First of all let us recap what Kerala is:
In 1957, for the first time in the world, the communist government was elected in a democratic vote in Kerala, Southwestern state of India. Since then, Kerala is fascinating experts on political economy, demography, development, and others – for the reason that nothing there fits the frames. Kerala known as one of the poorest states in India, with much lower Gross Domestic Product than other regions in that country – manages to obtain the first rank among regions in Human Development Index (HDI) in India. Moreover it has approximately the same life expectancy as the United States, and almost 100 percent literacy rate – what is unusual not only for India, but also for the entire developing world. When we look at Kerala part by part we have next to our eyes at the same time ‘paradise’ and ‘limbo’. The paradise of an educated and relatively healthy population; the limbo of immense poverty and current local and national affairs that may possibly take apart this so called “Kerala Model.”
Then we can try to recap what India is (if anyone can):
When I read Arundhati Roy’s Field notes on Democracy (if you have not read it I encourage you to do so), honestly I became India-traumatized, India-scared, yet is not India as it proudly claim “the world’s biggest democracy?” Therefore, little bit I was world-democracy scared too. Roy is not a horror-writer; she is just such a good observer, a constructive critic of today’s reality.
Thankfully Kerala was a contradiction to the fear of this democracy of this privatizing capitalistic Export Processing Zone between the Indian Ocean and Himalayas. In New Delhi, we met Dr. Usha Ramanathan, an independent law researcher – the problems described by Arundhati Roy now were coming out of Dr. Ramanathan mouth, and were confirmed by what we have seen during our study-trip in the North. The picture which is “un-Keralistic” to what we learned and experienced in the region of Kerala.
When we put Kerala on one hand and India as a whole on another hand, sometime we may feel like we are looking at places from two different hemispheres, but we also cannot forget about their connectedness, about echoing within those two – often of echoing more New Delhi in Kerala than the opposite. They are connecting vessels – we cannot deny this fact, ergo we have to understand today’s India first to admire Kerala, second to even more fear about this extraordinary region.
Each country in the world has its problems… following this statement - India is not perfect, but very often even does not to try to be so. Or, rather the government of India does not. Currently constructed of the Congress Party repres
entatives, in its nature social democratic, in its executive… no one knows… There is not such theory in political ‘taxonomy’ to classify every ‘does’ and ‘does not-s’ of Indian politics to receive a concrete ‘species’. However, it is easy to find some common traits, enough to call it a mutant of nationalism, neo-liberalism, and the war on terror… And the streets of Delhi are the best mirror of those traits with the biggest number of army and police officers I have seen in my life. Just not to mention how airports ‘mirror’ all of that.
The facts are – India has an open, long-lasting conflict with Pakistan, and if we will take this condition by the points of Arundhati Roy – this is an occupation. Politicians might find other words to describe this fact – but euphemisms they would use, cannot compare to the number of army and military stuff spread around Kashmir, and causalities on both sides. Along with the kind of ‘Muslim paranoia’ broaden all over India in so called Hindutva: Hindu nationalism that oppresses mostly Muslims, but also Christians, and Other minorities. Often along with it there is used another term nationalistic-economy that supports such discriminative process as Hindutva.
Somehow meeting with Dr. Ramanathan and learning from the Field notes on Democracy about today’s India was like re-reading Friedrich August Hayek again. Except that for Hayek the origin of oppression lied in the lack of capitalism, for Roy and maybe also for us – it happens where capitalism take its human-less face. As Roy concludes on the page 48 of her book: “There is no terrorism like state terrorism.” And since “terrorism” is the national problem it echoes have to be present in Kerala too – by claiming for example that Muslims boys are trying to convert college girls to their religion; or by putting entanglements at the entrance to the Kochi airport, just in case the troops from Islamabad (3,500 kilometers away) will stop by.
In search for the roots of these problems Roy takes us to the so called “West”, both in its colonial siege, and today’s hegemonic neoliberalism:
“From the early 1990s, we have seen the systematic dismantling of laws that protect workers’ rights and the fundamental rights of ordinary people (the right to shelter/health/education/water). International financial institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) demand these not just as precondition, but as a condition, set down in black and white, before they agree to sanction loans. (The polite term for it is structural adjustment).” (130)
Dr. Ramanathan adds also problems with legislation – there is “many good laws in India, but not so many are followed.” But there are also dreadful laws in India, laws that establish terror of Indian police and army to ‘protect’ the state against terrorism. Laws that make people exploited with famous “100 days employment rule” in the countryside areas - The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The NREGA guarantees every rural family a hundred days of work, yet it causes a vast unemployment, because some companies interpret this act that ‘they should be hire up to 100 days’ what in fact accelerates unemployment – according to Dr. Usha Ramanathan.
When I asked one person at the Kochi airport what he thinks about the quality of democracy in his country, he said that “indeed there is democracy, but once they [politicians] are elected they behave as ‘rajahs’ [kings] from the past.” And when we have for example in front of us the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) - we are about to agree with him. This is how Arundhati Roy commented on POTA:
It is draconian and ubiquitous. It is a versatile, hold-all law that could apply to anyone. […] POTA allows confessions extracted in police custody to be admitted as judicial evidence. In effect, under the POTA regime, police torture tends to replace police investigation. It is quicker, cheaper, and ensures results. Talk of cutting back on public spending. (52-53)
As Dr. Ramanathan confirmed it will take hundreds of years to deal with every case of an incarcerated person in India, - there are many who stay way too long under arrest even for ‘low harm crimes’. These laws are present in Kerala, not profoundly as in the rest of India, but are executed by those who have profit from them. They may be dangerous to Kerala famous ‘outspokenness’ – to regular people who are not afraid to fight for their rights. We could see examples of that when we were in Kerala’s tourist main-attraction – The Backwaters. Where protesters stood for 20 days next to their old place of work – one of vast resorts that mistreated them, did not regulate work hours, and behave like in fact they are ‘slaves’ not workers. But if police will treat them as New Delhi police treats strikers there, their protest would not last that long.
Both Dr. Ramanathan and Roy regret the switch from India as one of the leaders of Non-Aligned Movement to being aligned with the United States This ‘switch’ started in India the period of privatization and structural adjustment programs, that lead to displacement of many people, their marginalization, as well as to such issues like farmers suicides. India became the country of Export Processing Zones that exploits people. At the same time, we observe the emerge of nouveau-riche who are a product of the new neoliberal system, and who support the cycle of oppression by remaining uninterested with the fate of marginalized people in their country. Yet the stories of the displaced people come from every side: When you travel around the city and see the slums or when you hear the shootings of violent displacement for new high-ways and dams. When we were traveling in Agra, we almost witnessed such case. The daily oppression is taking place all over India, also in Kerala with the 100-days work act for example big planters can more and more exploit their workers.
The daily injustice has many faces – also on the top political level, unfortunately also in regards for example to the case of the Judge Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal (128) who allotted ground of a former slum that soon was seized by his sons who had a real estate company. We know about this case mostly thanks to the investigative journalism, yet there are also cases where media fails and become a natural ally to the system of oppression. Especially in creating public opinion, or rather ‘boiling’ the public opinion, and gaining out of hatred and stereotypes. Media do not hesitate to accelerate those allegations. As it is happening with Naxalites who through the strip of more than 1/3 of India, spread fear and deaths of thousands – yet, no one asks why do they do that? Why did they become like that?
I still have next to my eyes the people living at the streets of Delhi, as well as begging mothers with children on their arms at the crossroads – malnourished, half-alive babies with their eyes that are so much different than eyes of kids I know from home; one cannot find inside them a sparkle of joy, of new ideas for games and mischief – the eyes of street children have no hope, no future, they are ‘bleached’ by poverty and injustice.
There are also issues that like ‘ghosts’ come back from the past - Dr. Ramanathan mentions for example the tragedy of Bhopal that remains unexplained till now.
Just a trip to Navdanya in the footsteps of Himalaya where Dr. Vandana Shiva fights for natural agriculture and seeds preservation, or to Jaipur where one of many India’s NGOs: CECOEDECON (Centre for Community Economics and Development Consultants Society) strives for access to water in poor and remote villages, women and Muslims empowerment; and spreads awareness about the climate change. This can be a truly eye opening experience to see much more, to discover more injustice and intolerance, yet at the same time hope, that there are some people and organizations that do not give up their fight for better, more democratic, and ‘truly’ developed India.
Works Cited:
Hayek, von, Friedrich, A. The road to serfdom. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967.
Roy, Arundhati. Field Notes on Democracy - Listening to Grasshoppers. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009.