This is an introduction to a festschrift to Dr C. R. Soman, famed nutritionist and public intellectual that I wrote.
The festschrift was published in 2007 to celebrate the remarkable Dr Soman’s 70th birthday. The volume was titled: ‘Kerala, Fifty Years and Beyond Festschrift for C.R. Soman on his 70th Birthday’. It was edited by Dr C. C. Kartha.
Malayalis grow lyrical when talking about their land and it is almost impossible to hear them speak of Kerala, or Keralam as the more patriotic would say, without prefixing the word ‘kochu‘ to it. Kerala is never Kerala to them; it is always ‘kochu Keralam‘. The Malayali uses the phrase with possessiveness and justifiable pride. ‘Kochu’ in Malayalam means small or tiny, but it suggests the petite and the endearing, even the beautiful and the perfect. You will not find the grandeur of the Himalayas or the majesty of a Ganges here. Almost all of Kerala is beautiful, but it is beauty not on a grand scale but of the small-is-beautiful variety. As a visiting journalist once remarked, every inch of Kerala looks like a painting by a Van Gogh who had thrown away his yellows and used onlygreen.
This green, picturesque land is both old and young. Old, because it has been continuously occupied by humans for about 12 millennia; young because the political entity called Kerala came into being only on November 1, 1956, with the reorganisation of India on linguistic lines. This, and other similar paradoxes, defines the land and its people.
Geography and geology determined the shape of the land, and the history it would have, more than any other force. Bounded by high mountains on one side and the sea on the other, Kerala
was isolated enough to develop distinctively. Yet the ocean currents and the mountain passes welcomed the visitor and kept open a window to the rest of India and the wider world so that every wind of consequence that blew elsewhere left an impact on Kerala. The mountains and the ocean winds ensured two monsoons every year. This, and the rivers and streams draining the mountains and the foothills and the presence of innumerable lakes, backwaters, canals and ponds ensured a lush and bountiful region which was home to a bewildering range of fauna and flora. If man had not intervened, it is doubtful if sunlight would actually fall on
even an inch of land in Kerala. This made Kerala the home of spices and a sensible choice for organised cultivation of cash crops from fairly early on. The earliest visitors to Kerala’s shores – the Romans, the Phoenicians and the Arabs – must have come here looking for spices and other things botanical.
Evolution in isolation seems to have been the theme song of Kerala in its early days. Much of the epic violence and dislocations that must have marred life in other parts of the mainland bypassed this land or had only a muted impact. But its position on one of the most important trade routes in the world kept it in touch with the march of civilization. Thus, Kerala developed a unique and distinctive culture. In art, thought, architecture, dress, cuisine, social
practices, crafts, beliefs, rituals, combat techniques, medicine – indeed every aspect of life – the Malayali and his culture evolved forms and styles that were both sophisticated and special. From the Vechoor cow, which the Malayali says is the smallest cow in the world, to a matrilineal system that did not totally subsume women under oppressive and hidebound patriarchy, every feature of life and culture in Kerala bespoke of an individuality that came from adaptation to the local.
Yet, paradoxically, the foreign was often welcome. The major religions of the world won adherents here, as did important schools of Indian philosophy. An intellectual soil thus fertilised began producing mathematicians and philosophers of importance from quite an early age. From Buddhism before Christ to the latest fads of postmodernism – every major school of thought has produced a Kerala version. This history of acceptance and amalgamation ought to allow this land and people to cope with the challenges of 21st century globalisation better than most other regions once under colonial rule.
But what evokes wonder is the story of modern Kerala and its transformation from a theocratic madhouse to a model state that most parts of the third world are asked to emulate. That this miracle was achieved in just two or three generations and with almost no violence and bloodshed is also probably unique in world history. The inspiration for the changes may have come from abroad, in the form of ideas about human dignity and egalitarianism,
but it was native in every other way. The leadership and the dynamics, the style and the techniques and even the results were uniquely Malayali.
The changes that were to have a decisive influence on Kerala, which had not yet been formed, began with a series of changes in the 19th century that nudged the economy and social set up of this region towards modernisation. Among the most important of these
was the abolition of slavery around the mid-nineteenth century; first in British ruled Malabar and later in Cochin and Travancore. Plantations, established to take advantage of the demand for the cash crops Kerala could so easily produce, needed labour and they began to be paid in cash. The trend away from food crops towards the more lucrative cash crops had begun.
Education, with English as a component, also began to spread around this time. This produced not only the Malayali whose mind was influenced by European ideas about equality and liberty and so began to question a number of practices at home, but also the Malayali who had acquired a skill that he could sell to anyone who was willing to pay for it. This was the beginning of the Malayali diaspora, and the emergence of the Malayali who would travel out of his home and country to work in some far away office or factory or estate or hospital. The money he sent to his folks back home, was not only to sustain families but later to grow to be one of the pillars that would prop up the economy of Kerala.
Rapid strides were made in the increase of literacy. Books and newspapers, and the ideas they spread, were to transform the people into the most politically active and rights-conscious in India. This was to result in a genuine grass-roots democracy that was to bring to power one of the first elected communist governments in the world. It was also to result in a fairer distribution of resources than seen anywhere else in India and, consequently, less iniquitous
social divisiveness.
Out of all these, and similar trends, emerged modern Kerala. The investments made in providing medical services to all citizens and the setting up a very effective public distribution system also paid off. Kerala, on a fraction of the income of the developed
countries, has remarkably high life expectancy and low infant mortality figures. By the end of the 20th century, the picture that emerged of Kerala was that of a small wonder – a land blessed by nature and with a people who were vibrant, creative, self-confident,
resourceful and adaptive; people who could cope with whatever
challenges the future brought.
But this is not the full story. The paradoxes one always found in Kerala have begun to take on grotesque forms. A land, culture and people, shaped by geography and history to be distinctively different from the rest of India, is now being reshaped by the
potent forces of globalisation. All things native – art forms, traditional food, dresses, architecture, habits, the very landscape, even the plants and animals native to Kerala – are being transformed or are disappearing. And the strength of the Malayali that enabled him to
meet the challenges of history is increasingly being called into question. What else can one conclude from the fact that Kerala often leads India in suicides, psychiatric disorders, road accidents, alcohol consumption, unemployable graduates, pollution of water bodies and cases of harassment of women?
The gains in education are being undermined by the pathetic state of higher education in Kerala. The failure to nurture an academic culture, even in universities and colleges, has turned the campuses of Kerala into arenas dominated by the compulsions of party politics and the business of entertainment. As the incurious and the ineducable take over the campuses of Kerala, the Malayali who loves knowledge and understanding, and can contribute to it,
seeks refuge in campuses outside the state or country. One is left contemplating the prospect of cent percent literacy and zero percent knowledge.
The Kerala politician himself has changed, from the high-minded, spartan, well informed and spirited fighter for people’s rights to the vicious power-broker who is undermining the very
institutions his predecessors helped build. Nothing else can explain the increasing criminalization that is becoming evident in a number of fields and is vitiating day-to-day life.
If agriculture was the backbone of Kerala, it is a millstone around the neck of every government that now comes to power. Bewildering ranges of problems beset the State and most seem to defy both understanding and solutions. As the forests of Kerala disappear and the rivers and lakes die, two things the Malayali always took for granted are disappearing before his eyes – that idea that every inch of land in Kerala could be profitably cultivated
and that pure water was his natural birth right.
The land of the industrious never became the land of the industrial. Now, as globalization pulls the rug from under the feet of Kerala’s traditional industries the vacuum created cannot easily be filled. IT-enabled industries touch a very small segment of the population. Tourism, on which so much hope is placed, shows signs of slipping on the banana peel of environmental degradation. The entrepreneurial classes who could invest and thus bring employment and prosperity to Kerala choose to do so elsewhere. No one wants to answer the question of how long nostalgia, overseas remittances and a sense of humour can sustain an economy and a culture without catastrophic dislocations.
The vaunted achievements in health might disappear under the onslaught of greed and commercialisation. Changes in lifestyle and diet and patterns of consumption are throwing up challenges an inefficient and often, clueless government sector seems unable to address. Riding on the achievements of the past and on catchy slogans might not ensure a bright future. A people famed for their rationality and pride now bow and scrape before a million gods. A land where maharajas suffered from malnourishment (the result of an abstemious lifestyle, not poverty) is turning into a place of competitive vulgarity that has raised shopping malls and gold bazaars to iconic status. The land of the simple and the self-sustaining is fast turning into one of the profligate and the wasteful. The skepticism and earthiness of the
Malayali once ensured that respect was given to all. This was the state where a Chief Minister once stood in line at a queue in a ration shop and where legislators and film stars could be seen walking down public roads or using public transport. Celebrity culture and the worship of the wealthy and the powerful are destroying this democratic and egalitarian ethos.
The paradoxes that were noticed in the Malayali are no longer curiosities that merely amuse. His ability to be romantic and cynical, aggressive yet accommodating, tolerant yet fanatical, rational yet ritualistic, hardworking yet unproductive, isolationist yet open minded might still prove to be something other than a bane. It might even provide him with the much-needed flexibility needed to tackle the problems of the 21st century.
Kerala appears to have become the victim of its own success. It will need every resource it can access – natural, intellectual, spiritual and economic – before it can become something other than a successful victim. If history has taught us anything it is that sobering lesson.
actually succeed in turning this naturally beautiful land into one where its citizens can live lives that are peaceful and comfortable in surroundings that are benign and just. Kerala faced the problems
thrown up by the 19th and 20th centuries with intelligence and energy and by learning and adapting to the changes taking place everywhere. Let us hope that the Malayali will fight and emerge successful and that he will it would do so again in the 21st century.
About the author
P. Vijaya Kumar is a teacher of English. He was given birth to in
Thiruvananthapuram and has spent almost his entire life there. He has
worked in various government colleges during his career. According to
him, he loves to read, hates to write and spends much of his time scratching
his head.
Note: A couple of minor corrections have been made to the original article.
Thank you. Nandri. Namaskaram.
P. Vijaya Kumar / PVK 26/May/2023
PVK's Book mark 