ABSTRACT
Kerala is a state in India best known for having achieved some of the highest indicators of social development in the industrializing world, with near first world levels in literacy, life expectancy and infant mortality. The classical Kerala ‘model’ promulgated a social justice model of development that was achieved in spite of a relatively low average annual income – about one seventieth of that of the United States – and a narrow industrial base. Additionally, over a fifth of the state’s economic product has been drawn from international remittances, money from income received and remitted from migrants working overseas back to their place of origin. Kerala’s development success has been achieved with little foreign aid, and continues into the twenty-first century against the backdrop of increasing economic liberalization since the early 2000s by the national Indian government. Its development successes have primarily been achieved through both popular grassroots movements and progressive state interventions. Since the formation of Kerala as a state in November 1956, successive governments have been spurred by Kerala’s vigorous civic and activist culture to implement wideranging land reforms, universal education and health care and extended social protection. Public action and the role of women have been critical to Kerala’s development experience and in its literacy, people’s science and decentralization movements.
