On Kerala

Throughout all of India, Kerala is known as the country’s most progressive state. It is considered India’s most advanced society, with a world-class healthcare system, the lowest birth rates, and the highest life expectancy rates in the country. Kerala is India’s cleanest state and is said to be the place of the highest physical quality of life in all of India. Aside from all this, the state boasts 100 percent literacy.

This is all very good news, but it’s not the entire story.

While Kerala has the highest literacy rate in all of India, it also has the highest number of road accidents in all of India each year. It may be an advanced society, but its citizens have the highest incidence of alcoholism and suicide throughout the country. In addition, it is estimated that over 60 percent of Kerala’s wives are beaten by their husbands. And what’s worse, most of Kerala’s wives think that wife-beating is ok, as long as it only happens once in a while.

Advanced? Progressive? I’d have to disagree.

Here are the facts: While India’s government increases its wealth and power, the rest of the country’s wealth and power is decreasing. The gap between rich and poor is becoming bigger and bigger, and the chances for the marginalized to make it in this country are becoming smaller and smaller. Women and dalits seem to bear the brunt of it, but there are also huge issues facing fish workers and small farmers, prostitutes and homosexuals.

This is certainly not to say that these problems don’t exist in other places, even in the most “highly developed” nations like the United States. I am aware that these problems exist all over the world in varying forms and degrees. But I’m focused on the society in which I am currently living, and although I know my outsider’s opinion isn’t always welcome, it seems to me that many things need to change.