Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

with often irrational skepticism, and asks them to concentrate more on the moral precepts
advocated by their religion.
The Emerging Trends
This has resulted in a peculiar and contradictory process in the region. On the one hand,
the region is producing a substantial number of educated human power with more
resources than ever before. They are either diverted into trade or other forms of
‘business’, which is aimed at making money in a rapid pace, or they are being sent to gulf
as laborers or businessmen. The emerging religiosity and political priorities persuade
them to accept this as the only way of life, and all other forms of knowledge are being
looked upon with suspicion. We have a peculiar situation in which people accept all the
latest technologies, and not the science. Scientific thought is sought to be replaced with
religion or rather, ritual, a tendency that has come to prevail in all communities. The
preference for trade and commerce is not turned into a choice for the development of
industrial capital, for two reasons, one is the risk factor which no one wants to undertake,
and second appears to be the Islamic objection to interest payments. Jama-at-e Islami
conducted a campaign against interest payments a few years ago, and there is a vigorous
campaign by a number of religious preachers against interest payments. It is clear that
capitalist economy cannot function without interest payments, which means an
ideological barrier to the development of capitalist enterprise, although not against a
capitalist market. The overall result of these processes seem to be the transformation of
the entire population into ‘educated’ petty traders and proletarians forced to subsist on the
spaces provided to them by the market forces.
Unfortunately, the initiatives by the political authorities and local social leaders also push
towards the same direction. For example, majority of the Kutumbasree units do not do
any productive activity but are micro-credit organizations, which only encourage the