[The title is a tribute to Johnny Miranda’s exquisite Malayalam novel, Requiem for the Living (Jeevichirikkunnavarkku Vendiyulla Opees in Malayalam)

As Kerala’s sixtieth birthday – a year which was inevitably one of celebration for many Malayalis as the culmination of life, until the increasing life expectancy here rendered it redundant – approaches, evaluations on the health and well-being of the region (and not just the people, or individual Malayalis) are being offered. They do not bode well. There is a sense in which we feel that the magic that has somehow protected the region, placed a shining cloak around its shoulders once, has departed. This magic is none other than that which is captured by the term ‘Kerala Model’ – which, in our popular imagination, always exceeded being just social science shorthand for the complex array of historical factors that led to high social indicators in a society characterized by low economic growth once associated with us. The idea of the Kerala Model somehow represented the fairy godmother who had transformed Kerala from being the Cinderella in India, to a shining princess fit to be raised to the heights of the UN’s international development-circles in the 1970s. Continue reading Requiem for the Undead: On Kerala’s Sixtieth Birthday →