ABSTRACT
The development experience of the small south-Indian state of Kerala has created a sense of euphoria among development thinkers and policy makers. This euphoria centres on the state’s achievements in social development despite her low level of growth, measured in terms of per capita income. The eulogies bestowed on the ‘model’, however, have ignored, or seem to have ignored, the distributional aspects of Kerala’s achievements. Disparities are found to exist and certain social groups are found to have been left out from the domain of the ‘Kerala model’ (Sivanandan, 1979; Kurien, 2000; Planning Commission, 2008).
