KERALA: A UNION ALTERNATIVE TO CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION

Kerala: A Union Alternative toCorporate Globalization

David Reynolds and K. N. Harilal

Many progressive unionists in the U.S. advocate for international solidarity and active support for stronglabor movements in the developing world. Fortunately, a more unionized global future is not simply anabstraction but is already a reality in some developing countries. On the surface, the poor Indian state ofKerala ought to reveal shantytowns and other stark signs of poverty common among the poorest areas ofthe world. Yet, because of the state’s strong labor movement, the population enjoys basic standard of livingindicators far closer to the U.S. than to wealthier parts of India. This article examines this labor move-ment, its past successes, and the innovative strategies that the Keralan Left is using to address the power-ful pressures caused by corporate globalization. The Kerala experience offers instructive lessons not simplyfor the developing world, but for Americans who wish to take participatory democracy seriously.

In battling corporate free trade, American unions increasingly argue thatthe problem is not workers in the developing world, but multinational corpo-rations and policies that exploit all of us. The solutions lay not in a fortressAmerica which blocks the movement of goods and people, but in internationalsolidarity. A real answer to both job loss in the U.S. and poverty in the devel-oping world is the democratic right of workers to organize. Just as unions bet-tered wage and working in the west, so can strong labor movements around theworld build fair trade.

Typically, American activists express such a vision for a unionized globalfuture as an abstract hope. Yet, workers in different parts of the developingworld have long traditions of battling for justice. And in some places they havewon major breakthroughs. One such place is the Indian state of Kerala. Virtu-ally unknown in the U.S. outside of development scholars and specialists, thissouthern Indian state is living evidence that even under poor economic condi-tions, strong unions not only empower their members, but also produce a morejust and democratic society. In this article we will introduce the Kerala experi-ence including the state’s recent People’s Campaign for Decentralized Planning—one of the boldest experiments in grassroots democracy anywhere inthe world. Not only can American opponents of corporate globalization pointto Kerala as a living example of a democratic alternative, but Kerala also canteach us in this country a great deal about taking democracy seriously.1

WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society · 1089-7011 · Volume 9 · March 2006 · pp. 29–39© 2006 The Author(s)

Journal compilation © 2006 Immanuel Ness and Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

30 WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society

Signs of a Different Path

By corporate economic criteria the 30 million people who live in Keralainhabit a poor region. The state is mainly agricultural. With crops such ascoconuts (the word Kerala translates as land of coconuts) and rubber depend-ent on export, the state is quite vulnerable to falls in international commodityprices. As Table 1 shows, Kerala’s per capita GNP and purchasing power parityis not only far below U.S. levels, but also lower than India as a whole. If thestate were an independent country, it would rank among the world’s fifty-fourpoorest nations.

Yet, in terms of basic quality of life indicators, Kerala not only soars aboveIndia and other low-income countries, but literacy, life expectancy, and infantmortality comes close to the U.S. The statistics reflect visible differences. Avisitor cannot find the kinds of sprawling shantytowns so common in so manyparts of the world. They will find, however, small shops and bustling businessdistricts everywhere—a sign that a broad section of the public can afford a widevariety of basic goods.

That the Keralan birth rate comes in nearly identical to the U.S. reinforcesthe argument that the world population explosion is more a symptom ratherthan cause of poverty. As in the West, Kerala’s birth rate has fallen as basic stan-dard of living and education indicators have increased. The state has also main-tained a tradition of religious toleration and coexistence. Roughly one-fifth ofthe population is Muslim, another fifth Christian, and the remaining three-fifthsHindu. Progressive activists in India as a whole have been alarmed by the growthof communalism—politics based on caste and religion. The Hindu nationalistparty, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), forms the national government. In 2002,voters in Gujerat reelected the state’s incumbent BJP government. Earlier in theyear over a thousand Muslims were killed in riots for which the militant stateBJP leaders did little to stop and, according to critics, whose inflammatory rhet-oric did much to ferment. Yet, relative to India as a whole, communal politicshas gotten far less traction in Kerala. The BJP has been unable to elect a singlerepresentative to the state legislature or to the national assembly from Keraladrawing only around 5 percent of the vote.

Table 1. Quality of Life Indicators, 1997

Kerala India Low-income countries U.S.

Per capita GNP $324 $390 $350 $28,740At purchasing power parity $1,371 $1,650 $1,400 $28,740Adult literacy rate 91% 48% 51% 96%Life expectancy in years 71 62 59 77Infantry mortality per 1,000 12 65 80 7Birth rate per 1,000 17 29 40 16

Table 1 is taken from materials provided by Richard Franke, Montclair State University. Low-income coun-tries refers to 54 economies whose 1997 per capita GNP was $785 or less. Purchasing power parity adjustsincomes to account for difference in local prices.

reynolds and harilal: kerala 31

A History of Class-Based Organizing

At a surface level, the source of Kerala’s achievements lie in extensive statesocial spending, regulation, and reforms. However, such policies came aboutand proved successful only because Kerala has one of the most vibrant civil soci-eties in the world. Before Indian independence the region’s stark caste systemproduced diverse popular reform movements. These in turn compelled localrulers to respond with basic social services and education programs. In otherparts of India, such organizing fell prey to the patronage politics of caste, reli-gious, and communal identity. In Kerala, however, it produced class-basedmovements centered in a strong labor movement. Approximately half of theformal labor organizations in India reside in Kerala.

The Keralan labor movement stands out for its breadth. Unions succeededin organizing not simply in the large industries and public sector, where theyare relatively common in much of the developing world. Landless laborers andpoor tenant farmers also built strong agricultural unions through a particularlybloody history. In 1921, for example, the colonial authorities killed up to 10,000people to repress a rebellion by Muslims. During the Great Depression, strikesand protests by led by the Keralan Farmers’ Association fought with landlord-hired thugs and police crackdowns. In 1946, the Community Party (CPI) led afamous uprising in central Kerala in which government and landlord forceskilled many, the military attacked worker’s camps, and the CPI was outlawed.Kerala’s experience provides a notable parallel to western social democracy inwhich an urban–rural alliance was one of historical keys in Scandinavia and otherparts of Europe.

With U.S. unions facing the dilemma of how to organize a growing con-tingent workforce here, Keralan unions notably have also grown among serviceworkers employed on a casual or semi-permanent basis, small-scale/sweat-shop-style manufacturing workers, and the self-employed. As a result coir weaversemployed in small shops of a dozen people, construction workers, head loaders(unskilled “coolies”), and even elephant handlers have unions.

Such organizing produced a population with a strong sense of class identity,solidarity, and broad social aims. This in turn linked into a wealth of relatedmovements. A library movement organized against the education restrictions ofBritish colonialism. It helps maintain a network of village libraries estimated at15,000.2 This tradition combined with more recent literacy campaigns hashelped produce the largest per-capita circulation of newspapers and magazinesin India and a thriving literary and film culture. The People’s Science Move-ment (KSSP) networks over 80,000 volunteers to bring science to ordinarypeople. Their projects run from basic literacy to developing and implementingappropriate and environmentally sound technology to the People’s Plan cam-paign (see below). Directly connected to labor, the state boasts an extensivecooperative movement that includes worker production cooperatives, distribu-tion cooperatives, and cooperative finance. These movements developed part in parcel with the state’s Communist Party. In the first election after the state


was formed, Keralans in 1957 elected a Communist government. Today theCommunist Party Marxist (CPM) leads a Left Democratic Front (LDF) of tenparties.

Social reform in Kerala, however, did simply mean electing left-wing gov-ernments. After two years in office, the first Communist administration was dissolved by India’s national government. The Keralan High Court declared theCommunist’s breakthrough 1959 land reform unconstitutional. It was not until1967 that the CPM returned to power and then for only two years. In the 1980sand 1990s a close political balance meant that the LDF and Congress Party-ledUnited Democratic Front (UDF) alternated control of state power. What haskept reforms on course is the strength of Kerala’s grassroots movements.Regardless of their political leanings all Keralan political parties have to takethe mass movements seriously. The Congress Party, for example, has affiliatedunions that compete with the predominant communist union federation.Although Kerala’s land reform law was passed in 1969 by a left government,much of its implementation and maintenance was overseen by a subsequentCongress-led administration governing in a context of popular organizing.

Progressive Reform

In a state with India’s most rigid and elaborate caste system, land reformproved a major breakthrough. In 1969 a Communist government passed legis-lation amid farmers placing red flags on their tenancies to unilaterally declaretheir right to farm without paying crushing rents to the landlords. While notas radical as the original 1959 reforms, the new legislation essentially broke theback of the precapitalist rural relations in which a small landlord class lived offwealth extracted by rents reaching as high as 75 percent of a farmer’s grossreturns.3 The reforms abolished tenancy and eliminated rents paid on land usedby peasants for their gardens and houses. Such actions transferred over twomillion acres to 1.5 million households.4 Less successful numerically were twoother components. The first imposed limits on land ownership—with the gov-ernment redistributing 50,000 acres of surplus. The second established a ricelevy on the largest land holdings. Through government-run fair price shops thisfood was redistributed to the poor.

Land reform did not eliminate the economic pressures on the new smallfarmers who have had to struggle with declining international commodity pricesand unpredictable markets. It did, however, transform the parasitic landlordclass into medium-sized farmers and such white-collar professionals as school-teachers and government administrators. By doing so it eliminated the patron-client relationships endemic to much of the rural developing world. The 1975Keralan Agricultural Workers’ Act continued the rural transformation by pro-viding the only trade-union act for agricultural workers of its kind in India.Between 1980 and 1982 legislation established unemployment insurance andpensions for agricultural workers.5


Drawing on pressure from organized workers, Left governments have beenable to pass other pieces of legislation that in turn support union strength. State-sponsored industry-based minimum wage committees provide a legal mecha-nism for institutionalizing and supporting union wage standards. The stateactively helped unions build and finance labor cooperatives for toddy tappers,handloom weavers, and beedi, coir-processing and cashew-processing workers.The state has regulated and restricted mechanization in the coir industry andprohibited cottage outsourcing in the cashew industry. The state has also spon-sored tripartite Industrial Relations Committees that have proven instrumentalin forging the terms of industry-wide labor-management agreements. The com-bination of state-supported increases in worker bargaining strength and delib-erate solidaristic wage policies have eroded the tradition wage gaps between themodern factory sector and other parts of the economy.6

The state’s spending reflects social priorities. Kerala has a universal primaryeducation. This and other reforms helped eliminate child labor that continueselsewhere in India. A series of state-sponsored literacy campaigns have estab-lished essentially universal literacy. The state funds a network of western andtraditional medical clinics. Kerala has four times the number of hospitals andtwice the number of beds as India as a whole. Promoting health has also meantstate support for decent housing, safe water, immunization campaigns, and san-itation. Through school and nursery lunch programs and fair price shops, thegovernment redistributes food to those most in need. Statistics show that chil-dren in Kerala grow physically larger than in India generally. At a general levelin a manner similar to European social democracy, state spending has estab-lished a social wage that factors into labor–management relations.

Challenges

Kerala’s experience challenges conventional business arguments that forpoor regions to progress they must first have economic growth. Such a logicfits into a corporate free-trade agenda of success through foreign investmentand exports. Kerala has taken a different path. Rather than waiting to increasethe state’s wealth, popular movements and left-wing governments have redis-tributed a significant level of the existing wealth. As a result, the state hasachieved a broad-based basic living standard.

However, Kerala faces significant challenges. Capitalists have been reluc-tant to invest in the state. Kerala’s unemployment runs about 25 percent. Aquarter of the state GDP actually comes from remittances of Keralans workingabroad. While this testifies to the high education levels achieved it also makesKerala quite vulnerable to external events. Indeed, corporate globalization posesa growing threat. India’s government is under pressure from investors, theWorld Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the U.S. to adopt neolib-eral policies. This has meant cuts in funds from the national government to thestates. Privatization has aggressive promoters. For example, in November 2002,electrical workers went out on strike to protest massive increases in electrical


rates by the UDF government. For decades the state-owned utility has chargedlow rates as a way of providing electricity as a basic right to citizens and subsi-dizing industry. The unions fear that policies to place the utility on “a soundfinancial footing” are simply a prelude to privatization—essentially using statepower to establish conditions for profitability.

Multinational companies can exercise enormous power. By the end of 2002the coir weavers unions were preparing for a general strike. A handful of exportcompanies, not the far more numerous and small-scale manufacturing employ-ers, set prices. Thus, union demands focus on higher prices from the exportersas the only way to support higher wages for workers. As in much of the devel-oping world, corporate practices have savaged the environment. Industrialfishing methods have destroyed fish stocks. Kerala has experienced major deforestation—leading the state to nationalize much of what remains. Onlythrough grassroots organizing did people defeat a World Bank hydroelectricproject which would have destroyed one of Kerala’s most bio-diverse regions.Villages have sued Coca-Cola for destroying their water table through a bot-tling plant that extracts 1.5 million liters a day. Green revolution crops havedrastically reduced biodiversity in coconut, bananas, and other plants leavingfarmers highly vulnerable to changes in climate and pest conditions. The statehas also had to endure steady falls in international prices for much of its agri-cultural production. Eighty-five percent of the state’s cultivatable land focuseson rice and just ten cash crops.

A recent “Washing Hands” project launched by the World Bank, UnitedStates Agency for International Development, United Nations Children’s Fund(formerly United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund), theLondon School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and such soap companies asUnilever, Procter and Gamble, and Colgate Palmolive illustrates the currentcontradictions. The project claims to want to save lives by reducing diarrheadisease, a major killer in the developing world, in half by doubling hand washingthrough the sale of soap. Of all the places to go in India, however, the projectironically selected Kerala. Because of the state’s health, education, and otherreforms, Kerala has the highest hygiene standards and the lowest diarrhea deathrates in the country. As the details of the project confirm, its main aim is to sellsoap. Kerala’s level of social justice provides a rich consumer market for inter-national soap companies. The Washing Hands project directly threatens thestate’s rich indigenous system of nonchemical, nonpolluting natural hygieneproducts made in small-scale operations. It also threatens to provide a spear-head for promoting water privatization.

The People’s Plan Campaign

The pressures from corporate globalization led the last Left government(1996–2001) to develop an innovative experiment in local democracy: thePeople’s Campaign for Decentralized Planning. The ongoing campaignattempts to use the state’s most important asset—its rich grassroots move-


ments—to create a radically democratic version of the decentralization trum-peted by neoliberalism.

In India the village level of government (Panchayat) has traditionally hadlittle power or authority. Kerala in particular has a weak sense of distinct localplace. Because of the state’s dense population, municipalities undergo transitioninto each other with little clear physical demarcation roughly the same way thatsuburban sprawl blurs communities in the U.S. In 1992, amendments to India’sconstitution mandated twenty-nine general administrative functions and someaccompanying taxation powers be pushed down to lower state, district, and localbodies. Such reforms by themselves, however, could simply empower regionaland local bureaucracy and power brokers.

The People’s campaign attempted a different path. Economic developmentin India is guided by a series of five-year plans. For Kerala’s ninth plan, the Leftgovernment announced a new process through which a substantial proportionof the funds available to the state would be transferred to projects developed atthe local level. The hope was that by providing people the prospect of resourcesto support local ideas the plan campaign could inject democratic participationand energy into moribund village structures. Essentially, the campaign aimed toincorporate a fair portion of the state’s 30 million people directly into the plan-ning process.

The first plan campaign involved five stages.7 Between September andOctober 1996 three million people participated in ward assemblies (wardsaverage roughly 2,000 residents). Participants broke down into twelve topicgroups that included agriculture, education, transportation, housing, women’swelfare, cooperatives, industry, and public health and drinking water. For thenext stage each village topic group met to establish lists of problems and projectideas. These ideas then became specific proposals in the third stage. In Marchand April 1997 recently elected village boards selected projects for implemen-tation. Out of the 150,000 project proposals, less than half became finalized.Last, representatives integrated the village proposals into the state’s fourteendistrict plans.

The process produced a wealth of grassroots experiments—over 1,000 eachyear for five years.8 Some projects addressed immediate physical needs such ashousing, safe water, and sanitation. Others dealt with social and health needssuch as establishing local preschools and mosquitoes control. The plan gener-ated a wide range of economic activity. For example, one village set up a coop-erative dairy station so that farmers could process their own milk. Anotherfunded a women’s bookbinding cooperative. Another village launched a women’sproduction cooperative for school uniforms. The village of Chapparappadavuestablished a cooperative factory to produce improved versions of “hot boxes.”Originally developed by the KSSP, these styrofoam rice cookers help both poorfamilies and the environment by vastly reducing the cooking time spent overopen wood fires.

Plan funds supported an innovative Labor Bank (or Labor Contract Society)in Kunnathukal village. The land reforms had the potential to divide the Left’s


rural base by pitting agricultural workers against former tenants turned smallerfarmers. The increasingly precarious financial situation of many small farmershas left them unable to meet the wage demands of organized farm workers. Landfragmentation has also made it difficult for farmers to provide a full day’s work.The result has been many farmers simply not planting and steadily reduced workhours among farm laborers. Under labor bank arrangements laborers agree to accept a 25 percent reduction in daily wages in return for the bank’s guar-antee of 21 minimum full work days per month year round. The bank supplieslabor to participating farms while making up employment gaps by putting labor-ers to work on People’s Plan projects—such as housing construction and roadand canal repair. Because the bank also provides collective seed and equipmentresources farmers experience up to 40 percent reduction in costs while laborersenjoy major improvements in their yearly income, thanks to a stable amount of work hours. Over time the village also developed a system of cooperativefarming in which landowners essentially rent out land to the bank, which thenhires workers to produce fruits and vegetables. At harvest time the farmers arepaid a share of the harvest.

In contrasting their experience to that of conventional economic develop-ment projects—and even the participatory budgets developed by the WorkersParty in Brazil—Keralan leaders emphasize the continued role of the peoplethemselves. Not only do neighbors come together to develop plans for statefunds, but they are also involved in implementation—often state funds providea seed that facilitates people to pool their own financial and labor resources. Forexample, in a long neglected village in northern Kerala, school children had tonegotiate a ten-person ferry, or make a four-mile detour, to reach a government-built school placed on the wrong side of the river. Through the planning processthe villagers combined state funds with twenty-one days of volunteer labor from402 people to build an innovative pedestrian bridge useable outside the five-month monsoon season. In the same village, volunteer labor also helped build abus depot, a dam to protect fresh water, a bird sanctuary, and a biodiversity park.

The plan campaign sought to protect Kerala’s past social gains by develop-ing a distinct model for economic growth—thereby addressing the state’s great-est weakness in an era of corporate globalization. As these examples suggest, theplan campaign attempted to use state resources to draw forth and focus grass-roots energy. In this way the state does not simply mobilize its own resources,but brings the energy, funds, and ideas of millions into economic development.The campaign aimed to spur economic growth by improving productionthrough thousands of cooperative experiments in the traditional and agricul-tural sectors typically neglected by corporate development plans. The LDF gov-ernment was not opposed to corporate investment in large-scale industries suchas IT and tourism. However, such investment had to compliment developmentin the traditional and agricultural sectors and respect and work with the state’slabor and social traditions.

With the state also devolving administrative functions downward, the planalso looked toward improving the delivery of services and combating corrup-


tion by establishing greater transparency through a context of grassroots mobi-lization. In stark contrast to the old corporate “jobs versus the environment”line, many of the projects also stand out for the way in which environmentaland economic health intertwine. Similarly, the plan process intermeshes withwomen’s empowerment. Many projects provide new economic opportunities forwomen. By law each election for village councils must reserve one-third of theseats for only women candidates to run.

The entire plan process focused on fostering volunteer energy. This in turnrequired a massive experiment in grassroots training and education. Over 370people went through the state-level training program and 11,628 receivedpreparation to become district facilitators. Planners made active efforts to incor-porate members of the political opposition in both the campaign’s overall plan-ning structures and its implementation.

The Struggle Continues

While unleashing a wealth of grassroots energy, the plan campaign did expe-rience difficulties. The process tended to be weaker in the major cities and inopposition strongholds. Delays in funds and plan coordination were in someways inevitable given the scale of the undertaking. Any open process riskedpoliticization as members of the largest political party might come to dominatecertain ward and village assemblies. Some bureaucrats from different state agen-cies proved resistant to a process that devolved power.

It also became clear that wards encompassing an average of 2,000 peoplewere still too large a unit for the kind of participatory democracy organizersenvisioned. An overall participation rate of 11 percent of voters in ward assem-blies produced gatherings averaging 160 people. As the plan process continued,smaller neighborhood groups developed as did women’s self-help groups. Orga-nized with the help of government staff, the latter appear on the surface to par-allel the micro-credit now officially favored by the World Bank. A group offifteen–twenty-five women come together, each regularly contributing a smallamount of funds to a cooperative bank account. Women can then draw fundsfor needs such as weddings, health emergencies, etc. The Keralan women’s self-help groups differ from the World Bank’s vision of small-scale entrepreneur-ship, however, by promoting values of collective help and struggle. Throughstate-sponsored training, women are integrated into the People Plan process.The groups also can raise issue of domestic violence, sex, and women’s empow-erment. Some of the self-help activities have direct political dimensions. Forexample, the self-help groups and plan process have produced hundreds of coop-eratives in which a dozen or so women produce soap using local materials. Door-to-door campaigning then sells the soap as a direct challenge to the “WashingHands” efforts of the multinational corporations. The message is clear: supportyour local community; keep Kerala’s wealth in Kerala.

The greatest challenge facing the People’s Campaign came from the state’s2001 election. The plan campaign was the LDF government’s most important


policy initiative. Yet, it did not deliver new voters. By its very nature the planprocess aimed for economic impacts that would develop over the long term. Inthe short term, collapsing crop prices, the mishandling of a controversial edu-cation reform, and the national government’s withholding of transfer funds onthe eve of the election (which made it difficult to pay state workers and fundplan projects) produced a UDF victory with 49 percent of the votes to the LDF’s44 percent. Is this yet another round in Kerala’s history of revolving govern-ments or something new? In the past election defeat has not meant a loss of the left’s social and political hegemony over the state. On the disquieting side,however, the election revealed continued increases in patterns caste and com-munal appeals—a pattern far more common elsewhere in India.

It is not fully clear to what extent the new UDF government will succeedin changing and/or dismantling Kerala’s and the Plan’s accomplishments. In aFebruary 2003 interview, Dr. Issac Thomas, the Plan’s chief architect, arguedthat the decentralization process did win over mass approval such that the UDFgovernment must support it even if under a different name.9 He also points out,however, that the new government has embraced neoliberal strategies of foreigninvestment with few conditions, privatization, and neglect of the traditional andagricultural sectors. The UDF has labeled Kerala’s strong labor movement achief hindrance to economic development and has called changes to the state’slabor laws to show investors that it can discipline labor.

What is clear is that as in many times in Keralan history, popular move-ments will again have to fight to maintain and further progressive reforms. Thepast achievements and ongoing struggle that we have described in this articleshould remind us that despite all its limitations, partial victories, setbacks, andcompromises, grassroots mobilization does work. Kerala illustrates to activistsin both the developed and developing world that in an age of corporate glob-alization, people must fight for the one proven remedy: democracy.

David Reynolds is a faculty member at the Labor Studies Center, Wayne StateUniversity. He coordinated a national network of labor educators and unionstaff that documents emerging strategies for building progressive power at aregional level (powerbuilding.wayne.edu). His latest book, Partnering forChange: Unions and Community Groups Build Coalitions for Economic Justice, waspublished by M. E. Sharpe in 2004. Address correspondence to David Reynolds,Wayne State University, Labor Studies Center, 656 W. Kirby St. 3178 FAB, Detroit, Michigan 48202. Telephone: (313) 577-2191. E-mail:[email protected].

K. N. Harilal is faculty member at the Center for Development Studies inTrivandrum, Kerala, India (http://www.cds.edu). Dr. Harilal’s recent researchincludes the impact of World Trade Organization agreements on South Asia,India’s IT boom, and emerging issues in the context of Indo-Sri Lanka FreeTrade Agreement. Address correspondence to Dr K. N. Harilal, Director,Centre for Development Studies, Prashant Nagar Ulloor, Trivendrum, Kerala,India. Telephone: 0471-2448884. E-mail: [email protected].

http://www.cds.edu


Pictures

To aid group discussions about Kerala, selected photographs taken during theresearch trip are available at http://www.laborstudies.wayne.edu/Kerala.html.

Notes

1. This article draws on interviews with activists, political leaders, residents, and academics conducted byDavid Reynolds between November 24 to December 5 2002 (see interview list at end). This has been sup-plemented with the works cited in the References and materials not readily available in the U.S. providedby Richard Franke, a prominent American specialist on Kerala, and various people interviewed. The authorwould like to thank Global Exchange for organizing an excellent study trip.

2. K. P. Kannan, “Poverty Alleviation as Advancing Basic Human Capabilities: Kerala’s Achievements Compared” in Parayil, p. 61.

3. Franke, p. 55.

4. V. K. Ramachandran, “Kerala’s Development Achievements and their Replicability” in Parayil, p. 99.

5. Ibid.

6. See article by Patrick Heller “Social Capital and the Developmental State: Industrial Workers in Kerala”in Parayil.

7. T. M. Thomas Isaac, a major leader of the campaign, and Richard Franke offer a book-length and highlydetailed examination of the Campaign in Local Democracy and Development: The Kerala People’s Campaign forDecentralized Planning (Rowman & Littlefiled Publishers, 2002).

8. Ibid., 145. Many of the examples come from direct visits to the sites.

9. Frontline (a national Indian magazine published by the Hindu) Volume 20, Issue 03, February 1–14, 2003.

Interviews

Below are the academic and policy specialists interviewed. The list does not include the far more extensivenumber of contacts with grassroots activists and residents.

Dr. T. M. Thomas Isaac, Member of Legislative Assembly of Kerala and principal architect of the People’sPlan campaign.

Dr. Sreekumar Chatterji, Centre for Earth Science Studies.

Dr. T. N. Sema, Democratic Women’s Association.

Dr. P. K. Michael Tharakan, Centre for Development Studies.

Dr. P. J. Cherian, Director of Kerala Council for Historical Research.

For Further Reading

Franke, R., and B. Chasin. 1994. Kerala: Radical reform as development in an Indian state. Institute for Foodand Development 1994.

Parayil, G., ed. 2000. Kerala: The development experience: Reflections on Sustainability and Replicability. Zed Press.

Thomas Isaac, T. M., and R. Franke. 2002. Local democracy and development: The Kerala people’s campaign fordecentralized planning. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

http://www.laborstudies.wayne.edu/Kerala.html

Documents

KERALA: A UNION ALTERNATIVE TO CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION