How Kerala got rich
323 comments
·March 28, 2025jmathai
orochimaaru
I think the focus on literacy is laudable. However, as the article points out the wealth isn’t locally generated, it is basically folks going out to gulf states sending back remittances. So while literacy has helped that there is not much to be said for local industry.
I don’t see any startup tech or manufacturing in India falling over themselves to start in Kerala.
ignoramous
Like many in the diaspora, you may have a romantic view of your roots.
> much less pollution
Comparatively? Perhaps. One look at the Vembanad Lake and you'll know what I'm talking about: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/high-levels-of-fa... It stinks these days.
> Kerala has a 96% literacy rate
Lieracy surveys aren't as rigorous; likely 5% to 20% drop from reported numbers: https://www.dataforindia.com/measuring-literacy/
> still holds much of the charm
As someone who visited Kerala multiple times a year, things have gotten worse both climate wise & pollution wise. Though, the monsoon gods still bless Kerala, it isn't as green as it used to be. I've found (under similar climatic conditions) the Sri Lankan lowlands (West coast) to be more greener. Ditto for rainforests of NE India & SE Asia.
guerrilla
> Lieracy surveys aren't as rigorous; likely 5% to 20% drop from reported numbers: https://www.dataforindia.com/measuring-literacy/
This is very well studied in sociology and anthropology and has been for many decades. Kerala is a major case study in many fields because of this.
0xbadcafebee
To add to this: the most recent "96.2% literacy" estimate is based on a 2017 survey (not the 2011 census) where they interviewed a little over 2500 households in Kerala, though there are 7.7 million households there. I'm not a statistician, but this feels like too small of a sample size to make a definitive estimation.
In addition, other states got very close to that literacy rate, but are probably managed quite differently to Kerala. Worth considering if people want to try to replicate Kerala's efforts without considering the wider context
not_kurt_godel
The connection between education and wealth is very strong. Very sad that the US has decided to pursue a trajectory towards poverty in this area.
WorkerBee28474
It may be strong to a point, but many countries are beyond that point. Look at how many countries there are that are better educated than the USA but have lower incomes. Japan, Germany, Canada, probably dozens more.
bakuninsbart
Three points on that:
1. Secondary and tertiary education is not all there is to education. A self-learned software engineer might lack a capital-E education, but has still spent significant time and effort on learning.
2. Education is one of many aspects of a successful life, at least as important is conscientiousness, diligence, intelligence and luck.
3. The US benefits from many virtuous cycles. In regards to the labor force it is able to attract a lot of the best talent in the world.
Given the current political climate in the US, it seems prudent to point out that point 3 isn't just true for business-men, doctors and other nerds, undocumented immigrants are some of the hardest-working people out there. They contribute almost 100b in taxes alone, and get almost no services in return.
zoul
Higher income does not equal higher quality of life. Which is, arguably, what really matters to people.
inglor_cz
I think that with TikTok and such channels squeezing out the ability to read, the entire humanity is embarking on a massive de-literatization experiment.
panick21_
Questionable. There is defiantly some connection, but in what direction is open for debate. But its also the case that the Soviet block countries had lots of educated people, but couldn't make the economy work out.
And given for how many years the US has had sub-optimal results in international education comparison, while the overall economy has done well also doesn't fit.
xhkkffbf
Education is tricky. The wrong education can really stunt your economic competitiveness. I'm sure the Soviet world had plenty of classroom time devoted to the glory of Communism. Each classroom probably had a politruk available to help out.
Too many kids go to other universities and study similar things. It's fine to explore these ideas, but at the end of the day you've got to make someone happy or they won't pay you.
mc32
In popular US culture the pursuit of wealth, is framed as crass. Movies that some see as promoting wealth accumulation are often actually critiques against wealth.
Also, since the mid 60s pop culture has embraced the slacker as being hip and cool.
They guy and gal trying to get ahead are portrayed as greedy or at best blindly joining a rat-race forgoing more noble pursuits. Not so for many other cultures.
evan_
I don't think this is true anymore. "Selling out" is now seen as a goal. Kids post fake ads on their instagrams to convince each other that they have brand sponsorship deals. Every celebrity, from reality-show nobody to AAA-lister shills for their own signature alcohol or cell phone carrier. The culture celebrates grindset mindset crypto-scam rugpulls and denigrates anyone who toils at a 9-5 as a wage-slave who'll never make it.
paulluuk
I think that in almost all western countries, a life spent entirely on hoarding wealth for the sake of wealth, is considered a sad life. Especially if you don't even have any loved ones to share your wealth with.
I think the same it true for most of Latin america, where many of my friends and colleagues are from. And when I was in Nepal they thought that, if anything, western people are way too much focused on gathering wealth.
Islam specifically rejects hoarding wealth, so I think that pretty much takes out most of the middle east and northern africa.
So I'm curious which other cultures you are referring to. Perhaps specifically Indian and Chinese culture?
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anon291
That's because America is fundamentally a Christian country. I know no one wants to hear this. But this zeitgeist is unmistakenly Christian.
Interestingly enough the same forces are at work in kerala, which is one of the most Christian states in India (and the ruling communists are associated with them)
zozbot234
A lot depends on how exactly you pursue wealth. You could say that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have both striven to "pursue wealth" in their business careers, but nonetheless they did so in very different ways. And plenty of people will likely find Donald's approach somewhat "crass" compared to Elon's.
tonyhart7
but US have many top ranking universities in the world, how can you believe that US is behind in education?
SJC_Hacker
Universities accept international students, and hire faculty educated outside the US
More relevant would be K-12
sporkland
I honestly can't tell if you're referring to the current administration or the previous one with this comment.
(Fun SNL video with similar confusion: https://youtu.be/8h_N80qKYOM)
YouAreRONGS
Literacy is a by-product of raising living standards. It's not inherintly something that will alone lead to higher living standards.
aprilthird2021
While I agree, countries like the US where everyone was pretty much already literate decades ago, can and do backslide into anti-intellectualism even when living standards are rising. I have seen it myself.
peterfirefly
Europe had really high literacy long before it reached the living standard of most of current Africa. Living standards do not have to be high for near universal literacy.
torginus
That's patently not true. The connection exists only as far as if you're uneducated (and/or have subnormal IQ), you're likely to be poor, I suspect because you're not smart enough to master the basic skills to function in society, so it might be because of the latter.
Outside of the US there are very few countries where being highly educated (as in having an in-demand degree from a prestigious university) nets you anything beyond a small earnings bump over the middle class, and the people who have this are a small elite (no more than a few percent) everywhere.
vinay427
> Unlike other parts of India such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderbad -- it's tropical and lush with much less pollution than what you might see in those other parts of India.
Somewhat ironically these are relatively low pollution as large cities in India go. There is still a good amount of greenery in Bengaluru (it is famous for it) but obviously far less than a few decades ago, as many residents lament.
fakedang
Bangalore today is a shadow compared to the Garden City it once was.
For outsiders not in the know, Bangalore was famous for its beautiful lakes and the lush greenery around them. It was absolutely something else, finding these beautiful water bodies smack in the middle of what is supposed to be a major city. The weather was cool, almost like a warm European summer (which is extremely cool by Indian standards).
Then they got greedy, drained the lakes, built real estate and office properties on them and now Bangalore is an unbearable cesspit just like any other Indian city. Bad weather, bad traffic and a shit scenery.
I still have some photos of my visits to Bangalore in my childhood a couple of decades back, and the visual contrast between past and present is so stark. Of course, locals love to resent the regression of the city, but they also love their coin.
intended
Hey, Mumbai folks will fight you for supremacy on bad scenery. Course we concede the actual crown to our dearest friends in Delhi.
anon291
My family is part of the indigenous people of Mumbai, and my mom and dad's pictures of their childhood homes and stories are almost unbelievable if you visit now. My grandparents old bungalow is still on google maps, now surrounded by skyscrapers, but in the pictures, it's all fields and trees.
Sammi
I'm not usually not the type to be preoccupied with green policy, but this was heart wrenching to hear.
tonyhart7
"Then they got greedy, drained the lakes, built real estate and office properties on them and now Bangalore is an unbearable cesspit just like any other Indian city. Bad weather, bad traffic and a shit scenery."
hope indian government turn around, because china back then has a smoke problem even in its capital too
its hard to fought stigma but its not impossible
hammock
I had no idea and thank you for sharing. Why did it fall apart?
YouAreRONGS
I blame a lot of the cesspoll nature of Bengaluru on over-obsession with living a Silicon Valley lifestlye in the middle of a very dense city. Bengalurians should have been copying East Asian lifestyles where cities which have ancient dense cores rather than the suburban sprawl lifestyles that the US offers. A lot of the architectural and socio-cultural concepts are also much more similar to East Asia than they are to the US.
Cherian
I was born in the second southernmost district of Kerala, Quilon (now Kollam). I am now a U.S. citizen in the Bay Area. Growing up in Quilon, I attended an Anglo-Indian boy's school called Infant Jesus - in a small strip of land called Thangassery, people predominantly spoke English. I was taught British dialects emphasizing pronunciations that mimicked the world stage. I didn't really understand it until much later in life.
In my 20s, the contrast hit when I traveled across other parts of India.
Kerala has a mix of Western population that decided to stay back after the Indian Independence that brought with them Christianity, education, hospitals, and the Catholic culture. Kerala is also one of the few places in India where you can eat beef without inhibitions.
The writer hasn't emphasized this enough, but when oil struck the Middle East in the 1960s, the massive influx of blue and white-collar labor (who had the English language and engineering skills) that helped set up what's now Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman, and many other countries was built by Malayalees. My father-in-law was one of the earlier engineers at Aramco in Saudi. The Middle Eastern money has flown back to Kerala thanks to high bank interest rates (nearly 10%) and landlocked real estate that helped raise the state's GDP.
anon291
> Kerala has a mix of Western population that decided to stay back after the Indian Independence that brought with them Christianity, education, hospitals, and the Catholic culture. Kerala is also one of the few places in India where you can eat beef without inhibitions.
Christianity in Kerala is much older than European Christianity. Literally the land of the Apostles
Cherian
Agree. The Christians that came with the Apostles mainly were Syrians who were traders and kept to themselves for 13-14 centuries.
The British Christians were engaged in evangelism and, consequently, set up colleges, schools, hospitals, and other such institutions. They were also involved in conversions that led to the penetration of Christianity from a minor fraction (during the time from the early AD till 18th century) to double digits. This was obviously instrumental for English language inculcation.
panick21_
> Literally the land of the Apostles
That's literally just a nice story that people claim with very, very, very little to back it up. But I guess they literally claim that.
anon291
Meh. That's most stories attributed to the apostles. The story of st Thomas is ancient and even before colonization, the prevailing attitude in Europe was that st Thomas and st Bartholomew both proselytized India. You'll find references to this in many books and manuscripts.
In fact many European maps contained the belief that there was a Christian kingdom in Kerala. They even had saints from there whose stories made their way over and were recorded.
Thus Kerala is as holy to christians as Rome, Constantinople, Spain, Armenia, Ethiopia, etc.
This talking point is often used by Hindu nationalists who claim that India is not holy to christians and thus christians are foreigners. I'll point out that (1) Kerala is holy and (2) there is more evidence of st Thomas in Kerala than of Parasurama parting the seas to reveal Kerala.
vram22
>Christianity in Kerala is much older than European Christianity.
Yes:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas_Christians
See the History section.
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gilfoyle
Catholic churches are quite conservative in their own ways, primarily set up by Christian missionaries with the mandate to convert.
The english language helped, sure, but it's the lack of opportunities in their own state and the higher education levels that created the conditions for the immigration to Middle East. Kerala also had a long history of trade with Arabs.
Yes, there is restriction on beef consumption in India but nobody protests for pork while in the middle east - it's all about which side the bread is buttered.
benced
Kerala has extremely aggressive out-migration (including my entire family): it is a bad place to be ambitious, particularly with the France-like union culture. If India is to become China-rich or Mexico-rich, my prediction is Kerala will regress to the mean of India states. Its model seems geared towards being an extremely good place to be poor (which is a huge achievement to be clear: they dealt with COVID better than the US, universal literacy is amazing etc) but not towards getting richer.
spyckie2
I noticed this in Taiwan between 2018-2020 when I was staying there. A highly educated population but with little to no opportunities. Most of very ambitious talent found jobs in China or Singapore.
A strong business environment, or strong investment opportunities, or a large consumer base is very much needed to have attractive jobs. A strongly educated workforce does little to enable such an environment. Intuitively, it is just very hard to make money off of a small, low income population, and it is even harder to export services built for a local market to a non local market. So the ambitious talent just find opportunities elsewhere.
It also depends how hard it is to migrate out of the region. If there are strong family ties and good standard of living, you'd be surprised at how much talent is willing to stay.
Interestingly enough, Taiwan in 2024/2025 has seen huge growth in wages, for many reasons, but the biggest IMO being the highly educated workforce.
panick21_
I think its just perception. A place that is smaller will appear to have more movement because its across country, while in China or the US you would just move internally. Taiwan had amazing economic growth for 50+ years.
The reality is that in all places the most ambitious people are likely going to move, as such talents usually depend on specific environments.
And with things like TSMC in Taiwan, claiming anything close to 'no opportunities' is a bit ridiculous.
spyckie2
I worked in a recruitment company in SEA for software devs and management/exec layers.
Just sharing my perspective, Taiwan's Software Devs were paid 1/3 of what devs in SG or HK are paid, the biggest reason being there aren't any software companies headquartered in Taiwan that are big/growing fast enough to offer competitive salaries to SG / HK. In SG/HK you have banks, hedgefunds and tech companies all competing for talent—Grab, Amazon, Google, Shopee, DBS, HSBC, etc, pushing up prices to be competitive globally. Taiwan's local companies have to make enough money to pay global salaries for strong talent, or they just get their best talent poached by SG/HK or China (which has plenty of strong tech giants of their own).
But... a tiny 23 million population island where the average wage is low and people are generally happy and content... is not a great business environment for startups. I think some local startups saturated the Taiwan market with like 70% of the island's population in their database... and like $2-5m US revenue/yr? Great achievement but not a large base for continued rev growth.
As a Taiwanese company, you are not winning against bigger tech companies in China. Neither are you building for english speaking audiences of SEA because Taiwan's english is not native... in short, the local market conditions is just unable to pay for global level talent, who leave.
This is a software dev focused view of Taiwan, but it applies to all or most other industries not named TSMC.
sashank_1509
Interesting view of Taiwan. What is the Taiwanese view of China. Do a lot not mind migrating to China or do they hate China, and want to be independent?
facile3232
> it is a bad place to be ambitious
Ambition doesn't imply exploitation. I think you mean "predatory".
zozbot234
Typically "a bad place to be ambitious" implies that others will try to exploit you instead. Keep in mind that a mismanaged government can be a lot more predatory than any private actor.
facile3232
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pphysch
> Keep in mind that a mismanaged government can be a lot more predatory than any private actor.
What's the basis for this claim? What is a "mismanaged government" but one that is controlled by narrow private interests? Or is this coming from a "all tax is exploitation" angle?
totalkikedeath
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eikenberry
I'm curious, how does their "aggressive out-migration" play out? Extremely high, progressive tax system? No funding infrastructure for new business? I can imagine many ways but my thoughts lean toward financial reasons due to your last sentence.
inapis
Inability to build a business easily nor allow others to build one. The union culture is way too strong. There is a joke that the Kerala model of development requires a rich oil state nearby.
fakedang
Ambitious Keralites move out of the state to set up businesses. The ones who remain usually get rich through a mix of unethical businesses, political party connections and corruption, or the gold and money-lending businesses (which were inherently shady). Keralites are either highly ambitious, in which case they go to more welcoming cities such as Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, or extremely lazy, in which case they stay at home and abuse the welfare state. The welfare state is so abused by lazy government employees who will do anything to block you from setting up your business. And if it isn't them stopping you, it's the pesky political parties who will send their goons after you to charge for every task.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokku_kooli
For instance, the richest Keralite, Yussufali MA, made his fortune in the Middle East. His sons-in-law, both billionaires, as well as KP Basheer, Ravi Pillai, PMC Menon and Mohammed Ali of Gulfar made their fortune in the Middle East, all of whom are silent billionaires even most Indians barely know of. Vivek Ramaswamy's parents were from Kerala too, as is Thomas Kurian (head of GCP).
If you look at the West, Keralites are increasingly taking spots in the medical and healthcare sectors, especially nursing, and now even the education sector. There are Keralite teachers in the oilfields of Midland, Texas, because most people are otherwise not ready to work there. Some of my neighbours relatives from back home were even working in Afghanistan for the USG, making bank for working in a warzone. The only groups that are more or equally as prominent as Keralites worldwide might be the Gujaratis (the Patel motel guys and diamond merchants) and the Jews.
miohtama
Kerala is Finland of India.
intended
The article specifically talks about how Kerala has some of the highest concentrations of startups in India.
Also, the Communist party in power has not stopped themselves from adapting to the new times and dumping older views.
The most recent Econ Nobel showed how institutions create wealthy nations, and Kerala is building those.
Perhaps the statement “not a place to be ambitious” can be seen in a narrower sense, while seeing that it leaves much more space for the median individual.
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mistrial9
poor is a measure of many things, not just money. The stable cultures are looking very good compared to others IMHO
Der_Einzige
This is what happens when literal communists run your government.
RUnconcerned
Actually, when literal communists run your government, you become China-rich, as OP put it. Contrast China's economic development with that of India's post 1950.
satvikpendem
Compare the policies and results of Deng to Mao, the latter is more "literally communist." Their embracing of capitalist principles is what enabled their boom, same with Vietnam with their Đổi Mới policies.
zozbot234
China is the best case, yes. But "literal communists" also ran Cambodia, North Korea, Cuba etc. Not so good!
moomin
Honestly, reading this article, it's not making Kerala-style communism sound bad. What's more, they appear to have pivoted when they'd achieved their aims into making people richer. It's a classic "invest, then profit" story, only for an entire state.
rakejake
The article is co-written by a member of Kerala's Planning Board and heavily oversells the state. I'd say Kerala is nowhere near rich so even the title is technically incorrect.
zozbot234
Socialism with Kerala characteristics? I'm a bit skeptical of that, people often point to the Scandinavian model as especially successful but when you look into the data, that actually combines redistribution (funded by higher taxes) with a lot of economic freedom and a light-touch attitude from government that are all ideologically counter to "communism" or "socialism" of any kind.
jyounker
Portugal also has a similarly active communist party. I think what distinguishes Portugal and Kerala's communist parties from other communist parties is that they were (and are) first, and foremost, democrats.
A capitalist dictatorship will be every bit as horrible as a communist dictatorship.
1024core
That's how "communism" is in India. Two states (West Bengal and Kerala) are run by "Communist" parties. But these parties are quite different from what people typically mean by "Communists".
trompetenaccoun
Have you read the Communist Manifesto? It also makes Communism sound like a good idea. Nevermind that Kerala doesn't have a particularly high GDP per capita even by southern Indian standards. It's not rich by any rational measure, not in median income or otherwise. There is a lot of poverty, slightly better compared to some of the northern states but then South India in general does a bit better than the north so there isn't anything particularly noteworthy.
Btw, for some historic context this part of India used to be extremely rich in the past by global standards, centuries ago. They became rich with international trade. Modern India is nowhere close to its wealthy past, the subcontinent as a whole produced the largest percentage of the world's GDP during Late Antiquity, surpassing China and all others!
geocrasher
The subject of Kerala resulted in one of the most memorable conversations I've had with a doctor that wasn't about medical stuff. My late wife had to have an emergency procedure and her regular doctor was not available, and so she got a wonderful Indian doctor (Context: This was near Seattle WA). Having worked with many Indians, I felt comfortable asking him which part of India he was from and he said "Kerala" and at the same time we both said "God's own country" and his face LIT UP. "OOOhh, you know Kerela!?"
"Kerala is Hawaii at a tenth the price! You must go. The people there love three things: Alcohol, Food, and side to side head bob Alcohol!"
He was delightful, and he took great care of my wife. I fully intend to visit Kerala at some point.
shermantanktop
> side to side head bob
Does this have a name? I know exactly what it looks like, and I think I get some of the connotations of emphasis and agreement...
rehupaa
Namaste!!! Kerala and all India states are very beautifull places of the India. I’d traveling there 3 months in 2017-2018 and only one seroius problem is everywhere, pollution of plastic and all kind of rubbish! Then people burn rubbish in fire! They vsn send space craft to out of the planet but not manage to recycle bio compost, glass bottles and metal cans ext.. people throw to nature all rubbish!! So it is time to stand up and start recycling everything and then edugate all peoples to do that in every day but most importat is fix the infra for recycling. Come to see that procedure in scandinavia!! Compost material is super hood soil for growing yes oy is very easy when goverment is make a infra for ready. I have living all together 1.5 year in India 1990’s and 2017-2018 so have a good understund of Indian way to live and one part of my body and soul is always living and love mama India and humans of every hierarcy andcö relious parts… sorry typo ext.. greetings from Finland!! Dhanyavaad!!
sva_
I'll have what he's having
sowhat25
Joy?
hn_throwaway_99
Well, anyone that says "all India states are very beautifull places" must be on something. Not denying India has some beautiful places, but it also has some of the most post-apocalyptic places I've ever seen. Gurugram reminded me exactly of the city in Blade Runner.
srameshc
In the 1980s, many Keralites were courageous enough to leave the land for better prospects abroad, many in the Middle East and the UK. I remember going to my friends place and find their houses were modern and it was the first time I saw a glass door. Not to mention some of my Keralite friends are the most sincere and hard working and they have risen to very high ranks regardless of their grad scores and academics.
jmathai
There's a lot of brain drain in Kerala with people getting educated and leaving. Those that leave do, however, send money back to their families and I know many who return to live in India after 5-10 years. This was the case a decade or two ago and I'm not sure if it's still the case.
I had many aunts or uncles who would leave their family behind in India and work in the middle east for many years before returning to India. This practice helped them shore up savings and build houses.
harichinnan
Remittanced only contribute to 15% of GDSP. 65% is from tertiary sectors of IT, Healthcare and Tourism. Kerala gets substantial investments from private companies instead as opposed to large corporations in Gujarat for example. Investments in Kerala rarely grab news headlines as it’s mostly private investments.
TulliusCicero
"Only"? That's more than 4x as high as the overall Indian average: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?na...
gopher_space
The guys I knew from Guatemala doing yardwork/construction in the US had the same setup. They’d sleep in shifts in bunk beds and then go home to their new ranch after a few years.
shw1n
A funny anecdote from my grandfather (I was raised in California but family's from Kerala) related to the migration of Keralite workers to Gulf was from when he went to Bahrain to supposedly build a magnificent church as the lead engineer (he was a civil engineer).
It was supposed to be his life's work and he said he left with grandiose aspirations.
Only to get caught in the Kuwait War and barely make it back in a bus of refugees.
He always used this as a reminder of "pride goes before a fall", but I personally just found it a fascinating reminder of the sheer random horrificness that life can bestow out of nowhere.
__rito__
Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece- "Kerala: A ghost town in the world's most populated country" [0].
Many laborers from my state- West Bengal travel to ameliorate the labor shortage of Kerala. Because their laborers are in the Gulf. The unskilled labor wage in Kerala is almost twice of my state.
There is a common phrase in Bengal- "Kerala money" to explain big, well-made houses in villages mired with poverty. Many people, mainly Muslims migrate en masse to Kerala to earn a relatively much higher income and save the money to build big houses and buy motorbikes. We call that "Kerala money".
goku12
I wasn't planning to respond to this topic, since I'm a Keralite living and earning in Kerala. But this seems a little odd:
> Kerala is a very empty place. People emigrate parmanently or stay outside for decades. Elderlies live on their own. Schools and home remain empty. It is just intuitively sad. One should read this interesting piece...
I'm writing this from my home here in Kerala. Empty is not how I would describe the place. It's very crowded around here compared just a decade here. My house was surrounded by farm land from 3 sides. Now it's all houses in close proximity. Even remote places were developed into commercial or residential areas. The biggest indicator is that the road traffic is way more than what it was 15 years ago. Schools aren't that empty either - my own sister is a teacher. Job situation isn't that great - in line with the global situation, but the private sector has been growing fast in the past few years - driven especially by a startup boom. We do have problems with some anti-corporate sentiments like 'nokku-kooli' (supervision fees). But it seems to be less of a problem to businesses these days. (Not sure what happened. There is less news about it too)
To add in more context, I lived in a western country for several years before returning to take up a job with a decent pay. I can't say that Kerala is too bad in comparison, considering the cost of living and the general law and order situation.
yangikan
Kerala is the seventh highest in terms of population density. https://datacommons.iitm.ac.in/ranking/Count_Person_PerArea/...
AlgorithmicTime
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zkmon
India has a vast variation of cultures. A few states in India look like they are quite detached from mainstream India, in terms of issues, economy, norms, politics etc. This is true for north-eastern states as well and probably J&K too. It's like a colorful patch-work of different cultures.
However, there is nothing good or bad with these variations. Tourism also adds to its economy. Higher per-capita doesn't always mean a good thing. Sometimes it comes at a cost of family separation etc. Kerala is also known for high levels of alcoholic consumption and unhappiness rates.
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vishnugupta
This statement
> India has a vast variation of cultures.
isn’t consistent with this.
> mainstream India
dartos
Is it?
You can have a variety and a single largest.
sva_
Mean and variance
malshe
I have visited Kerala a few times and I really loved it as a tourist. However, my company also did some work there and we found local labor unions extremely difficult to deal with. Never acquired any new clients there once we finished initial projects.
mempko
Turns out investing in your own people returns dividends. Unfortunately, the current administration is divesting from the American people. DOGE, and it's cutting of federal grants is a direct example of this divestment. What's happening now in the US reminds me a lot of a mixture of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, where the Chicago economists came in and their shock therapy and large divestment decimated the wealth and health of ordinary people.
Ray20
>Turns out investing in your own people returns dividends. Unfortunately, the current administration is divesting from the American people.
As we see, in the case of America, these dividends are much larger. So much larger that they are not even comparable to what is described in the article.
>mixture of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, where the Chicago economists came in and their shock therapy and large divestment
But that's not what happened in the USSR. Gorbachev simply make government open and transparent for people, rejected totalitarian oppression, and it immediately became clear that the party had almost zero support.
And since it is impossible to have near-zero support without totalitarian oppression, the tops of the Communist Party (led by Yeltsin) decided to go cash out and simply divided among themselves all the assets under the party's control.
That's it. It had nothing to do with Chicago economist and shock therapy, which was just an excuse for dividing government assets.
And it's not like wealth and health of ordinary people suffered to any significant degree. It's just that before Gorbachev and Yeltsin all the statistics were fake, and people were repressed for contradicting it. But after the coup, no one cared. In fact, the only ones at a loss were middle level party bureaucrats, who did not have any real assets under their control, but occupied an extremely privileged position in the Soviet system and parasitizing on the body of an oppressed society.
dilawar
Kerala is also the only state in India where the rural population lives longer (2-3y on average) than the urban population!!
I was born in the US but my parents are from Kerala and I still have family there that I visit.
One thing I found interesting was the pride in literacy and education. Kerala has a 96% literacy rate which is the highest in India [1].
It's one of my favorite places to visit. Unlike other parts of India such as Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderbad -- it's tropical and lush with much less pollution than what you might see in those other parts of India.
My parents have a home in a rural community which hasn't changed much in the past few decades compared to somewhere like Bengaluru. It's quiet and slow with a high important on family relationships. No doubt it's westernizing, albeit slower than other parts of India - but for now it still holds much of the charm I've known since I was a kid.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India