God's own Country - Golden Jubilee
Kanna ezhunthireda……amma called out loudly from the kitchen loud enough to wake me up but with a sense of reluctance as though she didn’t want me to wake up. I get up from my bed to find a hot steaming cup of filter coffee beside my favorite newspaper “The Hindu” kept on the table. I sheepishly flip through the pages while slurping the coffee when a news suddenly strikes me. Today is the golden jubilee of Kerala’s first government. The first communist government was sworn in on this day before 50 years.
A sudden sense of excitement caught hold of me and I began reading the articles related to the news one after the other with a new found sense of purpose. The reasons are obvious; a lot to do with the history of the state which I had just studied earnestly as part of my semester curriculum. The first government had earned fame in more than one way. It was first communist government that was elected to power anywhere in the world. It was the government which introduced a lot of path breaking reforms and policies which aimed at achieving social justice apart from economic development all of which has eventually gained a name in the form of the Kerala model of development that has attracted the attention of many an economist. It still remains a paradox as Kerala is a first world state in a third world country because it mirrors the US on many of the physical quality of life index (PQLI) except for the per capita income.
While the government introduced many policies that had the benign intentions, it also bought with it the trade unions that made the life of any entrepreneur miserable. Any person who attempted to do business in Kerala broke his back. Trade unions used to resort to strike for reasons as silly as non-availability of a special variety of pappadam (famously known as the Pappadam strike of FACT). All these had become the theme for many a Malayalam movie in the 80’s which depicted the plight of the average educated unemployed malayali youth and the various problems that plagued the state.
The story still continues. Red flags can still be found fluttering in almost all the junctions of the city. Even this time the day I came here to Trivandrum, there was a strike by the lorry drivers against the road tax which was hiked almost after a decade.
At the same time the city landscape is undergoing a sea change. It seems as though a new city is being built with the old edifices being pulled down although as part of the road widening process and nascent buildings coming up in their places. I was completely startled to see a lot of a new buildings cropping up, new hoardings being put up and a hell lot of new cars swarming the city. A lot of this change has to do with the IT revolution that is sweeping across the city. With big companies like Infosys, Mckinsey and a host of other IT/Consulting companies setting up offices here, the lifestyle of the city folks has also started changing. A few years back, a Pizza corner or a Café Coffee day is something that I couldn’t have imagined in Trivandrum, but they all have crept in due course of time.
It is very difficult to say whether Kerala has achieved a level of development that it ought to have achieved partly because of the paradox that still hounds the state. The communist government cannot just sit back and rest on its past laurels (although they introduced a lot of initiatives aimed at social welfare) but try and push for more investment and thereby pull the section of people who are still over dependent on agriculture. But things are changing for sure. Trivandrum as I perceive is all set to join the big league of metros if the number of IT companies that have mushroomed in the recent past is anything to go by. As the communist government is back to power after 50 years it will be interesting to see what policies they take at this juncture when industrialization, liberalization and not redistribution hold the key to the growth and development.
Kanna ezhunthireda……amma called out loudly from the kitchen loud enough to wake me up but with a sense of reluctance as though she didn’t want me to wake up. I get up from my bed to find a hot steaming cup of filter coffee beside my favorite newspaper “The Hindu” kept on the table. I sheepishly flip through the pages while slurping the coffee when a news suddenly strikes me. Today is the golden jubilee of Kerala’s first government. The first communist government was sworn in on this day before 50 years.
A sudden sense of excitement caught hold of me and I began reading the articles related to the news one after the other with a new found sense of purpose. The reasons are obvious; a lot to do with the history of the state which I had just studied earnestly as part of my semester curriculum. The first government had earned fame in more than one way. It was first communist government that was elected to power anywhere in the world. It was the government which introduced a lot of path breaking reforms and policies which aimed at achieving social justice apart from economic development all of which has eventually gained a name in the form of the Kerala model of development that has attracted the attention of many an economist. It still remains a paradox as Kerala is a first world state in a third world country because it mirrors the US on many of the physical quality of life index (PQLI) except for the per capita income.
While the government introduced many policies that had the benign intentions, it also bought with it the trade unions that made the life of any entrepreneur miserable. Any person who attempted to do business in Kerala broke his back. Trade unions used to resort to strike for reasons as silly as non-availability of a special variety of pappadam (famously known as the Pappadam strike of FACT). All these had become the theme for many a Malayalam movie in the 80’s which depicted the plight of the average educated unemployed malayali youth and the various problems that plagued the state.
The story still continues. Red flags can still be found fluttering in almost all the junctions of the city. Even this time the day I came here to Trivandrum, there was a strike by the lorry drivers against the road tax which was hiked almost after a decade.
At the same time the city landscape is undergoing a sea change. It seems as though a new city is being built with the old edifices being pulled down although as part of the road widening process and nascent buildings coming up in their places. I was completely startled to see a lot of a new buildings cropping up, new hoardings being put up and a hell lot of new cars swarming the city. A lot of this change has to do with the IT revolution that is sweeping across the city. With big companies like Infosys, Mckinsey and a host of other IT/Consulting companies setting up offices here, the lifestyle of the city folks has also started changing. A few years back, a Pizza corner or a Café Coffee day is something that I couldn’t have imagined in Trivandrum, but they all have crept in due course of time.
It is very difficult to say whether Kerala has achieved a level of development that it ought to have achieved partly because of the paradox that still hounds the state. The communist government cannot just sit back and rest on its past laurels (although they introduced a lot of initiatives aimed at social welfare) but try and push for more investment and thereby pull the section of people who are still over dependent on agriculture. But things are changing for sure. Trivandrum as I perceive is all set to join the big league of metros if the number of IT companies that have mushroomed in the recent past is anything to go by. As the communist government is back to power after 50 years it will be interesting to see what policies they take at this juncture when industrialization, liberalization and not redistribution hold the key to the growth and development.
