8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/changing-phases-of-keralas-development-experience-examining-the-excluded 1/29 1 CHANGING PHASES OF K ERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE:EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL R EFERENCE TO STSD. Shyjan Lecturer, Dept. of Economics, University of Calicut & A.S. Sunitha Research Scholar, Centre for Development Studies, Trivananthapuram.Paper accepted for Presentation at the Annual Conference on “ Equality, Inclusion and Human Development” of the HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND CAPABILITY ASSOCIATION (HDCA), New Delhi, 10-13 September 2008 Organised by Institute for Human Development, New Delhi
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CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
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8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
Kerala model of development experience had been characterized by high social sector
development with poor economic performance. There was a long-standing view that thedevelopment experience was based on certain ‘averages’ and therefore, there were ‘outliers’
to the unique social sector development of Kerala. The fisher-folk, Tribal groups and the
scheduled caste of Kerala were identified as the examples of outliers.
Recent literature shows that the development process of Kerala registered a
turnaround since the late-eighties imparting considerable economic growth
stimulus to high human development. A question that emerges is whether the
process of development in contemporary Kerala could encompass the erstwhile‘outliers’ to its mainstream OR the understanding of Kerala development
experience is continues to be on averages, leaving the marginalized unaffected?
This study is an enquiry into the status of marginalized communities in Kerala
with special reference to the tribal population.
A major contributor to the turnaround in Kerala has been identified as the service sector.
When we look at the structure of employment among the tribal population in comparison with
that of the non-tribal, we find that the growing sector of Kerala’s economy has not absorbedthe tribal population. The major chunk of the tribal population is still engages in agriculture
and allied activities whereas for the state as a whole the structure of the employment is
showing a transformation from the primary to the tertiary sector. It is also observed that the
change in the social and economic status of the tribal community has been marginal than that
of the average population of Kerala. Hence the study argues that the Kerala model of
development celebrated during the 1970s and the 1980s as well as the recent turnaround in the
growth shows only an average picture and the tribal population is kept out of the general
achievements made by the state. Therefore, the tribal population of Kerala is still to be
considered as the excluded from the development experiences of Kerala.
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
CHANGING PHASES OF K ERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING
THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL R EFERENCE TO STS
I. Introduction:
A CDS-UN study in 1975 triggered curiosity and scholarly interest in Kerala’s developmentexperience. The study viewed Kerala as an exemplary case of achieving high levels of social
development with very low levels of economic advancement. Thus the so-called ‘Kerala
Model’ eventually became part of the global development discourse.
For almost three decades between the late 1950s and the late 1980s, Kerala’s economic
performance was rather dismal despite its high human development, reflecting a ‘human
development lopsided’ pattern of development. This long period of lopsidedness precipitated
a series of writings in the 1990s, which argued that Kerala economy is at the verge of a crisisdue to heavy burden on welfare expenditure and declining material production. In accordance
with the HDR (1996), these studies also anticipated that the economy would fall into a
situation of low income and low human development. George (1999) argued that a slow
expansion of the resource base (a low state income) would set a limit to Kerala’s social sector
achievement.
But in recent years, a series of studies observe a turnaround in the development experience of
Kerala. Subramanian and Azeez (2000), Ahluwalia (2002), Pushpangadan (2003) Achin
(2005) and Kannan (2005) have come out with the observation that economic growth has not
completely eluded Kerala. From 1994-95 onwards per capita income and its growth rate in
Kerala is greater than all India average. A striking feature of the Kerala economy in the
turnaround growth scenario is the drastic change in the pattern of sectoral composition of
output, increasingly inclining towards the tertiary sector.
Statement of the problem
It is quite natural that averages explain a phenomenon. However, as in all distributions, Kerala
has certain sections of its population for whom the general tendency or the pattern of the
development cannot be applied. Getting insights into such populations is important since the
credit of Kerala’s success is driven by enlightened state policy based on equity and public
action rather than market led-individual initiatives. Kurien (1995) attempts to provide some
statistics on Marine fishing communities as outliers to the ‘Kerala Model’ during the period of
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
Thiruvananthapuram 1058 1113 1075 961 956 975 Note: * population excluding SC and ST
Sources: Census of India, 2001
.
III. (A) Educational Attainments
Education, the basis for capability building has not spread effectively among the tribal
population in Kerala and the educational distance between tribal population and rest of the
population is great. There is on an average 30-percentage point difference in the literacyattainment between STs and the general population in Kerala. While a difference of 26-
percentage point is found in male literacy, the difference is as high as 35 point in the case of
female. This shows that women are not only absolutely deprived but relatively too. The
highest difference in literacy is found in areas in which tribal population is highly
concentrated.
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
influenced significantly the situation of tribal communities in northern Kerala. The fruits of
the development experience of the State are not manifested in a similar way in the case of
tribal communities.
IV. Structural Transformation in Employment:
Long term analysis of the Kerala economy reveals two distant phases in its development. The
first phase prior to 1987, characterized by poor performance of the major economic indictors
vis-à-vis higher levels of social sector development and the second phase, post 1987 period,
which has registered significant growth in economic as well as social sector indicators.
During the turnaround growth phase, the structural composition of the economy has changed
dramatically; the tertiary sector’s growth has been surpassed by the performance of the
primary sector. The tertiary sector’s share increased by 37.5 per cent in income and 43 percent in employment during 1983 to 1999-2000, whereas the primary sector’s share decreased
by 26 per cent and 36 percentage respectively, during the same period (KHDR, 2004). In the
secondary sector, while the employment share increased by 27 per cent, the income share fell
by 24 percent.
To address the question of inclusive growth we shall take a look at the growing sector of the
State economy to find out whether it had any effect on the marginalized communities. There
is the problem of the data on income across social groups. Hence, we take into account the
pattern of change in the employment structure of the Kerala economy and compare it with that
of the SCs and STs. Before examining the structural change in employment, first, we compare
the work participation rates of SCs and STs with those of the general population; see Table 9.
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
The primary inference to make from this Table: 14 is that, while about 80 per cent of the
general population was involved in the case of employment of ‘Other workers’ which
includes industries and service sector, only half that proportion, that is 40 per cent of the tribal
population, was are involved in this category. The major chunk of the tribal population wasemployed as agricultural labourers and a very meager proportion was engaged as cultivators
and household industries.
The preceding analysis reveals that 88 per cent of the tribal population is still working in the
primary sector of the economy, while only 44 per cent of the general population works in this
sector. Only 8 per cent of the working population among tribals is into the tertiary sector as against
37 per cent of the general population. This clearly shows that the structural transformation in the
economy since the 1980s could not accommodate the tribal population at all. They remain still inthe periphery of the development process as outliers to the distribution of the fruits of
development6.
V. Tribal situations in Kerala in comparison with tribals in India.
In this context it will be worth studying the position of the tribal population in Kerala vis-à-
vis the tribal population in India. Here, along with all the variables in the deprivational index
discussed above, we have added two more variables, viz proportion of people having banking
service availability and the proportion of population that possess none of the specified assetsgiven by the Census, 2001.
6 For a district wise picture of the pattern of employment at nine-fold classification, see tables in appendix 1 tables A1
to A9
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
This shows that the percentage point difference in deprivational index is one of the highest in
Kerala. Assam has the lowest difference in material attainments between the general
population and ST population. One striking feature is that such difference is minimal in Bihar,Orissa, UP, etc. This might be because the general population in these states is also poor.
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
which stand in favour of the celebrated development experience of Kerala, themselves
constitute the reasons for the relative deprivation of the tribal communities in the state.
Various factors have been identified by scholars, within as well as outside the country, for the
social sector development of Kerala sans economic progress (CDS-UN, 1975; Franke andChasin, 1991). Most important among them are: a) politically motivated institutional
intervention, viz, the land reforms which gave entitlement to the tenants; b) the social reform
movements which paved way for the lower castes attaining a social space like entry into
temples, access to education, health care and c) the influence of the Christian missionaries in
spreading English education and literacy, etc. However, evidence suggests that these three
factors have not been imparted any influence on the tribal communities of the State.
There is a long-standing view that the tribal population of the State has not at all been the
beneficiaries of the programme of land reforms (Ravi Raman, 2002; 2003; 2005). Again their
cry for land and the agitation resulted in Muthanga firing is an eye opener in this regard.
Again, there is hardly any evidence to suggest that the social reform movements of the State
spread over the tribal belts unlike among the other communities, especially the Ezhava and
the Scheduled Castes. The role of Christian missionaries in spreading education and literacy
has been marginal among the tribal communities until recently. Thus, we may argue that the
various factors that contribute to the sector development of the State rarely imparted any
influence on the tribal folk and that the kind of social development enjoyed by an average
Keralite during the initial phase was therefore not inclusive of the Tribal communities.
Similarly, during the second phase, of the turnaround growth too, the tribal communities
remained as unaffected by the very factors that led to the turnaround. Studies point out that
factors such as economic reforms, remittances and human capital were the main source of the
turnaround since the mid-1980s (Chakravarthy, 2005; Kannan, 2005). In fact, these three
factors are mutually reinforcing. To Chakravarthy (2005), the outstanding levels of basic
education provided to the people of the State during earlier periods gave opportunities to them
to find employment outside the country. The overseas migration resulted in large increase of
private income (huge amounts of remittances). The outcome of economic reforms, according
to Kannan (2005) was the discontinuation of the fixed-exchange rate system, in favour of a
market-determined one, which contributed to the strengthening of the role of remittances.
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS
a turnaround in the growth performance of the state when it translated its human development
into growth, basically in the service sector, thus making it a sound model of development.
In the period of lopsided development itself, it was found that there were outliers to this
central tendency. The foregoing analysis verifies this hypothesis, with reference to tribalcommunities of the state. It was found that deprivation was higher and the lack of educational
attainment much greater for the tribal people in Kerala than general population in the State.
The structural transformation of the State - increasing dependence on the tertiary sector and
the decreasing dependence on the primary sector - has not been applicable to this outlier
community. The whole development of the State happened in a context of its exclusion; could
not accommodate tribal communities in the distribution of the fruits of development.
Since the factors such as land reforms, educational attainments and foreign remittances have
contributed to the particular development pattern of the State economy and since these factors
impart little influence on the tribal population, the study raises a case for a second generation
land reforms which should reach the really deprived – the outliers – of society. Active
government intervention is also necessary to ensure quality education to the tribal and other
marginalised communities of the state in order to empower them with high human capital.
8/12/2019 CHANGING PHASES OF KERALA’S DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE: EXAMINING THE EXCLUDED WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STS