PECULIARITIES OF KERALA

The people of Kerala, known as 'Malayalees' is polygenetic and belong to different ethnic groups and religions. Few, if any, can claim to belong to any particular stock. The Keralites of Kerala and elsewhere, are, in the view of anthropologists, "an ethnological museum. Kerala is a state in the south-western part of India. 

Stone age carving in Edakkal Caves had pictorial writings believed to be dating to at least 5000 BC, from the Neolithic man, indicating the presence of a prehistoric civilization or settlement in this region. From as early as 3000 BC, Kerala had established itself as a major spice trade center. Kerala had direct contact across the Arabian Sea with all the major Red Sea ports and the Mediterranean ports as well as extending to ports in the Far East. The spice trade between Kerala and much of the world was one of the main drivers of the world economy. For much of history, ports in Kerala were the busiest (Muziris) among all trade and travel routes in the history of the world.

A 3rd-century-BC rock inscription by emperor Asoka the Great; attests to a Keralaputra. Around 1 BC the region was ruled by the Chera Dynasty, which traded with the Greeks,Romans and Arabs. The Tamil Chera dynasty, Ays and the Pandyan Empire were the traditional rulers of Kerala whose patriarchal dynasties ruled until the 14th century. The Cheras collapsed after repeated attacks from the neighboring Chola Empire and Rashtrakuta Empire. Feudal Namboothiri Brahmin and Nair city-states subsequently gained control of the region.

Contact with Europeans after the arrival of Vasco Da Gama in 1498 gave way to struggles between colonial and native interests. In 1795, the area was under British dominion. After independence, the state of Kerala was created in 1956 from the former state of Travancore-Cochin, the Malabar district of Madras State, and the Kasaragod taluk of Dakshina Kannada.

Kerala is a popular tourist destination famous for its backwaters, Ayurvedic treatments and tropical greenery. Kerala has a higher Human Development Index than all other states in India. The state has a literacy rate of 99.59 percent, the highest in India. A survey conducted in 2005 by Transparency International ranked Kerala as the least corrupt state in the country. Kerala has witnessed significant migration of its people, especially to the Persian Gulf countries during the Kerala Gulf boom, and is heavily dependent on remittances from its large Malayali expatriate community

Dravidians: By 700 B.C., the Dravidians (The Mediterranean People), who migrated from the Mediterranean region, spread to the whole of India especially in the south. The Dravidians are the ancestors of majority of the present day Malayalees. They absorbed many of the beliefs of the Negrito and Austric people, but they were strongly inclined to the worship of the Mother Goddess in all her myriad forms: Protector, Avenger, Bestower of wealth, wisdom and arts.

Aryans: After the Dravidians came the Aryans who had already settled over northern India from the Mesopotamian region. They migrated to south India during circa 300 B.C.

We see Keralites everywhere, working extremely hard, from menial jobs in the Gulf to professorships in the States, displaying their entrepreneurial energies and achieving remarkable successes. So what is it that holds them back here, in their home state? Is it resources, policies, attitudes, politics? All of the above?

It’s always been a curious paradox that Keralites put in long hours in places like the Gulf, where they have earned a reputation for being hard-working and utterly reliable, while at home they are seen as indolent and strike-prone. Surely the same people couldn’t be so different in two different places? And yet they are – for one simple reason: the politicized

environment at home. It’s a reputation that has come to haunt Kerala.

BMW had been persuaded to install a car-manufacturing plant in the state, thanks to generous concessions by the UDF government. But the very day the BMW executives arrived in Kerala to  sign the deal, they were greeted by a “bandh”: the State had shut down over some marginal political issue, cars were being blocked on the streets, shops were closed by a hartal. It had nothing to do with BMW or with foreign investment, but the executives beat a hasty retreat. The plant was set up in Tamil Nadu.

The irony is that Kerala has got some essential things right. One famous 

study has established some astonishing parallels between the United States 

and the state of Kerala. The life expectancy of a male American is 72, that of a male Keralite 70. The literacy rate in the United States is 95%; in Kerala it is 99%. The birth rate in the US is 16 per thousand; in Kerala it is 18 per thousand, but it is falling faster. The gender ratio in the United States is 1050 females to 1000 males; in Kerala it is 1040 to 1000, and that

in a country where neglect of female children has dropped the Indian national ratio to 930 women for 1000 men. Death rates are also comparable, as are the number of hospital beds per 100,000 population and the number of newspapers per 10,000 population (where Kerala is ahead of the US). The major difference is that the annual per capita income in Kerala is around $300 to $350, whereas in the US it is $22,500, about seventy times as much.

Kerala has, in short, all the demographic indicators commonly associated with "developed" countries, at a small fraction of the cost. A state that has practised openness and tolerance from time immemorial; which has made religious and ethnic diversity a part of its daily life rather than a source of division; which has overcome caste discrimination and class oppression through education, land reforms, and political democracy; which has given its working men and women greater rights and a higher minimum wage than anywhere else in India; and which has honoured its women and enabled them to lead productive, fulfilling and empowered lives.

And yet, despite all these strengths, it’s difficult to deny that Kerala has failed to move from its agrarian past into meaningful industrialization, principally because it has acquired a less than positive reputation as a place to invest. “Keralites are far too conscious of their rights and not enough of their duties,” The opinion of an expatriate Malayali businessman is . “It’s impossible to get any work done by a Keralite labour force – and then there are those unions!” He sighed. “Every time we persuade an industrialist to invest in Kerala, it ends badly.” Citing the examples of the Gwalior Rayons plant in Mavoor, the Premier Tyre factory in Kalamassery and the Apollo Tyres plant in Chalakudi.

The fact is that we cannot afford to remain dependent on remittances from abroad for 20% of our state’s income because we have such an inhospitable environment at home. We cannot languish in last place in the World Bank’s 2009 “Doing Business in India” report, because it takes 210 days to obtain approvals and permits in Kochi against 80 days in Hyderabad. We cannot live with unusably narrow roads because we lack the courage to explain to residents why they must be widened in the interests of all. We cannot have one of the lowest rankings (lower than Orissa) in per capita information technology exports. We cannot be a state that our best minds and most skilled workers seek to flee because opportunities for remunerative work are stifled by opportunistic politics.

 Kerala, its people, its resources or its potential. But we have to move with the times and not be left behind where other states are moving forward by steering in the right direction. Reliance on NRI remittances will not solve the basic problem, since remittance money is essentially personal savings and spent on conspicuous consumption, including purchase of land and the construction of dwellings. Kerala has to attract the normal type of investment funds which are being put to use by the rest of the country. This will only happen if we are hospitable to investors. This does not mean betraying our workers, but finding them work. It does not mean giving up our values, but adding value to our economy. It does not mean placing profit above people, but rather, using profits to benefit the people.

The Cochin Shipyard recently succeeded in building huge Trader class ships for a Bermuda company, ahead of deadline. Shipbuilding is a highly labour-intensive industry; some 30 percent of the input is human labour, which is what makes it ideal for us. The workers at Cochin Shipyard – unionized to a man – have demonstrated that labour remains India’s greatest asset, even in Kerala. It does not have to be, as investors have long feared, a liability.

A visit to Trivandrum’s pioneering Technopark confirms that even Kerala’s past failures at attracting and retaining heavy industry are now working in the state’s favour.  The quality of the local engineering graduates, and the beauty of the lush and tranquil surroundings. Indeed, One Technopark firm is having bid for a contract with a Houston-based company which had drawn up a short-list of Indian service providers and placed the Trivandrum-based company last. The American executives making the final decision flew down to India to inspect the six shortlisted Indian firms. After three harrowing days ploughing through the traffic congestion and pollution of Bombay, Bangalore, and Delhi, they arrived in Trivandrum, checked into the Leela at Kovalam beach, sipped a drink by the seaside at sunset -- and voted unanimously to give the contract to the Kerala firm. “If we have to visit India from time to time to see how our contract is doing,” the chief said, “we’d rather visit Kerala than any other place in India.”

We can and must build on this. Kerala needs to improve its creaking infrastructure, improve its services sector, boost its IT exports, and take

advantage of its existing potential to become a knowledge economy. If a Hyderabad company like Portal Player can design the iPod to be manufactured

in China for sale in the US, the next world-beating invention can come from Keralite brains in Kerala. This will call for more than just investments

from NRKs. It will mean private sector players from abroad and elsewhere in India deciding that investment in Kerala will pay for them. This will, above all, need a change of mindset.

Similarly, to be a knowledge economy we have to open our mental horizons to the world, rather than remaining embedded in the sterile dogmas of shopworn and discredited ideologies. This is why  Dr. Sasi Tharoor has persuaded the organizers of the world-famous Hay Festival of Literature to bring their Festival not just to India but specifically to the capital of Kerala. The extraordinary nthusiasm with which Hay was received by 3000 attendees in Thiruvananthapuram reflects the hunger of our educated young Keralites to be part of today’s world rather than handmaidens of yesterday’s. Kerala can be India’s intellectual centre, a distinction now abdicated by Bengal after three decades of Marxist rule.