POLITICS, WOMEN AND WELL-BEING CAMBRIDGE COMMONWEALTH SERIES Publishedby Macmillan in association with the Managers of the Cambridge University Smuts Memorial Fund/or the Advancement of Commonwealth Studies General Editors: E. T. Stokes (1972-81); D. A. Low (1983- ), both Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth, University of Cambridge Selected titles: David Butler and D. A. Low (editor.~) SOVEREIGNS AND SURROGATES: Constitutional Heads of State in the Commonwealth John Darwin BRITAIN. EGYPT AND THE MIDDLE EAST: Imperial Policy in the Aftermath of War, 1918-22 T. R. H. Davenport SOUTH AFRICA: A Modern History Margaret P. Doxey THE COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT AND THE CONTEMPORARY COMMONWEALTH Mark Francis GOVERNERS AND SETTLERS: Images of Authority in the British Colonies, 1820-60 R. F. Holland BRITAIN AND THE COMMONWEALTH ALLIANCE, 1918-39 Robin Jeffrey POLITICS, WOMEN AND WELL-BEING: How Kerala became 'a Model' D.A. Low (editor) CONSTITUTIONAL HEADS AND POLITICAL CRISES: Commonwealth Episodes, 1945-85 THE POLITICAL INHERITANCE OF PAKISTAN W. David Mcintyre THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 1965-90 A. N. Porter and A. J. Stockwell BRITISH IMPERIAL POLICY AND DECOLONIZATION, 1938-64 Volume I: 1938-51 Volume 2: 1951-64 Sumlt Sarkar MODERN INDIA, 1885-1947 T.E. Smith COMMONWEALTH MIGRATION: Flows and Policies B. R. Tomlinson THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE RAJ, 1914-47 Politics, Women and Well-Being How Kerala became 'a Model' Robin Jeffrey La Trobe University, Melbourne ltl Robin Jeffrey 1992 Soflcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 All rights reserved.No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or * transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London wn 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Publishedby PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue,New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representat ives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLCand of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan~ is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries . ISBN 978-1-349-12254-7 ISBN 978-1-349-12252-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12252-3 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Transferredto digital printing 2003 To Annakutty, Rajamma, Shantha ... and their husbands Contents List of Tables x Preface xi List of Abbreviations xiii Chronology, 1920-91 xv Introduction: Making and Unmaking Models 1 The Idea of a 'Kerala Model' 6 Women and Politics 9 History, 'Models' and the Future II PART I HOW OLD KERALA GAVE WAY Janamma (c.186D-c.1940) 16 1 Old Kerala 19 The Sense of Kerala 22 Travancore, Malabar and Cochin 25 2 Family 34 How It Worked 35 Why It Crumbled 37 Public Politics and the Abolition of Matriliny 41 Ezhavas and Tiyyas: Families and Dignity 49 The New Model Family 53 3 Education 55 Schooling: Attitudes and Organisation 59 Schooling: Ideas 66 Teaching: a Subversive Activity 68 4 Economy and Attitudes 72 Depression 75 War: a Newly Comfortable Class 79 War: 'Life Is a Ration Shop' 83 From the Gutter: New Dreams 87 VII viii Contents PART II HOW PUBLIC POLITICS TOOK HOLD Mary Poonen Lukose (1886-1976) 92 5 Christians Suggest 96 6 'Communities' Form 102 The Nair Service Society 102 Ezhavas and Others 107 Mappilas and the Muslim League 110 7 Nationalism Inspires 118 8 Classes Organise 126 From Social Activists to Communists 126 Reconciling Marx with Malabar 129 Taking Marx to the Countryside 132 Competition: The War and After 136 Challenge Implanted: Rebels, Propagandists, Ministers 140 PART III HOW 'THE MODEL' TOOK SHAPE Akkamma Cheriyan Varkey (1909-82) 146 9 Education 150 'New Earth, New Heaven' 151 Struggles for the Heart 153 Growth and Consequences 156 10 Land 160 Land, Class and Attitudes 161 Malabar: The Pressure of Tenants 164 Travancore and Cochin: The Demands of the Landless 167 The Democratic Dilemma, 1948-56 169 Pressing for Change 171 Making Laws Work 176 Outcomes 182 II Well·Being 186 Health and Governments 188 N~~ I~ Family Planning 195 Nutrition 200 People Who Get Houses Sometimes Throw Stones 204 Teashops, Women and Well-Being 209 ~ontents ix PART IV CONCLUSION K. R. Gouri (b./919) 214 12 Limits and Hopes: Political Action and Active Women 217 Glossary 229 Notes 231 Index 274 List of Tables and Maps Tables I Daily newspapers by language 3 2 Indicators, major states 5 3 Voter turnout, Kerala and India II I.I Malabar, Cochin and Travancore, 1941 26 2.I Population of Kerala, 1820-1991 37 2.2 Marriage and inheritance legislation 43 3.1 Literacy, male and female, 1875-1981 57 3.2 Female literacy, 1875-1981 60 4.1 Value of 1000 coconuts, 1860-1987 76 4.2 Cultivated area under various crops , 1930s 77 5.1 Christians by sect, 1941 100 6.I Literacy, Malappuram District III 9.1 Education expenditure as a percentage of total budget, 1904-5 to 1984-5 158 9.2 Primary and secondary students, 1950-88 159 10.1 Selected world population densities 162 10.2 Distribution of land, 1957-77 175 10.3 Rural labour households owning land, 1964-5 to 83-4 179 10.4 Rural households, 1983-4 180 I I.I Patients as a proportion of population 192 11.2 Nurses in Kerala, 1951-81 194 11 .3 Population growth 197 11.4 Contraception in Kerala, 1960-85 199 Maps I. Kerala, 1990 xviii 2. Travancore, 1941 28 3. Cochin, 1941 29 4. Malabar District, 1930s 30 x Preface Eating breakfast in a small hotel in Trivandrum in 1971, I watched what I still feel was a remarkable scene. As a boy aged about 16 ladled vegetable curries onto the stainless steel plates of the patrons, a trousered, middle-aged north Indian snapped his fingers to call for attention. The young waiter advanced on him in fury, ladle poised in the pail of hot sambar. 'Aan aanu; patti 0110' , he hissed - I'm a man, not a dog. I had heard many people talk of the fierce independence - trouble­ someness, some called it - of Malayalis, the people of Kerala; now I had a story of my own. As I began to do research into Kerala's history, I discovered that this reputation for challenge was at odds with earlier accounts of Kerala society. Until well into the twentieth century, the most rigid caste system in India had existed in Kerala, and the highly placed had extracted the most extreme forms of obsequiousness from the lowly. In the most vivid example, some castes were held to be so impure that the mere sight of them polluted their superiors . They were not simply 'untouchable', but 'unseeable', Later, I became increasingly aware that Kerala by the 1970s was becoming an object of fascination for scholars and policy-makers concerned with 'development'. Kerala's people had the highest life expectancy in India, the lowest infant mortality rate and a birth rate that seemed to be falling. In short, their quality of life appeared better than that of people in India's other states. Two questions teased me: how did Kerala's reputation for assertive­ ness grow out of a society that once was noted for its ordered rigidity? And to what extent did the process by which this happened contribute to the noteworthy social statistics that have led people to write about a 'Kerala model of economic development'? This book attempts to work out those questions. The resulting explanation is essentially historical, but it is, I hope, history that meets the present. The sources on which the book is based range from the records of English missionary societies to the publications of the Communist Party of India and the Kerala government. The notes at the end, and the comments in the Abbreviations section (pp. xiii-xiv), are, I hope, xi xii Preface clear and specific about particular documents and their location. I have therefore not weighed down the book with a bibliography. A great many people have helped me during the time I have been interested in Kerala and have worked on this book. The late K. Prabhakaran, who died in January 1989, befriended me on my first research visit in 1971 and helped me generously thereafter. He, Puthuppalli Raghavan and Abraham Nidhiry, along with V. K. Narayanan, my first Malayalam teacher, are often in my thoughts, and I am in their debt. Peter Reeves has provided indispensable encouragement and advice. Dipesh Chakrabarty and Talis Polis have been generous with their time and comments, and the latter, as Dean of the School of Social Sciences in which I work, has facilitated my writing and research in a host of ways. A. K. Damodaran, Leela Gulati, K. G. Kumar, Anthony Low, V. K. Madhavan Kutty, V. Ramachandran and Marika Vicziany have provided suggestions, ideas and references. Melville and Thelma Joseph have helped in more ways than they probably know .