ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the potential of Amartya Sen’s idea of ‘public action’ in mapping the social history of human development. It begins with Sen’s exposition of the idea in the context of the south-west Indian state of Kerala. It then proceeds, first, to evaluate the heuristic value of the concept; second, to dissent with its ‘official’ Marxist critique of it; and third, to develop an alternative, social anthropological critique. In doing these, the chapter substantially draws on an examination of the differential trajectories of human development of two caste groups, the pulaya dalits and the nambudiri brahmans, located at polar ends of the social order in Kerala.