Essay On Kerala

Background

• Kerala used to be three states, two ruled themselves, one (Malabar) was ruled by British (Wuyts, et al. 1992).

• Became one state in 1956 because they all spoke same language- Malayalam (Territories and States of India, 2002).

• Population of 30,000,000 (Kerala HDR report, 2005).

• Lowest population growth of India in 2001, only 9.4% (Kerala HDR report, 2005).

• Lots of different religions - only 54% Hindu - not such a rigid caste structure (Wuyts, et al. 1992).

• Has reduced poverty greatly even though the economy has not grown much (Territories and States of India, 2002).

• Mostly agricultural economy (Territories and States of India, 2002).

Physical geography

• High rainfall, extremely fertile land means it can grow range

• This meant that women were more accept in society as people who had a voice, they were more educated, had more employment opportunities

• This set a standard for girls, higher class girls were becoming educated so the lower class girls also wanted to be educated (Jeffry, 2005).

• 85% women are literate (35-45% higher than rest of India) because of their history (Jeffry, 2005).

• This background means that women’s health and education is an equally important part of government policies today (Jeffry, 2005).

• Although there are still some inequalities for girls, e.g. they have to do domestic work and aren’t fairly represented in parliament, they still have more equality than girls in other states in India (Jeffry, 2005).

• Education has been improved through social movements such as caste and religious groups in society developing facilities for education (Kannan, 1999).

• One example is the creation of libraries in the 1930s that anyone could access (Kannan, 1999).

• Another example Kerala People’s Science Movement which aimed to teach children and rural people science. Done through books and teachers (Kannan,