implementing disaster –risk reduction strategies in Kerala. Kerala needs a very viable disaster-managment and mitigation policy. Every Panchayat needs to have a disaster risk reduction Plan- and this also needs to be included in the curriculam of primary and secondary education.

C. Ensuring the Rights and socio-economic development of Marginalised sections

1) Hunger Free Kerala: There are very significant numbers of destitute and semi-destitute people who are at the receiving end of Hunger. Hence it is important to launch a Zero-Hunger programme at every Panchayat. There has to be proactive measure to address the issue of real hunger. It is possible to raise resources for this through innovative partnerships between Panchayat, citisens groups and civil society formations.

2) More equitable distribution of opportunities and resources. There are many communities, particularly dalits, adivasies and fisherfolks with less access to productive resources and opportunities. It is important to ensure that there is relatively less social and economic inequality among the communities. There has to be special programmes designed to ensure better opportunities for education and empoloyment of the section of people from marginalised communities.
There has to be affirmative actions, to ensure housing,access to productive resources such as employement to those from the poorest sections of the society. It is important to ensure food security of these communities to making food and vegitable at affordable price.
3) Conscious efforts for to promote women’s security, space and rights. In spite of all positive development indicators, women are still marginalised in Kerala- and hence there has to be more conscious efforts and campaigns to ensure space and rights of women There has to be a 24X 7 cell at the state level and district level to provide support to women, particulalry in the case of harassment at work place or public space. There has to be trained women within the police and at least one women headed police station in each district, with a special responsibility to address some of these issues.
There has to be concious effort to increase the political, social and economic space for women in the society.

4) It will be crucial to develop psycho-social and support programmes for the elderly. In fact, new health screening and elderly care framework can be done on the basis of private-public partnership and monitored by Local governance Institution. This can also provide new employment opportunity for at least ten thousand people.

D. Promoting Peace and Security in the society

1) Promoting social cohesion and cosmopolitan ethos. Kerala has been known for the cosmopolitan social ethos. However, there is a new wave of conservative sectarianism, social mistrust and resultant communal tension. This needs to be addressed in a proactive manner. There has to clear policies that sustains the sense of social-cohesion, communal harmony and integration in Kerala. This cannot be done only through policies- it is important to ensure political process that sustains the social cohesion of the state.
2) A mission-oriented campaign to address criminalisation of society. Clear plan of action to tackle the menace of new ‘quotation-gangs’ in the state.
3) Reorienting police force in to a people-friendly public service- with more sensitivity towards women’s rights and more responsible and polite behaviour to ordinary people. Clear policy towards addressing issues of corruption and interventions by vested interest political or social groups. Recruitment of more women in to police force to ensure protection and support to women
4) Strengthening community policing to ensure the security at the grassroots level, particularly that of the elderly people.

E. Transparent, Responsive and Accountable Governance: Addressing the causes and consequences of Corruption

1) Corruption at all levels of government has become a great social and public concern in Kerala. Hence, there has to be clear policies to ensure the public disclosure of the sources of income by all government officials above the rank of Gazetted officers and all elected representatives, including MLA and Ministers. All such information needs to be annually updated on a public website and the furnishing of the wrong infomation needs to be punished under the law.
2) Create a Governance Response and Anti-corruption Centre with autonomy- attached to the office of the Chief Minister to ensure 24X7 hotline and web-services where citizens and government officers can do ‘whistle blowing’ and invite attention to corrupt practices at various levels. Such a governance response centre should have district focal points to do quick follow up action.
3) Public display of the details of tender for all public works- including the amount of tender, period for construction etc
4) Citizens charter at all hospitals, police stations and office- including public display of the budget and service available.
5) Institutionalising social audit of important departments at the district level and Right to Information clinics once in every quarter at the district level
6) Quarterly submission of the report on the status of corruption, the action-taken and status of investigation at the Legislative Assembly.
7) All appointments to the institutions funded from public resurces need to be done in a transparent, accountable and predicatable manner. The most evident form of corruption in Kerala is in the area of publicly funded private institutions run by various community groups and interests. The appointment to such publicly funded institutions need to be based on a transparent and competant system, evenwhen the management can take the decision for the appoinment of competant teacchers based on transparent and credible policy of recruitment.

F) Improving the quality of Education and Health care.

1) There is a need to have total master-plan for improving the quality of education right from the primary to the tertiary level. The quality of primary and higher education in Kerala has deteriorated over a period of time. The quality of Higher education and University centres in Kerala needs to be improved significantly to make them nationally and globally competitive.
2) The present corrupt practice of appointing teachers in aided schools and colleges need to be made more transparent, accountable and on the basic of certain criteria – to ensure that quality is not compromised.
3) Discourage the ‘communialisation’ and ‘cast’-approach to education where in community –cast leaders encourage people to send their children to their respective colleges and schools.

4) Massive campaign to improve the skills of and quality of educated unemployed through finishing schools, career development and professional quality to compete in the national and international labour market.

5) Establish multi-purpose ten thousand village-knowledge centres as a grass-roots public-private partnership to create more opportunities for education, employment and responsive governance. This can be a combination of e-governance and e-education at the grassroots level
6) A conscious effort to improve the quality of primary health care and the health-care of elderly people in Kerala. This has to be done on the basis of an affordable user-fee for those who have a monthly income of more than fifteen thousand rupees.
7) A universal health-insurance scheme to ensure quality health care support at the poor and marginalised sections of the society.
8) Create a cadre of fifteen thousand self-employed community health-care professionals- with training, accreditation and professional support system, particularly to address the health care issues of elderly, communicable disease and periodic health-screening at affordable price.


G) Transforming Kerala in to a Global Destination

1) There has to be special efforts to increase the number of tourists by many folds. There will be efforts to strengthen direct flights from Europe and South East Asia. There will be efforts to strengthen quality community tourism with ecological sensitivity.
2) Developing world class research, academic and training institutions, with the support of non-governmental actors, foundation and private sector. Kerala needs to developed as top knowledge destination in the world
3) Developing world class facilities for International conferences and conventions- in collaboration with private sector
4) Developing a facility similar to the Indian International Centre and Habitat in Delhi to provide support for international professionals and to support high quality seminars and meetings in Kerala.
5) Strengthening world-class health care facilities – in collaboration with private sector- to attract more customers from Europe, Arab world and rest of the world.

6) Create enabling and supporting conditions towards developing more than hundred ecologically responsible community tourism projects- that can revive agriculture, enviorment, ayurveda and empolyment. There can be up to 5000 rooms, direct and indirect emplyment for one hundred thousand( 1 lakh people) in this sector alone.




Many of these things do not need any new money- it is the approach that needs to be revisited. It is time to talk about grassroots - and local level initiatives- of scale - to transform Kerala. It can create more than 1.5 million new job opportunities. Creating strong and sustainable local economies and linking with the global is the key. Now we are doing the opposite- linking global economy to the local- without any capacity or culture- and this create a completely false kind of service economy - based on consumerism rather than effective productive capability.

The key is developing productive capacity, vibrant local economies, grassroots private-public partnership, competitive local market that can negotiate with bigger market with niche comparative advantage. All these need enabling social, cultural, and infrastructural environment. We need a completely new different way of looking at things than the present mode of doing things- either old wine in new bottle or new wine in old bottle. We need to envision a new Kerala. We need a paradigm shift- nothing less than that. We need to renew and re-imagine society, economy and governance to create a sustainable, just, vibrant and peaceful Kerala for the coming generation. It is to time to invest in a new Kerala, laying the foundations for the future- Making Change Happen!!