In India, Even Cared-For Populace Leaves for Work By JASON DePARLE The New York Times
Full: < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/world/asia/07migrate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin > TRIVANDRUM, India --This verdant swath of south Indian coastline is a famously good place to be poor. People in the state of Kerala live nearly as long as Americans do, on a sliver of the income. They read at nearly the same rates. With leftist governments here in the state capital spending heavily on health and schools, a generation of scholars have celebrated the "Kerala model" as a humane alternative to market-driven development, a vision of social equality in an unequal capitalist world. But the Kerala model is under attack, one outbound worker at a time. [...] To Kerala's admirers, the state's struggles are those endemic to the developing world, while its achievements are unique. It is poor, even by India's standards, with an annual per capita income of $675, compared with $730 nationwide. (The figure in the United States is about $25,000.) But Kerala's life expectancy is nearly 74 years -- 11 years longer than the Indian average and approaching the American average of 77 years. Its literacy rate, 91 percent, compares to an Indian average of 65 percent, and an American rate the United Nations estimates at 99 percent. Those enviable outcomes, its supporters stress, are the result of policy choices: Kerala spends 36 percent more on education than the average Indian state and 46 percent more on health. "The fact that quality of life can be improved through government intervention, even in societies that are very poor--I think that's important," said Prabhat Patnaik, the vice chairman of the state planning board. Kerala's experience, he said, shows "the quality of life is not just related to the growth rate" of the economy. "Put it in the context of any other part of the developing world and its achievements still stand out as remarkable," said Richard Franke, an anthropologist at Montclair State University in New Jersey. "Children don't die in the first year of life, boys and girls have approximately equal life chances, they get educated, and they live long lives." He added, "The Kerala model stands as a great achievement, with or without migration." Kerala's culture of human investment is at least two centuries years old and owes early debts to missionaries and maharajahs who emphasized schools. By the early 20th century, literate Keralites were already migrating internally, to work as clerks in Delhi and Bombay, and sending money home. Kerala was equally well known as a font of leftist politics. The Communist Party came to power in 1957, a year after statehood, and has ruled on and off since. The state transferred land from the rich to the poor, set a minimum wage and invested heavily in clinics and schools. Though Kerala's tax rates have been comparable with those of other Indian states, its collection rates have been higher, and it has spent more on education and health. It also gained a reputation as a place hostile to business, with heavy regulation, militant unions and frequent strikes. There are fishing jobs but little industry and weak agriculture. Government is the largest employer; many people run tenuous businesses like tea shops or tiny stores. Talk of the Kerala model began after a 1975 United Nations report praised the state's "impressive advances in the spheres of health and education." Starved for success stories from the developing world, experts noticed. Amartya Sen, a future Nobel laureate in economics, wrote widely on Kerala, arguing (in a book with Jean Dreze) that its "outstanding social achievements" were of "far-reaching significance" in other countries. In a book on three places that inspire global hope, Bill McKibben, an American writer, wrote that "Kerala demonstrates that a low-level economy can create a decent life" and shows that "sharing works." Yet even as Kerala gained fame, large numbers of its workers were leaving. The Persian Gulf needed labor, and Keralites were used to traveling for jobs. The number of overseas workers doubled in the 1980s, and then tripled in the 1990s. In a state of 32 million where unemployment approaches 20 percent, one Keralite worker in six now works overseas. The largest number work at taxing construction jobs, outdoors in the Arabian sun, though high literacy allows some Keralites to land office work. Without migrant earnings, critics say, the state's luster could not be sustained. The $5 billion that foreign workers send home augment the state's economic output by nearly 25 percent. Migrants are three times as likely as nonmigrants to live in superior housing, and about twice as likely to have telephones, refrigerators and cars. Men seeking wives place newspaper ads, describing themselves as "handsome, teetotaler, foreign-employed" or "God-fearing and working in Dubai" "The Gulf is the biggest factor in sustaining a higher quality of life," said B. A. Prakesh, an economist at the University of Kerala. [...] Kerala's home-grown critics say such stories underscore the problems of a strategy that severs human development and economic growth. "Keralites are developing the Gulf economy," Professor Rajan, the demographer, said. "They are not developing our economy." Professor Franke, the Kerala admirer, said the economic forces that lead people to migrate are beyond the state's control. "But what's unique about Kerala is that the benefits are likely to be shared in a more fair and just way," he said. "I wouldn't say it discredits the model," Mr. Franke said of Kerala's migration. "It shows that it has weaknesses." Full: < http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/world/asia/07migrate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. 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