Since 1967, Kerala has been government-by-coalitions led, alternately, by the Communists and the Congress, all sharing a common vision. This included state financing of school education, whether delivered through state-run schools or private ones: salaries of all staff and maintenance are paid for by the state. A small clutch of unaided schools came up only in the '90s by which time, Kerala had already attained its Model.

This shared vision had one serious flaw. The Communists were convinced, thanks to Soviet indoctrination, that capitalism had turned obsolete and was not a viable option. They opposed capitalist growth and mobilised people against it. This shared dogma led to Kerala's stagnation right down to the '80s, which began to wear off in the '90s, along with Communist beliefs.

Educated Keralites without job opportunities at home migrated in droves and ploughed back remittances. In that sense, remittances are internal to the Kerala Model, not a fortuitous, external prop. Read More

Jyothi Shankaran

    Jyothi’s last role was as Senior Editor with the business news channel Bloomberg TV India. He also worked as News Editor at business-standard.com, the online version of the business newspaper Business Standard. Jyothi is a chemical engineer from the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.