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September 7, 2007
Border Crossings
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>
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