BOOK REVIEW | The Kerala Model Revisited in Story of Schisms and Isms by R. Mohan

Kerala has been punching above its weight for a long time. In the 20th century, it spawned a genre of academic studies based on the idea that it was a model that parts of the developed world should follow. Few other Indian States could boast of such a thing. More anthropologists and economists and sociologists have studied it than perhaps any other Indian State. So comprehensive, nuanced and information-rich is the volume under review that no shelf of books on Kerala can afford not to reserve a place for it among those resources essential to understand this State.

The author, R. Mohan, a former Indian Revenue Service officer who has also worked with the Reserve Bank of India, has been meticulous with his homework. He relies mostly on documents of unquestionable authenticity. Reports in the Legislative Assembly and academic works by a selection of local, national, and international scholars form the bulk of such material. He is balanced and chooses only such material as has explanatory or descriptive value. This is no mean feat considering that Kerala’s politics is like a multi-dimensional chessboard where the squares keep changing colours.

Scepticism Lite

Mohan is aware that the fluttering of a political butterfly might cause a tsunami one day and is careful in linking cause to effect. This is tricky because opinions and ideas and their spread and transmutations are what Mohan is engaged in. Unlike quantifiable facts in finance or economics, one needs a fine net to catch these. Mohan is up to the challenge. Two of the 10 chapters and over 150 pages are therefore devoted to sketching the background.

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Things start making sense when we examine the scrupulously separated facts and interpretations that Mohan presents. He maintains an objectivity that is surprising in one so involved in the affairs of the State. One reason is that everything is anchored to solid sources. A leader may have declared something at a public meeting somewhere. Mohan will not quote that from a news report. Instead, he will rely on statements that were recorded at a more formal gathering or actually written by the person concerned and submitted to a judicial or other officer. Similarly, he is not too fond of quoting historians. Instead, he relies on scholars with credibility. We have here Scepticism Lite, a model other writers would do well to adopt.

The authorities Mohan quotes include a galaxy of the best minds that have worked on Kerala: Granville Austin, Richard F. Franke, Kathleen Gough, Robin Jeffrey, K. P. Kannan, Robert L. Hardgrave Jr, Jawaharlal Nehru, V. R. Krishna Iyer, Achutha Menon, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, R.J. Nossiter, Louise Ouwerkerk, R. Prasannan, V. K. Ramachandran, David Selbourne, Taya Selkin, and George Woodcock. Names and institutes do not mean much to Mohan. What was said and whether it helps us understand the topic under discussion are what bother him. This is therefore a serious book by a serious scholar but many of the questions that are examined in the book belong to the types that are animatedly discussed in our tea stalls or at that quintessentially Keralan forum for discussion—roadside gatherings of assorted people. That is just an index of how important these were to laypersons in Kerala.

There is a certain buttoned-down tone to the book that does not have any use for the irony, sarcasm, and mockery so beloved to the Malayali. It is not that Mohan is insensitive to such things, but they generally evaporate before being set down in official records. An exception is when the author reports on a move to increase allowances to MLAs and ministers. The motion was lost. During the debate, comparisons were made to the emoluments that people like Joseph Stalin and Jayaprakash Narayan drew from the public treasury. Members of the ruling dispensation and the opposition united to oppose the move to increase salaries. This was in the early 1950s. From then until today, Mohan observes wryly, every motion to increase emoluments has been passed unanimously.

Some clear patterns are identified by Mohan. As the decades rolled by, what was seen as the primary responsibility of governments—provision of basic needs, delivery of services, formulation of policy and providing an effective administration—took a back seat. All energy began to be expended on politics and politicking.

Mohan appreciates how intractable the problem of land was in a polity that, for much of history, had kept all working people away from legal ownership of land. The concerns of those who were land-poor themselves kept changing as technology, migration and caste and community-based occupations lost their grip. The complex nature of the relationship between landowners, tenants and agricultural workers in rural Kerala also kept changing. Politicians and planners struggled to keep abreast of this ever shifting scenario.

There is a certain buttoned-down tone to the book that does not have any use for the irony, sarcasm, and mockery so beloved to the Malayali. 
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By Special Arrangement

Women have had a better position in Kerala than all other States in India. In the 20th century they began to march out of their homes in large numbers to get educated or to take up jobs. But for all the celebration of Kerala women, it is a sad fact that very few are put up as candidates by political parties at State and national elections. There is little sign of this imbalance being addressed. This undermines the ideal of egalitarianism on which democracy is based.

Many of the policies that were adopted by Kerala after debates at all levels of society including in the Legislative Assembly were copied by the Union Government or by different State governments. This includes the internationally noted MGNREGA and laws regarding decentralisation.

There is much more in this volume, but lack of space forbids a full enumeration. Helpful notes, summaries, tables, charts, detailed inventories of reference material after every chapter and lists of important points prepared with the thoughtfulness of a good teacher; all make the readers’ journey through the book easy. No part of the book will lend itself to the short video.

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Schisms and Isms has one minor flaw. The dangers of climate change and the extinction of native species are passed over rather lightly as part of references to the environment and the need to pay greater attention to it. If you want lyricism or purple prose, look elsewhere. If content is king, this is a winner.

But this review will take issue with the publisher for the shabby proofreading and copy-editing of the volume. Aakar Books has let itself down. Another edition with an expanded index and all errors scrubbed will make this an indispensable volume, one that deserves space in even the smallest shelf of books on what has come to be called Kerala Studies.

Does the author have a politics? I think he does. It is the ethical politics of a man who has told us the story of how a model State has turned, in about a century, into a model of what a State should not be.

P. Vijaya Kumar, a retired college teacher of English, is based in Thiruvananthapuram.