Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

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2.2.5 The Post-Independence Period
The substantial freedom in the social and economic
spheres that followed the political freedom comprised a
series of turning points. Radical land reforms in the 1960s
were a landmark in the development history of Kerala.
It bestowed a measure of economic freedom upon the
large mass of agricultural labour households through
land redistribution, conferment of ownership rights to
hutment dwellers, creation of colonies for members of
the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST),
with lands, buildings, and facilities. Equally radical was
the Kerala Agricultural Workers Act (1974), hailed as
the Magna Carta of agricultural labourers in the State. It
prescribed hours of work, security of employment, higher
minimum wages and welfare provisions. It heralded
wage inflation in Kerala that contributed to a rise in living
standards but also, among other factors, to the decline of
the highly labour-intensive rice cultivation.
Yet another landmark was the vast network of public
distribution of food. It increased people’s access to
foodgrains and other items of daily consumption, such as
sugar, edible oil and kerosene, by subsidising the difference
between the market and the issue prices through fair price
shops. At another level was the public distribution of food
in Kerala through the school-feeding programme (discussed
in greater detail later).
An expanding network of social security and welfare
measures, such as pension schemes (for agricultural
workers, widows, destitute, old age and the physically
handicapped) and welfare funds (for informal sector
workers), taken up over time under populism and
organised public demand also ensured enhancing of
economic freedom.
of newspapers in the language of the people, Malayalam.
A number of voluntary organisations also emerged, consciously
and conspicuously imparting scientific and rational awareness
among the masses.
All these had a favourable impact on the health front also.
Kerala attained high health status in respect of all standard
indicators of maternal, infant and child health as well as of
the general health of the people, on par with those of many
developed nations, due to a vast health care infrastructure
facilitating access to institutional care. The network of primary
and community health centres extended their services to the
remotest of rural areas in the State.
Behind all these improvements was an ever-growing
public demand. But the initial immediate causes such as
the lure of a secured job and the associated opportunities
were not sustainable themselves. It should be noted that
agency well being is a function not only of the capability
to function but also of its translation into achieved
functioning. Otherwise, discontent and frustration set
in. Thus, enhancing social development presupposes
expanding economic opportunities. However, given the
regional character of the Kerala economy, the capabilitybuilding
development process could not lead to
enhancing opportunities in the productive sectors of the
economy. It created and accumulated a large reserve of
human resources much in excess of physical capital, thus
giving rise to the socially frustrating outcome of educated
unemployment. Kerala thus was not able to translate its
greater freedom into actual achievement.
Nevertheless, the social development achievements
implied a positive outcome of a fast demographic transition,
The aspirations of a new generation free from ignorance
and ill health resulted, through public demand and supply,
in wider access to education and health care. Even by 1971,
a little over 60 per cent of Kerala’s population was literate,
as against 29 per cent for all-India, 10 and Kerala always led
all other States in per capita expenditure on education. 11 In
the 1950s, education claimed 35.6 per cent of the total State
Government expenditure, rising to 39.7 per cent in the 1970s. 12
Kerala was again fortunate in that the literary movement
helped develop a non-formal education system with a wide
network of libraries and reading rooms, and a large number
10 Panikar and Soman, 1984: 60.
11 Menon, 2000: 285.
12 Panikar and Soman, 1984: 61.