Social and Economic reform in Kerela

Written by Ashutosh Soni.

Life Magazine wrote an article where it said "Kerala is the smallest and one of the poorest of the Indian states" in 1970. The New York Times in 1964 spoke about Kerala's starvation. Indira Gandhi even said that she wouldn't eat rice

 until the rice demand is met in Kerala. which shows the ratio of per capita income in Kerala

 to the per capita average in India In the 1970s and 80s, Kerala's income was almost

 20% lower than the Indian average. But after the 90s, this situation began to improve. Based on the latest available data from 2012, So how did Kerala, a state whose first government

 came to power with a slogan, “We are not going to do anything wonderful,” managed to make such progress that it became one of the most developed states of India? We will get to know about that in this article.

"Kerala unveils a harmony of art and nature...

"Keralam has been the cradle of invading forces from time immemorial..." "The economic conditions in Kerala is not very good..." Many of us would think that one reason that helped Kerala develop so much is the investments it made in health and education. For example, from 1980s onwards, a higher share of Kerala's budget, compared to the Indian average, was invested in the health and education sector One of the main reasons for this wa the Kerala Education Bill  introduced by the Communist government

 in Kerala, when it came to power in 1957.

In the late 1950s, most of the schools in Kerala were private and the teachers there received very low salaries.

The 1957 bill changed this and the government started paying the salaries of private-run schools too and such schools came to be known as "aided schools" That is, schools that receive help from the government and hence, Kerala has been outpeforming the India average in many health and education indicators. In fact, by 1999, the life expectancy in Kerala was higher than even South Korea and China, But this progress didn't come only after independence. But princely states like Travancore and Cochin were outperforming the rest on India in these sectors ."The cradle of invading forces..." The formation of Kerala took place in 1956 when the former princely states of Travancore and Cochin and the British-ruled Malabar district were made into a state because they shared a common language, Malayalam.

Let's talk about Tranvancore, which was the most progressive all three regions. The governance in Travancore was so strong that in 1867, the British secretary of state for India said that  Travancore is a “model native state” for its successful public administration.

Two factors that played a key role in 

Improving the education of Travancore. First, was the proactive role played by the government for example, by 1904, the  entire cost of primary education for lower caste residents was borne by the government of Travancore but some academics argue that often the role played by the government is exaggerated, Some people believe that in the 19th century the Travancore government didn't do much for the backward communities or women.  Instead, social movements and the Christian missionaries should be given credit for the same ,For example, reform movements like 

the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam helped provide education to lower caste communities

Similarly, the missionaries helped build 

schools and colleges for the lower castes. For example, the London Missionary Society

 built schools for thousands of students But when the London Missionary Society schools 

started running into financial difficulties, the government stepped in. and they started providing financial support to them. There were three reasons behind this-First- by providing them with financial support, the government had greater control over education in the state 

"Second, by supporting these schools,

 the government could ensure

 that the lower castes had their own schools and they would not use the schools run by the government for the upper-castesIn fact, the upper castes in Travancore  began to urge the government to open up schools for the lower castes to avoid mixing with them.

Third, the lower castes, many of whom 

had converted to Christianity, started demanding education tooand so, to meet this demand for education, it was easier for the government to give support to existing Christian schools rather than building new school. Despite this, there caste discrimination was greatly prevalent in Kerala's education sector. This is why Dr. Mitchell introduce the Education Code in Travancoreto mitigate the caste discrimination

For example, in 1891-92, lower castes Ezhavas (and I know I cannot produce Ezhavas correctly I cannot pronounce the Malayalam sound).In 1891-92, lower castes Ezhavas were only 2.1% of all pupils in government schools, while they constituted 16% of the populationWhich helped increase the literacy rate among  the lower caste communities like the Ezhavas And helped Cochin and Travancore become among the most literate regions in India in 1931And we need to realize that literacy has several advantages.

One of the key advantages is financial literacy. Hence, it is not surprising that according to a research foundation, Kerala has one of the highest percentages

 of women. Who manage their own bank accounts And the ability to manage money is extremely important for everyone.According to a survey, nearly 76% Indian adults do not adequately understand key financial concepts. Another survey found that 72% Indians are unaware of how much to invest in order to achieve financial freedom. In such a scenario, what can be especially useful is a centralized, automated system that can help you manage all the different sources of our financial investments - that is, all your assets and liabilities .And one app that can help you do this is INDmoney, which is an all-in-one super app in many ways .The key benefit of using INDmoney is that it auto-calculates how your investments are performing,  which ones are doing well and which ones need urgent attention, and it can also help you invest in zero commission mutual funds