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ABSTRACT
Kerala modernity and its widely acclaimed model of development, among other factors, is a result of radicalised civil society and protracted political action. The political actions of multiple actors such as social reform movements, communist movements, public theatre, people’s science movements, library and radical public policy played decisive role in this direction. In contrast to the two dominant conceptions of modernity – western capitalist modernity and eastern socialist modernity, which conceptualised that modernity is the result of industrialisation and centralised planning and development, respectively – modernity in Kerala was the result of political actions from below, which forced the state to adopt radical social and political reforms. These exceptionalities in Kerala modernity distinct itself from rest of the modernities in societies of the Global South.
Acknowledgments
I am thankful to staff members of Kerala State Library Council and Kerala State Central Library for their support and cooperation. I sincerely acknowledge the immense cooperation extended by Ms. P.K.Shobhana, Kerala State Librarian, Ms. Suja P.H., Nodal Officer- IT & Web Information Officer, Kerala State Central Library, Thiruvananthapuram, and Prof. Gopikuttan, former Head of the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.
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Notes
1. Anderson, Federal Solutions, 133.
2. Ibid., 134.
3. Varshney, “Ethnic Conflict and Civil Society,” 424–455.
4. Mohan, “Understanding Keralam,” 18–33.
5. Dreze and Sen, Hunger and Public Action.
6. Ibid., 19.
7. Jeffrey, Politics, Women and Well-Being.
8. Mannathukkaren, “The Rise of the National-Popular and its Limits,” 494.
9. Aloysius, “Interpreting Kerala’s Social Development,” 2–13.
10. See note 8 above.
11. Gramsci, Antonio Gramsci Prison Note Books.
12. Kamrava, Politics and Society in the Developing, 194.
13. Jussy, “A Constitutive and Distributive Economy of Discourse,” 29–42.
14. Ibid., 36.
15. Zarrilli, “Political Theatres, Postcoloniality, and Performance Theory,” 222.
16. Mannathukkaren, “The Rise of the National-Popular and its Limits,’ 501.
17. See note 15 above.
18. Menon, “Lost Visions?”
19. Zarrilli, “Political Theatres, Postcoloniality, and Performance Theory,” 220–228.
20. See note 18 above.
21. Gopalakrishnan, “When the gods came down.”
22. Sundar, “Protest through Theatre,” 123–138.
23. Prabhash, “State and Public Policy in Kerala,” 403–418.
24. Alves, “Four Comments on Kerala,” 24–39.
25. It is to be remembered that the Hindu rulers forced to extend education to the common masses, especially the lower caste, because of the ‘threat’ posed by the Christian missionary to Hindu community. In the process of conversion to Christianity, missionaries set up schools and provided access to socially marginalised sections which posed a challenge to the Hindu kings.
26. Tharamangalam, “The Perils of Social Development without Economic Growth,” 23–34.
27. Franke and Chasin, “Kerala State, India,” 1–23.
28. See note 4 above..
29. Harriss, Depoliticizing Development.
30. Tornquist, Politics and Development.
31. Dreze and Sen, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity.
32. The conventional wisdom regarding development is that democracy based on competitive party system and political contentions are not conducive for development. On the contrary authoritarian regimes which insulate from democratic compulsions and social bargaining often considered to be suited for development.
33. When science and technical knowledge were monopolised by the elites of the society, the state witnessed the popularisation of scientific knowledge and even the ‘massification of science’ among the rural people. KSSP emerged as the pioneer in the history of mass movements in the state by imparting scientific knowledge and scientific thinking through regional language, conducting street plays, awareness campaigns and organising demonstrations and meetings around the demand for greater science education in regional language and the preparation of Malayalam Scientific Dictionary. see Isaac, Franke and Parameswaran, 1997.
34. Kannan, “Secularism and People’s Science Movement in India,” 311–313.
35. Isaac, Franke and Parameswaran, “From Anti-Feudalism to Sustainable Development,” 34–44.
36. Ibid.
37. Varughese, Contested Knowledge.
38. Parameswaran, “Significance of Silent Valley,” 1117–19.
39. Varughese, “People’s Science Movements,” 80.
40. Ibid.
41. Parameswaran, Nalam Lokam.
42. Jussy, “A Constitutive and Distributive Economy of Discourse,” 33.
43. The term was coined by Benedict Anderson (Anderson, Imagined Communities).
44. See note 3 above.
45. Kumar, “Total Literacy Campaign in Kerala,” 80.
46. Nair, People’s Library Movement.
47. Oldenburg, The Great Good Place.
48. In fact, the total literacy campaign got a momentum with the inauguration of Nation Literacy Mission by the Government of India in 1988. In 1989, the KSSP with the patronage of the Mission began the Total Literacy Campaign in Ernakulam District which later extended to the rest of the state. See Kumar, “Literacy Movement in Kerala,” 2187–2191.
49. Jussy, “A Constitutive and Distributive Economy of Discourse,” 35.
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V. Bijukumar
V. Bijukumar, is an Associate Professor at Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, JNU, New Delhi. Before joining JNU, he taught Political Science at Mizoram University, Aizawl and North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. Over the years, he has shown keen interest in society and politics in North-East India and published many research papers and newspaper articles on various issues of Northeast India. His books include: Reinventing the Congress: Economic Policies and Strategies since 1991 and Parties and Electoral Politics in Northeast India: Contention of Ethno-regionalism and Hindu Nationalism.