Kerala and Cuba Tharamangalam

Critical Asian Studies
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Tharamangalam / Human Development
42:3 (2010), 363402
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
AS TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE
Lessons from Kerala and Cuba
Joseph Tharamangalam
ABSTRACT: This article compares the development experiences of two societies
Kerala (a state within India) and Cuba both widely regarded by development experts as success stories in the Global South for their relatively high achievements
in general quality of life and social well-being as measured by UN Development
Programs indicators of human development. The author argues that the lessons
offered by Kerala and Cuba in rapidly alleviating endemic deprivations and enhancing human development are of enormous significance for developing countries. Indeed their experience is of particular relevance in the context of the structural
adjustment programs imposed on southern countries by the Bretton Woods institutions and in the wake of the clear failures of alternative models to reduce hunger and deprivation. Examining the historical trajectory of these two models and
the transformative practice that produced relatively high human development outcomes, the article identifies some common elements behind their success, highlighting the centrality of public action and organized democratic participation. It
also examines some of the major challenges Kerala and Cuba face in the aftermath of
globalization and market reforms. Although they have been successful in achieving
higher economic growth, Kerala and Cuba now confront problems created by privatization, increasing inequality, and eroding public services that threaten their development models. While the two societies are facing these challenges in different
ways and are still sustaining their basic social welfare programs, their experience in
meeting these challenges is important for the developing world facing similar
challenges.
Walker, there is no road. The road is made as you walk. Antonio

Machado, Spanish poet
ISSN 1467-2715 print/1472-6033 online / 03 / 00036340 2010 BCAS, Inc. DOI:10.1080/14672715.2010.507390
To achieve as much as Kerala has done for a population of its size is no

mean record in world history. Amartya Sen
With all the authority of hindsight, it is important to analyze and criticize

the methods Cuba has chosen to eradicate hunger. But we should never
lose sight of the fact that the Cuban revolution declared, from the outset,
that no one should go malnourished. No disappointment in food production, no failed economic take-off, no shock wave from world economic crisis has deterred Cuba from freeing itself from the suffering and shame of a
single wasted child or an elderly person ignominiously subsisting on pet
food. No other country in this hemisphere, including the United States,
1
can make this claim.
This articles compares the development experiences of two societies Kerala
(one of twenty-eight states in India, with a population of 33 million) and Cuba
(an island nation with 11 million inhabitants) both widely regarded by development experts as success stories in the Global South for their relatively high
achievements in general quality of life and social well-being as measured by the
UN Development Programs (UNDP) indicators of human development (HD). Indeed, they stand out among a small group of countries/regions in the Global
South that have succeeded in alleviating, if not eradicating, endemic deprivations
and chronic hunger and bringing about significant improvements in education,
health, and general social security. Their achievements are all the more significant
since these outcomes were the products of development paths that prioritized
human development and general social security rather than relying on the elusive trickle-down effect of high economic growth, which is the conventional
path. Indeed, the most significant breakthroughs, especially in launching and
institutionalizing the foundational policies behind the HD achievements, were
made during periods of low economic growth, within relatively short periods of
time, mostly without the help of foreign aid, advisors, or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and with little damage to the environment.2
If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes, there is a lesson
here that is counterfactual but of immense human significance. Stated simply:
the terrible suffering of one-fifth of the worlds people, the acute hunger of 200
million children under five,3 many dying untimely and painful deaths, is needless and can be eliminated without turning the poor countries of the Global
South into Western-type industrialized high-consumption societies. The corollary to this is that the continuous toleration of such needless suffering as natural
and inevitable is morally reprehensible and should also be considered politi-
1.
2.
3.
364
Benjamin, Collins, and Scott 1984, 180.

While it is true that Cuba did receive considerable aid and support from the Soviet Bloc of
countries, the main point made here is that the policies and institutions behind the HD
achievements were largely of indigenous origin and driven by endogenous forces. As will be
seen below, Cuba fell back on its own resources to overcome a serious crisis in the wake of the
sudden collapse of its Soviet support, and did so with considerable success.
Unicef 2007.
Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)
cally unacceptable. But what if these models are mere accidents of history
and not replicable, or worse, are themselves under strain and may prove to be
unsustainable? Clearly both Kerala and Cuba have faced new and major challenges since circa 1990: they both have been negatively impacted by the forces
of neoliberal globalization, albeit in different political and economic contexts,
and Cuba suffered the loss of its allies and trade partners in the Soviet bloc.
This article examines these issues with a view to determining if and to what
extent the experiences of these societies may offer lessons for addressing the issues of poverty, hunger, and endemic deprivation in a world of plenty. This task
acquires a particular relevance and urgency as the much publicized initiatives to
address these problems such as the Millennium Development Goals Reports
(MDGs) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPS) are showing few signs
of success.5 Indeed, we have witnessed an increase in poverty and hunger during the period of neoliberal reforms even in high-growth countries.6 The cruelest irony of all has been the fate of the very first of the MDGs, the promise of halving the number of the worlds hungry from 850 million to 425 million by 2015.
By 2006, a decade and half into the global neoliberal regime and structural adjustments, an additional 250 million had, in fact been added to the ranks of the
hungry, whose number now stands above a billion.7
This study uses the human development (HD) approach, but from a critical
perspective. We believe this approach to be eminently useful for our comparative study. First, it is the HD approach in the basic sense of measuring a societys development by human well-being rather than by wealth or economic
growth that has brought Kerala and Cuba (and other similar cases such as
Costa Rica and Sri Lanka) to global attention and into the global discourse on
development. Second, as we shall see below, HD (the reality not just the term)
has been the very foundation of the development path these societies began following long before the UNDP and other mainstream global policy-makers
adopted the concept. In fact, the idea behind this approach is an astonishingly
simple and universal one, as its foundational theorists, such as Mahbub ul Haq
and Amartya Sen, and most of the worlds religious thinkers and philosophers
have argued: wealth per se does not produce human well-being or a good soci-
4.
5.
6.
7.
Our use of the term model despite considerable controversy about such usage requires a
note of explanation. The concept is used here to denote not an exemplar for emulation although we argue that there are lessons to be learned from these cases but in the scientific
sense of a reference to a specific pattern of socioeconomic and political development characterized by such notable features as public action, support-led security, and state policies
prioritizing HD, features that are empirically identifiable and amenable to empirical investigation. For more on this see Tharamangalam 2006, 34.
Stiglitz 2002; Sachs 2005. The UNs Millennium Development Goals Report 2008 states in its
midcourse evaluation that the goal of reducing absolute poverty by half is within reach for the
world as a whole. It notes that this assessment is based on the success of China, India, and
other Asian countries in this respect, and that Africa had made little progress. Even this claim,
however, is contested by many; see note 6 below. See United Nations 2008.
The World Bank and other global policy-makers have propagated the idea that high-growth
countries such as China and India have lifted millions of people out of poverty. This is at best a
half truth and at least in the case of India has been vigorously contested. See, for example,
Patnaik 2007; Deaton and Kozel 2005; and Tharamangalam 2009.
Ifpri 2008.
365
Children play on a dirty mattress in the dump nicknamed Smokey Mountain in Manila,
Philippines. 2007. The human development approach (used in this article) provides a
comprehensive concept of development, one that includes human, ethical, social, and
even political dimensions. (Credit: United Methodist Church / Kathy L. Gilbert)
8
ety. Third, at least since the appearance of the UNDPs first Human Development Report (HDR) in 1990, the HD approach has presented the most powerful
challenge to the global regime of neoliberalism.9 This is the case for two reasons: (1) the HD approach provides a far more comprehensive concept of development, one that includes human, ethical, social, and even political dimensions, and (2) it has spawned the influential HDRs, which have been effective in
acting as a two-pronged tool for assessing the social impact of economic policies, on the one hand, and for advocacy on behalf of the poor and the deprived
on the other. The first HDR (1990) brought into sharp focus the point that a
countrys income does not automatically produce human well-being if measured by indicators of quality of life such as knowledge and a long and healthy
life. The same report held up contrary examples of such relatively poor countries as Costa Rica and Sri Lanka, which had achieved high HD relative to their
8.
9.
366
See, for example, ul Haq 1995, and the many well-known works of Amartya Sen, especially Sen
1999. For a summary of the approach, see Tharamangalam and Reed 2010 and Deneulin and
Shahani eds., 2009. As Karl Polanyi has shown in his classic work (2001) the idea that the economy of a society is a self-regulating system that has an existence in its own independent domain
became a dominant one only during the era of capitalism. In all previous social systems, the
economy was, and was seen as being, encapsulated or embedded in the broader social, moral,
and religious systems of humankind.
See Jolly 2004 and Kuonqui 2006. This is regardless of whether it merits to be considered an alternative paradigm as suggested by some of its proponents such as Frances Stewart (2006). For
a critique of this view, see Kuonqui (2006), who argues that the approach does not meet the criteria of a new paradigm.
income, highlighting the theme to be examined in this article. At the other end
10
of the spectrum the first and belated HDR for the United States highlights some
devastating and scandalous HD facts about a development model that privileges
individual competitiveness and acquisition of wealth as its foundational ethos
rather than social well-being, security, or social justice. The fact that 47 million
Americans have no access to health care may be widely recognized, but what
may not be equally well known is that Cuba (with per capita GDP of $6,876) has
a better record of child survival than the United States (per capita GDP =
$45,592) or that life expectancy of males in Kerala (per capita GDP = $2,895) is
higher than that of African American males in the United States, or that in the
United States itself infant mortality rates (IMR) range from a low of 5.7 for
whites to a high of 14 for blacks. It is no wonder that the annual HDRs attract immense international media attention; there were 1 million downloads of the
2004 HDR within one week of its release.11 Even the World Bank and the IMF
12
have appropriated a good part of the HD discourse and its vocabulary.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. This introduction is followed by a review of Keralas and Cubas achievements. We then examine the
pathways Kerala and Cuba have followed, identifying common patterns intrinsic to their HD achievements. Next we discuss some of the challenges Kerala and
Cuba face in the wake of globalization and economic reforms. Finally, we conclude by recapitulating the main lessons that can be learned from the two cases
and assessing the prospects of their continuing sustainability in the context of
the challenges they now face.
1. The Achievements of Kerala and Cuba

13
The achievements of Kerala and Cuba are well known and well documented.
Keralas ranking of 72 in the Human Development Index (HDI) in 2005
against Indias ranking of 127 that year placed it at the top of the medium HD
countries,14 and Cubas number 51 standing in 2009 placed it among the high
15
HD countries and above all countries in Latin America except much richer Ar-
10.
11.
12.
13.
See Burd-Sharps et al. 2008.

Kuonqui 2006.
Tharamangalam and Reed 2010.
Among general works dealing with successful HD models are two good collections that include both Cuba and Kerala, both produced under UN auspices: Mehrotra and Jolly 1997 and
Ghai ed. 2000. A third and more recent collection, Sandbrook et al. 2007, restricts its coverage
to social democracy in the global periphery and covers Kerala, but not Cuba. On Keralas development experience see also Franke and Chasin 1994; Ramachandran 1998; Heller 1999
and 2007; Oommen 1999, vols. 1 and 2; Tharamangalam 1998a, 1998b, and 2006, among others. On Cuba, see Saney 2004; Sinclaire and Thompson 2004; and Uriarte 2002 and 2004.
14. The Human Development Index (HDI) is based on three indicators: (1) longevity, as measured
by life expectancy at birth; (2) educational attainment, as measured by a combination of the
adult literacy rate (two-thirds weight) and the combined gross primary, secondary, and tertiary
enrollment ratio (one-third weight); and (3) standard of living, as measured by GDP per capita
(Purchasing Power Parity, that is, GDP per capita converted into U.S. dollars after adjusting for
price differences). The UNDP ranks only sovereign nation states. Keralas ranking of 72 is from
Government of Kerala 2006, the latest available for the state at this writing; this is where Kerala
would have ranked had it been an independent country.
15. The UNDP classifies countries into three categories of human development: high, medium,
and low. Cuba is in the high category.
367
gentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Costa Rica. Here we highlight only some notable
achievements underlying these rankings before providing a brief description of
the historical trajectories that produced these outcomes.
Human Development in Kerala

Kerala entered the new millennium with a literacy rate of 91 percent, life expectancy at birth of around 72 for males and 75 for females (Indias, by contrast, is
64 and 65, respectively) and an IMR of 14 (Indias = 71). These measures were
not only above those of all other Indian states and all Chinese provinces (except
Tibet), but placed Kerala in the company of at least middle-level developed
countries. In sharp contrast to the Indian record, the malefemale gap in HD indicators is relatively small in Kerala a fact that makes the gap between women
in Kerala and India even larger in terms of HD. Kerala is the only state in India
with a favorable sex ratio of 1,058 females per 1,000 males, against 933 (females) for India and as low as 861 (females) for Haryana and some of the northern states. Similarly, Keralas female life expectancy of 75.9 is about fifteen years
higher than Indias 61.1 and seven years higher than the 68.8 figure for the richest Indian state of Punjab. In fact a female child born in Kerala can expect to live
twenty years longer than one born in the largest Indian state of Uttar Pradesh
(UP).16 Furthermore, Kerala, like Cuba, is a rare example in the Global South of a
society reaching the third stage of the demographic transition, the stage of zero
population growth. Keralas Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is 1.6, equal to Canadas.
And this is without the beneficial influences of urbanization and industrialization, as in the developed North, and without forced sterilization or similar measures as in China.
These achievements have a mutually reinforcing effect. In this respect, the
single most remarkable statistic is probably that of literacy, in particular the female literacy rate of 88 (2001), which, directly or indirectly, has influenced several other achievements, most notably the rapid decline in IMR and fertility, but
also general health, nutrition, and well-being.17 There are other indicators of
Keralas high quality of life, some easily measured, others more intangible. Examples of the latter are Keralas high levels of social mobilization and democratic participation, an exceptionally high readership of newspapers and magazines, a writers cooperative that may be the worlds first and most successful, and
an equally pioneering and successful peoples science movement. The most intangible indicator of all, perhaps, is the new sense of dignity and self-worth that
the formerly oppressed and humiliated sectors of its population possess. Kerala
has also stood out among Indian states for its exceptional record in reducing pov18
erty, whether we use the head count index or the human poverty index. Keralas
16. World Bank 2003, 44.

17. For a discussion of the significance of womens literacy and womens agency in general, see
Drze and Sens many writings, especially Sens paper in Tharamangalam 2006, and those in
Sen 1999 and Drze and Sen 2002. See also Jeffrey 1992.
18. Ravallion and Datt 1996; Chelliah and Sudarshan 1999; Kannan 1995; Drze and Sen 2002.
368
achievement here is all the more remarkable when we consider that between
the 1950s and the 1990s Kerala moved from its position of having the highest
head count ratio to one with the lowest head count ratio outside Indias
north-western region, which consists of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh,
and Jammu and Kashmir.19 According to World Bank economist Vinod Thomas,
Kerala also has the highest elasticity with regard to poverty reduction, i.e., even
a small gain in growth translates into a large gain in poverty reduction.20
Finally, it is worth noting that Kerala achieved these gains from an initial status of a poor agrarian society whose lower classes had suffered among the worst
forms of casteclass oppression.
Human Development in Cuba

Cubas human development achievements are even more remarkable than
Keralas and far above Latin Americas none-too-enviable record. Cubas relatively high ranking of 51 in the HDR (2009) actually masks its remarkable
achievements in HD because of the weight (one-third) the Human Development Index gives to per capita GDP.21 (This applies to Kerala as well.) Its GDP
per capita rank minus HDI rank is 44, the highest among all countries ranked
by the UNDP.22 This means that Cuba has done better than all the countries
ranked by the UNDP in translating its income into human development and social well-being.
In addition to its record of universal literacy, high life expectancy, and the
lowest IMR (number 7) and TFR (number 6) in Latin America, Cuba is also
among the top in the world in some unusual measures of achievements in education and health. A Unesco study published in 1998 ranked Cuba first in mathematics and science among all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.23
The countrys primary school teacher-to-student ratio of twelve is on a par with
Swedens and better than that of most countries. A World Bank report published in 1999 said about Cubas educational achievement:
[O]utstanding: universal school enrolment and attendance; nearly universal adult literacy; proportional female representation at all levels including higher education; a strong scientific training base, particularly
chemistry and medicine; consistent pedagogical quality across widely
19. Drze and Sen 2002, 99.

20. Thomas 2006.
21. The measurement of income in Cuba is controversial, and has been adjusted to factor in some
of the free services and subsidized goods that are made available to all Cubans. This has been
done by Cuban economists working in collaboration with and with the support of UNDP experts. Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez (2005) question Cubas high ranking, but Cuban and UN experts agree on this ranking. (Conversations with Cuban economists, and participants
including a UN expert in our project workshop in Havana, December 2007.) Based on our
research in Cuba, Rushton and Veltmeyer (2008) have argued that in addition to making these
adjustments to per capita GDP, it is also necessary to take into account income distribution in
order to arrive at a more meaningful HDI.
22. Cuba has actually moved up steadily in the HDI during the 1990s standing at number 52 in
20072008.
23. Unesco 1998.
369
dispersed classrooms; equality of basic educational opportunity, even in impoverished

areas, both rural and urban.24
Using its new yardstick of
healthy life expectancy, which
measures the number of years a
person can be expected to live in
full health, the World Health Organization (WHO) praised Cuba
for achieving the highest
healthy life expectancy in the region [Latin America and the Caribbean], at 68.4 years, near US
levels.25 No wonder Cuba won
praise even from World Bank
president James Wolfenson,
who, commenting on the newly
Old man on farm near Pinar del Rio, Cuba, 2009. released World Development ReThe World Health Organization has praised Cuba port, 2001, told reporters: Cuba
for achieving the highest healthy life expectancy
has done a great job on educain the region [Latin America and the Caribbean],
tion and health,and it does not
at 68.4 years, near U.S. levels. (Credit: Adam Jones,
embarrass me to admit it.26 And
PhD, Flickr)
former UN secretary general Kofi
Annan held up Cuba as an example that shows that even a poor country need
not leave its people defenseless against some of lifes worst hardships.27 Annan
made this statement in 2000 when Cuba was still struggling to overcome a major economic and food crisis in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union
and the loss of its only real trade partners and supporters.
Cubas success in overcoming a catastrophic economic and humanitarian crisis (after the sudden loss of its trading partners) and sustaining its HD achievements, all while relying on its own resources, must be regarded as one of the
most remarkable achievements for a state and society in recent times.28 Analysts
claim that the key to Cubas success was its ability to mobilize a well-organized
and educated population to undertake various innovative and creative measures, including those aimed at attaining self-sufficiency in sustainable forms of
food production. Commenting on the rapid recovery of Cuban agriculture, an
Oxfam America report stated: Under the circumstances facing Cuba the U.S.
embargo, loss of trading partners, little international aid, and economic col29
lapse the agricultural recovery is nothing short of extraordinary.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
370
Gasperini 2000, executive summary.

Quoted in Saney 2004, 35.
Lobe 2001.
Annan 2000.
Koont 2004; Mehrotra and Jolly, eds. 1997; Sinclaire and Thomson 2004; Barraclough 2000.
Sinclaire and Thompson 2004, 48.
While Cuba continues to be vulnerable and the economic and social situation remains far from satisfactory, it has managed to sustain its HD achievements
and to substantially increase its food supply within a short period of time. Assessing the countrys crisis and reviewing its vulnerability (circa 2000), one observer stated: [T]he foundations of the Cuban health and nutrition system are
strong enough to ensure that the infant-mortality rate and the under-five mor30
tality rate are being maintained at least so far.
2. Behind the HD Achievements: Agency and Practice

Why and how did these two societies succeed where so many others have failed?
Are their successes attributable to unique conjunctures of historical conditions
that are not replicable? The answers to these questions are not easy, and there
are contesting interpretations. To be sure, historical and conjunctural factors
need to be identified, among them the specific characteristics of colonial interventions, the early development of export economies and commercial agriculture, the development of class forces, and the process of state formation. Our
focus here will be on the interventions of social agencies and the specific forces
that moved them to act the way they did.
From this perspective we discuss three common patterns in the paths that led
Kerala and Cuba to high achievements in human development: (1) the high policy priority given to human development with education and health as its foundation; (2) public action (as Jean Drze and Amartya Sen use the concept in
their work), with its two components of organized social movements that influence state action and an interventionist state that is responsive to the demands
of such movements; and (3) a cultural revolution that spawns the process and
provides the impetus to move state and society to imagine, to hope for the social goods concerned, and consequently to formulate and implement the policies needed to deliver these goods.
Policy Priorities
At the outset it is important to make the point that long before global economists and policy-makers discovered the idea of HD, the transformative project
the people of Cuba and Kerala were pursuing was all about human development. As will be discussed below in the section on Cultural Revolution, this project, which large sections of their populations called the socialist project, had
the explicit and stated goal, ab initio, of human development in its classic Enlightenment (and Marxist) and in its more universal sense of freedom from
alienation and oppression, empowerment of the poor and the powerless, and
the promotion of social and distributive justice. And this project was pursued
independently of its relationship with GDP growth, sometimes at the cost of
such growth. The basic inspiration for the transformative project (and the policies it required) came not from economists and technocrats who played, at
30. Mehrotra 1997, 411.

371
best, a marginal role but from social reformers and revolutionaries, and from
religious and secular thinkers such as Sri Narayana Guru and Namboothiripad,
Jos Mart and Fidel Castro. It is not accidental, therefore, that both these societies gave high priority to the provisioning of public goods, on the one hand, and
to polices required to reduce, if not eradicate, entrenched inequalities, on the
other. Beyond education and health, there were specifically pro-poor policies
such as the very important public distribution system (on which more below).
There were also radical redistributive policies such as land reforms. Since these
policies are generally well known and well documented, we shall devote the
limited space available here to an analysis of the social and political forces that
were behind the formulation and effective implementation of the policies them31
selves.
Public Action
According to Jean Drze and Amartya Sen, public action has been a critical factor in the human development achievements of Kerala and other similar success
stories. In the Drze and Sen formulation, public action includes both state intervention and popular participation (including political action by mobilized
groups). Together these lead to the establishment and effective functioning of a
system of public provisioning and support-led security.32 Kerala and Cuba,
located in two different continents, with unique historical and cultural contexts
and two different political systems, nevertheless exemplify the critical role of
public action in bringing about their impressive human development outcomes. But the concept of public action is more complex than it first appears;
complex issues of the nature and role of the state and state actors and the nature
and role of social forces and social actors must be considered. The state, after
all, is a product of and embedded in society, while society and social forces
(popular participation) may be molded and even manipulated by the state. For
purposes of our analysis the two components of public action, the state and the
social forces, are analytically separated in the sections below, followed by a brief
third section examining the relationship between the two. In engaging with the
voluminous literature and the many debates on each of these issues, we will be
selective and brief, keeping our focus on the critical role of public action in human development and poverty alleviation.
Why the State Matters
The modern debate about the state can be said to have begun with the classical works of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in the context of the rise of modernity
and capitalism, the former two focusing more on the social forces with only
Weber treating the state and its bureaucracy as relatively autonomous rational
actors. The more recent debate has focused on the state with respect to the is-
31. Many of the works on Kerala and Cuba listed in this article also deal with these policies. See especially those listed in note 13 above.
32. Drze and Sen develop the concept in many of their works. See especially Drze and Sen 1989
and 1998, and Sen 1999.
372
sues of development, democracy, inequality, and poverty reduction, much of it

33
specifically in relation to the poor countries in the Global South.
The theory that still enjoys hegemonic status is neoliberalism (notwithstanding rumors of its demise in many parts of the world), especially as powerful international players have used neoliberal policies to reshape economies and societies all over the world. As is well known, neoliberals see the state as an
obstacle to economic growth and freedom (by which they generally mean the
market). They prefer to have markets as well as NGOs play a greater role in the
economy while downsizing the role of the state. While motley groups of left intellectuals and nationalists resist neoliberal hegemony, the antistate position
receives support from a different quarter in the form of some globalization
theorists of the post-structural, postmodern vintage, who see the state being superseded by global forces. They favor global civil society stepping into the vacuum created by the declining state. Yet there is strong historical and empirical
evidence, buttressed by sound theoretical arguments, to suggest that all forms
of general human well-being that people enjoy in a society be it peace and security, freedom from violence and crime, freedom from famine and malnutrition, economic development and scientific progress have been associated
with good public institutions at the center of which is the state, relatively strong,
well-organized, well-governed, and democratic, and enjoying a high degree of
legitimacy and social consensus.34 For purposes of our discussion what needs to
be highlighted is the fact that every observable society with high HD, including
those in East Asia, has had a history of some form of state-led development.35
Furthermore, it can also be argued that effective states in modern times with
purposive and programmatic pro-poor policies have no famines, a conclusion
Amartya Sen has forcefully brought out in his studies on famines. Stated simply,
33. Important contributions here include the seminal work of Barrington Moore Jr. on the social
origins of democracy and dictatorship (Moore 1966); Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol
(1985) on bringing the state back in (reacting against the radical polycentrism of some prevalent perspectives such as the world systems theory, but also an early antidote to the neoliberal
celebration of the down-sized state); Migdal, Kohli, and Shue 1994, on the relationship between state and society with the state-in-society approach; Houtzager and Moore 2003, which
specifically addresses the issue of the politics of inclusion. Atul Kohlis many works (2004,
2009, and undated) include extensive discussion on India. Kohli (undated) and Harris 2003
specifically address the issue of poverty reduction, arguing that even within India state regimes
differ significantly in this respect not surprisingly, states governed by well-organized,
left-of-center parties do much better in this respect.
34. Sen 1999; Nayyar 2009; Levitt 2010; Polanyi 2001; Stiglitz 2001; Kohli undated; Kohli 2004;
Harris 2003; Herring 2003, among others.
35. This has been the case even in the capitalist countries of Western Europe and East Asia, and
even the United States. As Sen has noted in several of his writings, all these countries maintained high levels of public provisioning and investments in education, health, social security,
and public services. Significantly, the first HDR noted that Malaysia was able to achieve steady
improvements in HD despite its poor income distribution because other social goods were
distributed more equitably as a result of well-structured public (meso) policies implemented
by the state. (Malaysia spent 8 percent of its GDP on social programs between 1973 and 1981
[UNDP 1990, 47]). The critical role of the state has once again been highlighted in the wake of
the recent food and financial crises and the clear failures of neoliberal policies. Significantly,
neoliberal orthodoxy did not prevent any of the worlds major states from intervening heavily
to rescue their failing economies during the recent global financial crisis.
373
the argument is that since famines

are so easily preventable no
modern state that guarantees food
entitlements to its citizens will allow a famine to take place. Not surprisingly, the worst famines are
products of colonial and nondemocratic dictatorships or failed
states. Sen says that it is hard to
think that famines like those in Ireland in the 1840s would have been
at all allowed to occur in Britain.36
Even within India, famines and endemic poverty vary substantially
across its states (with Kerala at the
benign end) and the most important variable here is the type of regime.37
In both Kerala and Cuba the
The Angel of Poverty and Famine. Amartya
state was captured or conSen contends that since famines are so easily
structed through popular strugpreventable no modern state that guarantees
gles and/or revolution by coalifood entitlements to its citizens will allow a
famine to take place. (Image credit: Kevin Rooke.
tions of underprivileged classes
2009. http://kev.sextante.com/)
and reconstituted to act on their
behalf. The regimes that came to power on the waves of such popular movements enjoyed the capacity and the legitimacy to act boldly to transform entrenched class and power structures and to create the preconditions for democratic participation by the masses of the population. Agrarian reforms are
notoriously difficult to implement, but critical in this process. While Cubas reforms eliminated the landed elites, Keralas more modest reforms were still the
most radical for any state in India and did succeed in neutralizing the power of
predatory landlords. This may be an important factor in understanding the contrast between the high levels of democratic participation in Kerala and the
clientilist politics of many north Indian states where powerful landlords continue to be in control.38 The success of these states in preventing famines, rapidly reducing poverty, and making public provision for education, health, food,
and social security must be attributed to their effective, purposeful, and programmatic pursuit of pro-welfare and pro-poor policies aimed at empowering
and capacitating the poor even at the risk of alienating some powerful
classes. Among the noteworthy programs implemented by state actors in situations of crisis, the one that stands out is the response of the Cuban state to the
system-threatening crisis in the aftermath of the sudden collapse of Cubas ma-
36. Sen 1999, 174.

37. Harris 2003; Kohli undated.
38. Herring 1983, 2003; Kohli undated.
374
jor supporter and only trading partner, the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc of
countries. The crisis was of a scale comparable to the great depression of the
1930s for a small island country, now without friends (but with a very powerful
enemy next door) or trading partners: no foreign exchange to purchase badly
needed food or fuel and a free fall of the countrys GDP by 15 percent.39 The Cuban state (intensely engaged with Cuban society and social actors see below)
responded to the economic crisis of the 1990s with a structural adjustment program (SAP) that was the antithesis of the SAPs imposed on southern countries
by the Bretton Woods institutions. Cuba declared a Special Period in Time of
Peace and introduced a series of austerity measures and economic reforms.
But it was a SAP with a difference: Cubas program relied almost entirely on the
countrys own resources and did not reduce, but increased, its social spending
from the already high 20.08 percent of its GDP in 1990 to 32 percent by 1998.40
Moving the State: Social Mobilization and Public Participation
If the state is such a critical institution in human development and poverty alleviation, it still needs to be explained how and under what conditions the underprivileged classes in a society, including vast numbers of the rural poor, are
able to influence state policy and make it respond to their needs. High HD indicators, which are statistical averages, underscore the fact that development in
these societies has been more inclusive with a wider spread than elsewhere
(Kerala vs. India or Cuba vs. Latin America). This raises the critical political question of how these classes become mobilized, incorporated into relatively stable
organizations with universalistic ideologies and programs, and integrated into
the political process. Both Kerala and Cuba throw considerable light on this
question and show how and why the mobilization of these classes the nature
of their organizations and the mode of integration are critical for HD.
The literature on Kerala is replete with accounts of the states long history of
social mobilization and struggle. The trajectory began in the southern part of
Kerala, the princely state of Travancore and later that of Kochi (formerly
Cochin) with the well-known social reform movements and caste associations
in the latter part of the nineteenth century combining a unique Kerala model
of renaissance, enlightenment, and reformation, all in one. In British Malabar,
where rack-renting and predatory landlordism were more prominent, nineteenth and early twentieth century social movements focused more on agrarian
issues.41 To be sure, these movements were born in specific historical contexts
economic, social, cultural, and political about which we will not concern
39. Uriarte 2002, 3 and 36; Uriarte 2004.

40. Uriarte (2002, 3) notes that in 1990 Cubas social expenditure of 20.08 percent of GDP was
higher than that of Japan, Australia, and the United States and twice the Latin American average
of 10.4. By 1998, after a decade of crisis, Cuba was spending 32 percent of its GDP on social
programs, still the highest in Latin America (ibid., 36). Despite the high social spending, services actually declined in the face of higher demands and decreased buying power of the
Cuban peso, among other factors. This decline led to many problems such as delayed maintenance of hospitals, shortage of medicines, and reduced ration entitlements. See also Barraclough 2000.
41. Herring 1983 and 2003; Radhakrishnan 1989; Panikkar 1989.
375
42
ourselves here, referring only to the rich literature available. One of the fascinating facets of this narrative is how even the maharajah of Travancore, the kingdoms Hindu ruler, was himself transformed from protector of Varnashrama
Dharma, the caste-based social and moral order (perhaps the most oppressive
in the whole of India) to supporter of lower-caste struggles and changer of caste
43
oppression. Eventually the maharajah threw open to all castes educational institutions and Hindu temples, formerly the exclusive preserves of the higher
castes. Some of these movements were later joined by, and even absorbed into,
trade union and political movements that led to the establishment of strong political parties, in particular, of a well-organized Communist Party with a universalistic and class ideology that remained purposive and programmatic and retained its mass base across caste and religion over a period of time in one of the
most pluralist societies in the world. Since the 1970s Keralas numerous political parties have functioned largely within two coalitions, the left-of-center Left
Democratic Front (LDF), led by the Communist Party of IndiaMarxist (CPM),
and the right-of-center United Democratic Front (UDF), led by the Congress
Party. The two fronts have alternated in gaining an electoral majority and holding power with some regularity. The choice Keralas (and Indias) communists
made to engage in multiparty democracy and adversarial politics in India seems
to have been based on an astute and realistic assessment of the actual possibilities; their organizational strength, mass base, and ability to mobilize their supporters made their strategy successful.44 Although this strategy involved considerable class compromise and the need to moderate, if not abandon, some
radical programs, it also succeeded in forcing the right-of-center parties and traditional conservative forces to accept much of the lefts social programs. It is
worth noting that even limited land reforms, moderated in the face of strong opposition, required organized struggles and intense participation of mass organizations, especially of landless workers.45
Cubas trajectory shows some important similarities with Keralas despite its
46
obviously different political and cultural history. Cubas most significant mass
movement, also starting in the latter half of the nineteenth century, was centered on the demand for independence from Spain. The independence movement mobilized Cubans across lines of social class and gender. Historians regard this as the defining moment in the emergence of a Cuban melting pot and a
distinct Cuban national identity. Under such leaders as Felix Varela and Jos
Mart, the struggle for independence was also linked to the broader struggle for
42. See note 13 above.

43. Devika 2010; Woodstock 1967.
44. Nossiter 1982; oral presentation made by veteran left intellectual and former editor of the CPM
newspaper Desabhimani at the first workshop on the KeralaCuba Project, Trivandrum,
Kerala, 1214 December 2006.
45. Such struggles were observed and documented in Tharamangalam 1981, which also documented some of the many evasions and illegal transfers. That even modest land reforms cannot be implemented without effective popular struggles and without a strong state that has the
power and the will to implement reforms is amply demonstrated by years of broken promises
and unimplemented programs all over the world, especially in India and Latin America.
46. Daz 2007; Saney 2004.
376
Student Federation of India activists clash with police during a demonstration in Cochin,
Kerala, Tuesday, 1 July 2003. The activists were protesting against the banning of politics
on college campuses. The literature on Kerala is replete with accounts of the states long
history of social mobilization and struggle. (Credit: AP Photo)
the end of slavery, for social justice and universal human rights, and for a transformation of society that would guarantee basic entitlements to every citizen.
These struggles continued into the twentieth century as the United States (and
U.S.controlled strong men) replaced the Spanish as the new oppressors
(1920s to 1950s), and as social justice and equality still eluded the Cuban people. For example, the formal abolition of slavery in 1886 did not end entrenched
racism and racial prejudices that denied black and mulatto Cubans access to
many critical economic and social benefits including jobs and education.47
These social movements, however, eventually led to armed revolution, at least
in part because by the 1950s there was little space in Cuba for the kind of adversarial and accommodative politics that characterized Kerala.
For reasons rooted in Cubas political history and its unique geopolitical situation, postrevolutionary Cuba has rejected the model of party-based democ48
racy; the Cuban Communist Party does not function as an electoral party. Instead, the Revolution established and institutionalized a classical socialist form
47. Daz 2007.

48. It may be noted that Cubas historical suspicion of multiparty electoral democracy predates the
revolution and goes back to the historically specific situation of vulnerability arising from its
proximity to an imperialist and interventionist great power. Cubas misgivings about a multiparty electoral system go back to the time of Jos Mart himself. Marts exposure to electoral
politics in the United States convinced him that such a system was not in Cubas interest. He
saw it as a divisive process that squandered national energy and as an instrument that invited
manipulation by foreign players (Saney 2004). This last point plays in the collective psyche of
Cubans with great force especially in the light of well-documented evidence of U.S. efforts to
fund and to use opposition movements to subvert Cubas political system. The issue is so senTharamangalam / Human Development
377
of direct democracy and instruments of popular participation through organs of peoples power and mass organizations. As in Kerala, Cubas many
mass organizations influence debates and policies at all levels. These organizations include, besides the Communist Party, strong trade unions, farmers
unions, and womens and student organizations. The formal representative
bodies are municipalities and provincial and national assemblies. Peoples representatives are nominated directly by the voters and elected to these bodies in
competitive elections by secret ballot in a nonparty context. From the standpoint of human development, the most vigorous form of participation has been
at the grassroots, municipal level, and this form of participation has been made
even more vigorous, intensive, and extensive through the reforms for greater
decentralization in the 1990s.49
While these bodies do not have legislative powers, their control and management of local economic and social affairs are far more significant than in liberal
democratic societies, including Kerala, and the stakes are high. In the absence
of any significant private sector, these bodies have been very active in forming,
determining, developing and monitoring local and national economic plans
and budgets and in checking all economic activity located in the municipality.50
They not only manage and control local agricultural cooperatives and other
economic enterprises and distribution systems, but also the delivery of all vital
services including education and health. Despite the recent introduction of
some private enterprises, the activities and powers of these democratic bodies
have actually been considerably enhanced as a result of the decentralization
process. With the stakes so high, popular participation is vigorous and there is
an institutionalized system of vigilance and monitoring especially through the
accountability sessions at which delegates must periodically give account of
their activities and answer the electorates questions. It is important to note that
these local bodies are also linked to provincial and national bodies and influence ideas, debates, and policies at all levels. The reforms of the Special Period of the 1990s, for example, were intensely discussed and debated at all levels of government and mass organizations.
As will be seen below in part 3, since the early 1990s both Kerala and Cuba
have had to confront major new challenges and to navigate the turbulent waters
of neoliberal globalization and reforms. And these are putting pressure on their
patterns of politics and development.
sitive that independent organizations in Cuba take special care not to accept financial help
from U.S. sources to keep themselves above suspicion.
49. On Cubas model of representative government, see Roman 2003; August 1999; and Saney
2004. Popular participation in the context of decentralization and local development is one of
the issues our research project is investigating. Since 2005 this author has made six research
visits to Cuba, spending on the average about ten days each, conducting interviews with a variety of people and making field visits, especially to farmers cooperatives and to the agricultural
university in Havana. During one of these visits Canadian and Cuban members of our research
team visited the municipality of Sancti Spritus where we spent two days engaged in intensive
discussions with members of the local municipality. In general, we have been favorably impressed by the effectiveness of the programs and by the level of peoples participation.
50. Roman 2003, 1.
378
StateSociety Relations
We have argued above that the two key elements in HD in Kerala and Cuba
are (1) an interventionist state committed to pro-poor policies, and (2) a mobilized society that engages the state through well-organized mass organizations
and parties. In this section we discuss the way in which these two elements have
interacted to create and maintain a certain synergy, a virtuous relationship. We
suggest that this may be critical in understanding why these two cases have succeeded where many others such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Sri Lanka have
not been so successful. Before turning to this discussion a caveat must be introduced. Imperialism and imperialist inventions have been critical factors in the
trajectories of many countries, and especially so in the case of Cuba, but this is a
subject outside the scope of our discussion. That tiny Cuba succeeded in repelling numerous well-documented attempts to destroy the revolution by the
worlds greatest power is an amazing story,51 and we cannot altogether discount
the role of historical accidents, the brilliance of Cubas leaders, and even sheer
luck as factors in some of its successes. Even on this issue, however, we emphasize the need to focus on empirically identifiable factors such as Cubas formidable defense and intelligence capabilities, its astute diplomacy in garnering support from most of the worlds countries and the United Nations, and, most
important, the overwhelming support for the revolutionary regime from Cuban
citizens, especially in the face of imperialist interventions, and from well-organized and vigilant mass organizations such as the CDRs (Committee to Defend
the Revolution).
Scholars examining statesociety relations use different analytical lenses
52
such as equilibrium, balance, synergy, and state-in-society. Joel Migdals concept of state-in-society is particularly useful for it shows the state as embedded in society and constructed by social forces, on the one hand, yet enjoying relative autonomy and the capacity to mold and even manipulate social
forces and social groups, on the other. 53 While the state can enjoy relative stability over a period of time, being a system of institutionalized practices, beliefs,
and rules, every state is ultimately precarious and vulnerable as an arena in
which contesting and changing social forces are continuously at play.
The point to be emphasized is that Kerala and Cuba have both been successful in maintaining a balance between state and society and among a variety of social groups and organizations. This balance does not mean an equilibrium imposed by some invisible hand, but a synergy created and maintained by
institutionalized mechanisms capable of accommodating differences and resolving conflicts. As noted above, in Kerala the process involved accommodation and compromise among various interest groups, mediated by rational-le-
51. Morley 1987.

52. Much of this literature overlaps with the literature cited in the two sections above. Of particular
interest here are Migdal, Kohli, and Shue 1994; Migdal 2001; Houtzager and Moore 2003; Evans 1995, 97; and Evans, ed. 1997.
53. Migdal, Kohli, and Shue 1994; Migdal 2001.
379
In Cuba education was linked intrinsically to the revolutions goal of transforming Cubans
into an enlightened, mobilized, and empowered people. Following Castros famous promise to turn the nation into a gigantic school, education was declared to be every ones
right. It is not accidental, therefore, that Cuba successfully organized one of the best free
public school systems anywhere, (Credit: ILO Photo/Deloche P. 2000)
gal, modern institutions of the state as well as political parties and other
organizations.
In Cuba, which eschews multiparty, adversarial politics, these negotiations
take place not only within and across the Communist Party and the many mass
organizations under its auspices, but as mentioned above, also among the many
levels and organs of the state. Almost all major changes in policy, the rectification programs of the 1980s, and especially the austerity measures and reforms
during the Special Period were implemented after intense public debates. It is
noteworthy that the governments first austerity package formulated by the National Assembly in 1993, which included a tax on wages, was vigorously opposed by representatives of the unions because the workers had not been given
a chance to discuss these measures. Subsequently the proposed plan was set
aside and mass consultations initiated in what have been called Workers Parliaments, and revised austerity plans were eventually adopted.54 As will be seen
below, a more recent plan to reduce ration entitlements also seems to have
been abandoned in the face of popular opposition.
This is not to suggest that in either case this virtuous relationship has been
unproblematic, or without dilemmas, strains, or contradictions or that it will be
sustained indefinitely through the turbulent waters of still ongoing neoliberal
globalization and reforms. In fact, such a relationship is always precarious and a
54. Saney 2004, 5052.
380
delicately negotiated one since democratic participation involves and requires

critics of a given regime and even political opposition, and states and societies
must negotiate inevitable conflicts of interests among social classes and groups.
Our argument has only been that the role played by both have been important
and essential in producing the human development outcomes, and further that
they have played such roles within an institutionalized framework capable of accommodating differences and resolving conflicts.
Cultural Revolution and Paradigm Change

Visiting Cuba during the first year of the revolution and interviewing a wide variety of people, C. Wright Mills wrote:
What impresses me most of all about the cultural possibilities in Cuba are
the eagerness to learn and the open-mindedness of many of the young
men who make up the revolutionary Government of Cuba. In 20 years of
teaching and writing, and of considerable travel, I have never before encountered such a sustained passion for learning, and such an intelligent
awareness of the kinds of things that must be studied. And yet one of my
major worries for Cuba is my worry for her cultural establishment. I do not
mean only art and literature; I mean culture more broadly to include all
those institutions of the mass media of communication and of higher and
lower education by which the character and the mentality of men and
55
women are formed.
What emerges from our discussion about public action is a picture of a mobilized society putting pressure on the state that must respond to it by making
provisions for peoples basic security and other public goods because the society has captured the state and/or upholds it with its support. But a more basic
question must be asked: what social or cultural factors or forces moved these
societies in the first place and how did they, in turn, move their states and bureaucracies (or even create these institutions ab initio as in Cuba) to formulate
and implement policies that led to these outcomes? To begin to answer this
question we must examine what we have called a cultural revolution, namely,
a transformation in human consciousness and a paradigm change in social values and ideals, in peoples conception of and commitment to social and distributive justice and human rights, and in peoples aspirations for themselves and
their children.56
To be sure, prominently figuring in this revolution were such radical philosophers and cultural leaders as Jos Mart, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara in Cuba
and Narayana Guru and Namboothirippad in Kerala, and there were battles of
ideas and revolutions in ideas. What is more important in the transforma-
55. Mills 1960, 186.

56. Tharamangalam 2007. Our usage of the concept here differs from the way it has been used to
refer to the cultural revolution in China in the 1960s and 1970s where it was, at least initially,
designed and guided by the top leadership of the state and involved conflicts among the leadership of the Communist Party. As our definition implies, we refer to a process of broad cultural
change akin to the European Enlightenment emanating in society and affecting large sections
of its intellectuals as well as of its general population.
381
tions of these societies, however, is the process by which such ideas became part
of the popular cultural movements and were internalized in the collective consciousness of the people. Such a cultural revolution is also a revolution in hope
giving new hope to people who formerly lived without hope, accepting their
fate as inevitable and/or unchangeable. Kerala historian Robin Jeffrey has noted,
for instance, that by the 1930s large numbers of people in Kerala had enthusiastically embraced the belief that they had entitlements,57 a concept that figures
prominently in the writings of Amartya Sen.
Sens characterization of famines as caused by entitlement failures is very
useful in understanding Cubas success in averting a famine in the face of a sudden and unprecedented crisis including a 30 percent fall in food availability.58 As
the Cuban state tightened its belt during this crisis, it went to extraordinary
lengths to safeguard peoples deeply cherished entitlements even if at a reduced rate. Not only were there no famine or famine-related deaths in Cuba,
but not one school or hospital was closed. The pioneering campaigns for mass
literacy in both Kerala and Cuba were momentous cultural movements that had
little to do with any policy or plan for economic development. Only two years
into the revolution, Cuba captured the worlds attention by launching its innovative and revolutionary nine-month-long literacy campaign, which mobilized
100,000 secondary students and other volunteers to impart the skills of reading
and writing to 707,000 adults in all parts of the country. Kerala launched a similar campaign in 198990 that led to the claim that the state had achieved 100
percent literacy by the early 1990s.59 In Kerala the social reform movements
campaigned vigorously for the rights of the lower castes to education. An early
associate of Sree Narayana Guru, Dr. Padmanabhan Palpu, said on the subject:
We are the largest Hindu community in Kerala. Without education no community has attained permanent civilized prosperity. In our community there
must be no man or woman without primary education.60 It is not accidental
that universal access to education (first primary and then secondary and even
postsecondary) became an issue of high priority in Kerala both in terms of public demand and public policy.61 In Cuba education was linked intrinsically to the
revolutions goal of transforming Cubans into an enlightened, mobilized, and
empowered people. Following Castros famous promise to turn the nation into
a gigantic school, education was declared to be every ones right.62 It is not ac-
57. Jeffrey 1992.

58. We have characterized it as a notable case of entitlement success, for example in Tharamangalam 2007.
59. Government of India 2008.
60. Quoted in Ramachandran 1998, 308.
61. Ramachandran (1998, 255), writing about the role of literacy in Keralas achievements, notes:
Literacy is the foundational feature of Keralas political culture, crucial in the creation of public opinion and essential to that consciousness of individual and political rights that is so conspicuous a feature of social and political life in Kerala. It appears that zealous Protestant
missionaries who opened schools to educate the lower castes shamed the government of
Travancore into following suit and making the historical declaration of 1817 that made universal education, paid by the state, a goal of state policy (ibid., 269).
62. Mehrotra 1997, 395.
382
cidental, therefore, that Cuba successfully organized one of the best free public
school systems anywhere, as we noted earlier. A notable aspect of mass participation, especially important in health care, has been the pivotal role of
womens agency. Not surprisingly women make up nearly half of all physicians as well as directors of hospitals and polyclinics.63
The literacy campaigns may be regarded as among the pivotal and symbolic
moments in the historical paths Kerala and Cuba have traveled in their respective cultural revolutions. In the wake of globalization and economic reforms
there is now need for a new debate about cultural changes such as middle classing (embourgeoisement) and consumerism, and their implications for their HD
models.
3. Globalization, Reform, and New Challenges

Neither Cuba nor Kerala has been able to escape the forces of neoliberal globalization, and both have had to reorient their economies to a changing world market. Broadly, both embraced reforms that included deregulation and market
liberalization, privatization, and fiscal austerity measures that involved reduction in public spending on some social programs. Both sought private and even
foreign investments (Cuba more successfully in sectors such as tourism). But
obviously, there were also major differences between socialist Cuba and the
sub-national state of Kerala, which is part of liberal-democratic India. Even the
contexts were different: the reforms came to Cuba with a big bang following the
collapse of the Soviet Union and to Kerala somewhat more gradually in the
wake of Indias liberalization but in the midst of its own crisis created by a prolonged period of economic stagnation. Cuba embraced the reforms with some
collective soul searching, and still-ongoing debates, but with a certain consensus that these were needed to deal with the crisis and to put Cuba on a sustainable path of economic growth. And here the reforms have been more state
controlled, selective, and hesitant, but after Ral Castro became Cubas president they have gained greater momentum. Kerala has had less control over the
reform process since it was imposed by the central government in Delhi. But
here too there has been a certain consensus amidst ongoing debates, and the reforms have been embraced by enthusiastic supporters from the political right,
and accepted by more reluctant and critical supporters from the left. The trajectory of the reforms has not been smooth in either case; there have been ideological shifts, debates, and divisions. But in both cases the impact of the reforms has
been far reaching and complex, and they are still being assessed. The observations we make here are brief and indicative rather than exhaustive.
Economic Growth and Human Development

Kerala and Cuba both seem to have succeeded in generating above-average economic growth that has moved them beyond periods of stagnation (in Cubas
63. Ibid., 402.
383
64
case a period of decline during the crisis) onto paths of virtuous growth.
Their experience supports the claims of those who argue that early gains in education and health are beneficial for economic growth especially during later periods of reform. Cuba has established some niche areas of strength in its
economy such as health care, biotechnology, and organic agriculture for which
it has also created export markets. Kerala too may have benefited from its comparative advantage in human capital in some limited areas of growth such as
communications, software, and tourism.65 In general, however, the relationship
between HD and economic growth is more ambiguous in Kerala because
growth there is driven more by consumption, and this, in turn, is driven by remittances. While the nature of this relationship may be worth exploring further,
our main interest is in seeing the impact of the changes, including the higher
economic growth, on HD and social well-being and on the models that promoted these.66 As will be seen below, navigating the turbulent waters of globalization has been challenging, but it is worth noting here that Kerala and Cuba
have indeed sustained and even enhanced their human development gains
through the post-reform period and have done so in sharp contrast to the experience of the former Soviet bloc countries that embraced neoliberal reforms.
Cuba moved up steadily in the HDI to its current rank of 52; Keralas HD score
improved from 0.591 to 0.638 between 1991 and 2000.67
Crisis in Public Provisioning

This progress takes only the UNDPs HDI measurements into account. But as
Sen has famously said, human development is more than the Human Development Index; it is, above all, about creating an enabling environment for enhancing peoples choices in all fields vital to human well-being. Hence we need to
examine the impact of the reforms on the basic public institutions that provide
for education, health, and environmental protection, and sustain equitable distribution of societys resources. When we examine these we see a more mixed
record with both societies showing some erosion of gains and both facing serious challenges. As we do this, however, it is important to keep in mind that their
record should be seen against the experience of many other third world societies that came under the impact of global neoliberalism with far more devastating effects including monstrous inequalities, increasing hunger, and even food
riots. In Kerala the reform period that began in 1991 saw the states system of
public provisioning in education and health, two major pillars of the Kerala
model, come under considerable strain. Public spending declined under fiscal
64. Kannan 2005; Government of Kerala 2006; Ahluwalia 2000; Ranis, Stewart, and Ramirez 2000;
Espinosa 1999; Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez 2005; Echevarria 2007.
65. For the argument about the sectors benefiting from Keralas comparative advantage, see
Kannan 2005; Heller 2007, 84.
66. That in both cases the growth is dependent in important ways on substantial inputs (and infusion of cash) from economies and societies outside their own models raises the issue of the
continuing lack of dynamism within these economies, a subject that is undertheorized. But
this subject belongs to another study.
67. Kannan and Pillai 2004.
384
constraints and austerity prescriptions imposed by the reforms while there was
a new move to commercialization and privatization of education and health
care that quickly reached a feverish pitch. The principle of universal coverage
and access has been compromised in both areas and a two-tiered system (one
for the poor and one for the rich) has become institutionalized.
Public spending on education, which had been at or above the recommended norm of 6 percent of NSPD (Net State Domestic Product), fell below 4
percent during twelve out of the seventeen years from 199091 to 200607, and
spending on education as a percentage of total government spending fell from
its unusually high peak of 3540 percent in the 1970s to 1720 percent from
2006 to 2009.68 Meanwhile, unaided private English-medium schools (i.e.,
schools not receiving any subsidies from the state) have sprung up across the
state to cater to the middle classes. Particularly noteworthy has been the proliferation of self-financing professional colleges in fields such as medicine, engineering, and business administration. Oommen reports that by 2007, 82 percent of engineering seats and 45 percent of seats in medical colleges were in the
self-financing sector.69 These positions are accessible only to those who can afford to pay their high tuition and capitation fees, the latter being a substantial
price for admission that private institutions exact. And these institutions are
promoted and controlled mostly by churches and other communal organizations. 70 In Kerala, communal organizations have emerged as the new entrepreneurs in the business of education and health. In the face of the growing demand for these institutions, the inability of the government (which is already
under severe fiscal constraints) to meet the demand, and the power wielded by
these organizations, even the Left government has been unable to stop this
trend. In fact, the Left governments attempts to rationalize the fees structure
and admission rules in order to facilitate access for economically weaker sections of society have not succeeded due to court interventions.
Public provisioning in health has eroded even more rapidly with serious consequences for the poor. Public expenditure on health and family welfare fell
both as a percentage of total expenditure (from 9.34 percent in 199091 to 4.74
percent in 20072008) and as a percentage of State Domestic Product (SDP)
(from 1.75 to 0.90) during the same period. Meanwhile private hospitals and
health care centers have mushroomed with nearly 65 percent of hospital beds
now in the private sector. In tandem with the rising demand for private sector
health care the quality of care and services in the public sector has deteriorated
due to inadequate supply of equipments, drugs, and service personnel who have
increasingly found employment opportunities in the private sector more attractive. As a consequence, some 70 percent of the poor now rely on the private sec-
68. This section draws heavily on Oommen 2006, 2007, and 2008, papers prepared as part of the
KeralaCuba project.
69. Oommen 2007, 21.
70. These are organizations of castes or religious communities; the distinction between the two
is ambiguous and subtle in India. Even the Christians of Kerala are divided along often overlapping lines of caste, sect, and rite. Tharamangalam 1996 discusses the issue of caste among
Christians in India.
385
tor. Add to this the

general mediflation
in a rapidly rising
consumer society
and the increased
price of drugs resulting from changes to
Indian Patent Rights
policies imposed by
the World Trade Organization, and the
real crisis in health
care is clear to see.
The poor are forced
A home in Kerala. the relationship between HD and ecoto spend as much as
nomic growth is more ambiguous in Kerala because growth there 40 percent of their
is driven more by consumption, and this, in turn, is driven by
income on health
remittances. With the continuous influx of remittances into
Kerala and the skyrocketing land prices that followed in the
care as against 2.4
wake of this infusion of funds, land has now become real
perc ent by th e
estate, a high-value economic asset sought after by investors
71
rich. A recent study
and speculators. (Credit: www.keralahomeslive.com)
that uses household
expenditure data from the National Sample Survey (NSS), 55th round (2005), reported that 14 percent of rural and 11 percent of urban people in Kerala incurred catastrophic expenses (in excess of 15 percent of their income) in health
expenses and that such expenditures pushed 3.5 percent of individuals in rural
and 4.5 percent in urban Kerala below the poverty line.72
In contrast to Kerala, Cuba has largely sustained its generally high quality free
education and health care systems intact, and has kept its commitment to the
principle of universal access. The Cuban state has had much better capacity to
prioritize policies; while it did neglect some vital areas such as housing and
transportation (to which it has given serious attention only very recently), it
gave high priority to education and health and food ration entitlements. The
changes in these areas involved rationalization and decentralization (discussed
below), which aimed at making the services more accessible, cost-effective, and
efficient.
Another basic public provision that came under strain during the post-reform period in both Kerala and Cuba is the food rationing system (also called
the public distribution system or civil supply system). In Kerala the food rationing system has arguably been the single most important policy responsible for
the rapid reduction in hunger and malnutrition among the poorest sections of
the population.73 In Cuba the food ration card, the libreta, has been the symbol
of a revolution that has declared that no one shall go hungry or malnourished74
71. Kunhikannan and Aravindan 2000.

72. George 2005.
73. George 1979; Suryanarayana 1999.
386
and since 1962 has guaranteed every Cuban a basic basket of food. Now this system is under threat. In Kerala the threat came from the government of India
(GOI), which under neoliberal policy compulsions restricted ration entitlements to a targeted population below a now largely discredited poverty line, a
policy many scholars cite as the main contributor to the rise of hunger and mal75
nutrition in India unseen since colonial times. After the GOI substantially reduced its PDS subsidies to Kerala in 1997 the state government was able to sustain universal coverage by making up the short-fall from its own budget and by
introducing a differential pricing system that provides ration entitlements to
those below the Poverty Line (BPL) at a lower price than those above the poverty
line (APL). While this system has created some new problems such as lower
overall use of the PDS, Kerala has sustained the system better than most other
Indian states.76
Cubas ration system has come under pressure as it is being reviewed by policy-makers concerned about its mounting cost, continuing inefficiency, and the
way it now benefits even the new rich along with the needy. A full-page editorial
in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, on 9 October 2009, declared,
The libreta was a necessity at one time but it has become an impediment to the
collective decisions the nation must take to adjust to the new economic environment. But indications are that the libreta will remain largely untouched for
the foreseeable future in response to strong popular demand to sustain a program that had been the very symbol of food security and the right to food, and
one that large numbers of Cubas people regard as an entitlement.77
Return of the Inequality/Poverty Predicament

The post-reform period in Kerala has also been characterized by a rise in poverty
and inequality. Kerala continues to outperform other Indian states in avoiding
extreme poverty and malnutrition because of the support systems still in
place but studies are indicating that the states rapid poverty reduction effort
may have stalled. Available data on Head Count Ratio (HCR)78 show that the rate
of poverty reduction has slowed down during the post-reform period.
In Cuba poverty as a social problem has reappeared as a subject for study and
attention, but social scientists and policy-makers are quick to add that Cubas
poverty is sui generis since no Cuban citizen is without some protection. While
analysts have used somewhat different methods to measure poverty, they gener-
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
See Benjamin, Collins, and Scott 1984, 180.

Patnaik 2007; Tharamangalam 2009; Suri 2006.
Cyriac, Vishishta, and Jacob 2008 provides a recent review of Keralas PDS.
Interviews with a group of Cuban social scientists, February 2010.
Himanshu 2007; Aravindan 2006. HCR data are notoriously unreliable and controversial, especially in India. See Deaton and Kozel 2005 on the great Indian poverty debate. A study by the
Kerala Shastra Parishad used the same methodology as the official National Sample Survey, but
included a much larger sample. (See Aravindan 2006.) This study showed a significantly higher
HCR for rural Kerala in 200405 (22.9 vs. 13.2). In general, evidence showing a slowdown in
poverty reduction in Kerala is consistent with other indicators and with our observations during fieldwork.
387
79
ally agree that poverty increased during and after the Special Period. Reports
prepared by a team led by Angela Ferriol at the Institute of Economic Studies,
Ministry of Economics and Planning in Cuba, reveal that the population at risk
of not meeting some essential need rose from 6 percent of the total population
in 1988 to 14.7 percent in 1996 and to 20 percent in 19992000.
Evidence about increasing inequality is clearer and less ambiguous than that
about poverty for both Kerala and Cuba. In the case of Kerala, we have already
discussed the increasing disparity in access to education and health care. Analysts note that there has been a quantum jump in the Gini coefficient during the
period between 199394 and 200405 from 30.1 to 38.3 for rural and 34.3 to
41.0 for urban Kerala.80 Rural Keralas Gini of 38.3 is the highest among all Indian states and way above Indias 30.5; urban Keralas Gini of 41.0 is the second
highest among Indian states and above the Indian average of 37.6. Data on
Monthly Per Capita Consumption Expenditure (MPCE) are consistent with this
finding. Keralas consumption boom (with the highest MPCE among all Indian
states) has not benefited all sections of the population. For example, between
19992000 and 20042005 Keralas MPCE increased by a whopping 15.75 percent, but the increase for Scheduled Castes (SCs) was only 10.33 percent and
for Scheduled Tribes (STs) 0-32.78 percent. It is important to keep in mind that
the SCs and STs, who are also the poorest sections of the population, are practically excluded from many of the economic sectors driving Keralas new growth.
They benefit little from remittances from abroad since they have not had the resources the qualifications, the contacts, or sufficient funds to obtain jobs
abroad.81
Kerala has also seen increasing concentration of land ownership during the
post-reform period. Keralas land reforms had mostly benefited the higher and
middle castes of tenants, not the landless untouchable castes who had no tenancy rights and who had received only titles to tiny plots that housed their huts.
With the continuous influx of remittances into Kerala and the skyrocketing land
prices that followed in the wake of this infusion of funds (as much as US$75,000
to $80,000 for one acre or 0.4 hectare of rural agricultural land with road access), land has now become real estate, a high-value economic asset sought after by investors and speculators. In fact, the post-reform period has seen a sharp
increase in land concentration. A 2006 study by Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishath
(Peoples Science Movement) shows that in the five years prior to 2004, 33,023
hectares of land passed into the hands of the highest (richest) of Keralas four
economic groups, while the bottom three economic groups were net losers.82
79. Zabala 1999, 2007; Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez 2005.

80. Himanshu 2007, tables 1 and 2; Subramanian and Prasad 2008.
81. I have found it striking that in the Kerala Diaspora communities with which I have come into
contact in Canada and the United States in the past forty years I have not met a single person of
Dalit origin; even those from Other Backward Castes have been very few.
82. KSSPs classification of the population into four economic groups is based on a composite index that includes the condition of houses lived in, per capita income, educational status of
members, and land ownership. See Aravindan ed. 2006.
388
In spite of the pressures of privatization and the impact of so-called tourism apartheid,
Cuba continues to provide universal access to publicly funded education, health, and
basic security and food entitlements. (Credit: ILO Photo/Deloche P. 2000)
The pattern of increasing inequality in Cuba shows some similarities with

that of Kerala, but there are also major differences. As seen above, Cuba continues to provide universal access to publicly funded education, health, and basic
security and food entitlements. And in socialist Cuba there is no concentration
of land in private hands. But inequalities in income and consumption have
shown some significant increase during the post-reform period. A study by
Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez reported a shocking increase of 33 Gini points
(from 22 to 55) between 1986 and 1995.83 Economists based in Cuba estimate
that the increases were more modest: Ferriol, for example, calculates an increase of only 13 points (25 to 38), which turns out to be only 5 points (25 to 30)
after imputed values of various subsidies for health, education, and food are
taken into account.84 The most visible forms of inequality in Cuba are those associated with policies such as privatization, the opening of a tourist sector, and especially the introduction of a dual currency (first the U.S. dollar and later the
convertible peso). An estimated 50 percent of Cubans have access to U.S. dollars, which they receive from relatives abroad, from tourism-related work, or as
payments the Cuban government makes to Cuban professionals it posts
abroad. Having U.S. dollars provides exclusive access to the dollar stores that
sell high-priced or imported goods (ranging from food to cosmetics to imported liquor and electronic goods) unavailable to those without this currency.
83. Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez 2005, 72.

84. Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez 2005. Zabala (2007) also uses these lower figures.
389
Tourism in Cuba is also a double-edged sword: On the one hand, the tourist
85
industry is a major source of foreign currency, which the largely benign and efficient state uses to maintain publicly funded services and subsidized food. On
the other hand, the industry has created what critics call tourism apartheid or
enclave tourism, meaning that ordinary Cubans are kept away from the best
tourist beaches and resorts, and even until recently from the upscale hotels the tourists frequent.86 What is more, the influx of tourist dollars has also
created a curious situation of taxi drivers, restaurant waiters, and other workers
associated with the tourist industry earning incomes that may be several times
that of a doctor or a university professor.87
The Problem of Sustaining the Environment

Protecting the environment is another factor that must be taken into account
when assessing HD in a country. On this score Cubas record is impressive. Indeed, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Cuba is the only
country in the world to have achieved high human development in an ecologically sustainable manner. In 2006 WWFs Living Planet Report explained that
Cuba had achieved high HD (greater than 0.8) with a sustainable ecological
footprint of less than 1.8 hectares.88 Cuba has also created institutions and policies for sustaining the environment. Analysts regard its organic agriculture (including urban and backyard agriculture) as a success story in terms of
ecological sustainability, local self-sufficiency, and food security.89 Its substantial
tourist industry poses many risks to the environment, but state policy gives priority to environmental protection in the event of a perceived conflict.90
Kerala stands poles apart from Cuba in regard to its record on environmental
protection. A Working Group on Environment (WGE), belatedly appointed by
the Left government in 2006, indicted the Kerala state and its citizens for failing
individually and collectively to uphold their constitutional obligations to arrest a rapid decline in its [Keralas] environmental health.91 Kerala is blessed
with an exceptionally rich ecosystem that comprises tropical rainforests, coastal
85. This surpasses Cubas traditional export industry, sugar.

86. In March 2008 the government of Ral Castro removed this restriction, opening all hotels to
Cuban citizens. The Washington Post, 1 April 2008. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/
wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/31/AR2008033100703.html (accessed 28 December 2009).
87. There seems to be some evidence of a resurgence of racism in employment in these lucrative
economic sectors (receptionists, waitresses, etc.), with whites favored over Blacks, but mostly
visible in the foreign-owned tourist hotels and restaurants. It is interesting to note that the issue is quite openly debated within Cuba. This writer witnessed such debates in several sessions of the annual meetings of the North American and Cuban Philosophers and Social
Scientists in 2005 and 2007. We have also found considerable openness among all sections of
the population in discussing the issue during our interviews.
88. World Wide Fund for Nature 2006. Ecological footprint is a tool used to measure the impact of
human activities on the environment. It estimates the surface area required to produce everything that an individual or population consumes (transport, accommodation, food, etc.) and
to absorb the resulting waste. It is expressed in hectares (ha) per person per year.
89. Tharamangalam 2008a and 2008b; Rosset and Benjamin 1993; Rosset 1998 and 2000.
90. Whittle, Lindeman, and Tripp 2003; also discussion with various experts in Cuba and the Cuban ambassador to Canada at Dalhousie University, 24 November 2006.
91. India Together 2007; on this, see also Oommen 2007.
390
freshwater and brackish water wetlands (supported also by forty-four river systems), and coastal marine coral reefs, all within a relatively small geographical
area. But this ecosystem is increasingly fragile in one of the most densely populated regions in the world an area that has experienced very rapid changes in
lifestyle and land use patterns. The sources of degradation include denudation
of forests and depletion of water sources, rapidly increased and inequitable
consumption (the highest among all states in India), and heavy quarrying and
river sand mining by the construction industry. Despite years of public discussion and government promises and legislation, the Kerala government has been
unable to stop or adequately control even the ruinous practice of sand mining
92
in its rivers.
In both Kerala and Cuba there is pent-up demand for increased consumption. The question is: How can levels of consumption be increased indefinitely
without damaging the environment? Will there be a new cultural revolution
based on a critique of the culture of consumption and of the post-Enlightenment Western ideology of progress (as continuous increase in consumption
and the exploitation of the ecosystem)? Both these societies have environmental movements supported by large numbers of well-educated people and states
that are well equipped to act (more weakly and belatedly in Kerala). Whether
public action can counter the lure of high consumption within an increasingly
globalized culture remains to be seen.
Can Decentralization Be the Solution?

In the 1990s both Kerala and Cuba followed most other third world countries in
initiating a policy of decentralization (also known as local development, localization, or municipalization in Cuba) to devolve powers to local bodies for local
development, planning, and administration. Decentralization was a new initiative promoted by both global policy-makers as well as by left democratic popular movements, and the concept came to mean different things and the
promotion of different agendas. The World Bank agenda included downsizing
the state and creating more space for NGOS, private businesses, and markets;
the left-populist agenda included democratic popular rule and rights-based,
pro-poor development at the local level.93 In Kerala and Cuba the left (the CPM
in Kerala) and the left-ruled state initiated decentralization in the context of
market reforms, formulated the basic theories and policies, and mobilized popular support. They saw decentralization as an attractive instrument for social/political mobilization, greater democratic participation, and ideological
92. It is widely believed in Kerala that behind this is the sinister power exercised by a sand mafia,
also related to the land mafia and the forest mafia, organized crime widely believed to be
enjoying patronage from major political parties including the CPM. Our research did not
probe into this issue and cannot substantiate these allegations beyond stating that some circumstantial and anecdotal evidence from cases of violent crime and murder reported in local
newspapers suggests an association with organized crime.
93. For general discussion about the emergence of decentralization as a major global initiative and
for case studies from Asia and Latin America, see, for example, World Bank 1999; Trnquist
2002; Fung and Wright 2003.
391
renewal as much as for addressing the economic crisis in their respective countries through local development. In both cases, the left leaders in particular believed this initiative could offset some of the negative effects of the reforms. In
Kerala the initiative was accompanied by a major campaign and a big bang approach (called by some observers, the new democratic initiative or even the
new Kerala model) that sought to devolve as much as 35 to 40 percent of the
states five-year plan outlays to local (district and subdistrict level) bodies. In
Cuba localization did involve a similar campaign, but one that was part of a
larger mobilization effort to adopt varieties of new changes to meet the unprecedented crisis. Both Kerala and Cuba introduced measures for devolving powers and transferring substantial funds to local bodies, but significantly in both
cases the program was state-initiated and coordinated and while the powers of
local bodies are real and significant these do not involve any serious weakening
of the state.
More than a decade after the introduction of the decentralization program,
and many changes through its trajectory, the outcome on the ground is still difficult to assess, and there is no complete agreement among analysts.94 We cannot
make any detailed assessment of the program; our purpose here is only to ask if
and how decentralization has helped to meet the new challenges discussed
above in the view of most analysts and on the basis of our own observations and
the evidence we have collected from our own fieldwork. As for Kerala, the most
widely shared view among those who have assessed the program on the ground
and those involved with the program (including spokespersons of the CPM) is
that in general it has been a positive step in democratization, but that its
achievements have fallen short of the great promise of the campaign. It has
helped to democratize and to improve delivery of social services such as drinking water, sanitation, and primary health, and special programs aimed at disadvantaged sections of the population such as scheduled castes and women. But it
has done little to stimulate the productive sectors of the economy; in fact, the
decade of decentralized planning and development efforts has seen the largest
decline in agriculture, especially in food grain production. The program is beset
with many problems including lack of technical and professional expertise in
planning and implementation, a disconnect between broader (macro-economic) and local level policies, and a lack of coordination among levels of policy-makers and administrators. Substantial Plan outlays, received from the state,
have remained unspent, and many programs are unimplemented.95 One of the
94. Our discussion on decentralization in Kerala draws on many sources including Isaac and
Franke 2000; Oommen 2007; Government of Kerala 2009; Trnquist 2002; Kannan 2000;
Chathukulam and John 2002; Tharamangalam 2006; Mathew 2006. I have also benefited from
extensive discussions on the subject with my colleague M.A. Oommen over the past four years
during his three visits to Canada and during my five visits to Kerala. My sources on Cuba include Guzon, ed., 2006; Limia and Guzon 2007; Roman 2003; Saney 2004; and Funes et al.
2002. I have also drawn on several presentations made at a two-day workshop in Fomento,
Cuba, on local development as well as extensive discussions with Ada Guzon, director, Institute of Local Development in Havana, and Miguel Limia David, a senior researcher and president of the Council of Social Sciences of the Ministry of Science Technology and Environment
(CITMA), during visits to Cuba in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
392
Urban agriculture in Cuba. Cubas record [on environmental protection] is impressive. Indeed, according to the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), Cuba is the only country in
the world to have achieved high human development in an ecologically sustainable manner. (Credit: Photograph from the film The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil 2006. See
www.powerof community.org.)
most puzzling and critical problems has been what some observers have called a
political deficit, a depoliticized development effort.96 Not only is politics kept
out of the village council where the focus is on implementation of programs,
but the very same left politicians who spearheaded the initial campaign seem to
have lost interest and keep out of local development issues.97
95. In a village Panchayat (the lowest of the three levels of local governance, below the district and
the block) in Alapuzha district where our team conducted fieldwork in November 2007, the
completion rate for projects implemented over the previous nine years ranged from 45 to 95
percent. Just five months into the end of the current Plan, at the time of our fieldwork, several
project approvals were still pending implying that the funds allocated for these projects
would simply lapse. Panchayat representatives blamed bureaucratic hurdles and delays.
96. Trnquist 2007.
97. Our assessment of Keralas program differs from the more enthusiastic appraisal presented by
some writers such as Heller (2007) who, in our view, have been misled by the enthusiasm and
promise of the early campaign and some successful early model experiments and celebrate
the program as deepening democracy. The problem, in our view, is that they failed to adequately assess the actual outcomes on the ground. For a critique of the deepening democracy narrative, see Mannathukkaren 2008 and 2010. Our own work on decentralization in
Kerala (forthcoming) and a host of studies by local activists and scholars support our view. Our
early assessment, which drew on many such studies and saw the program as holding many
promises but only modestly successful on the ground, appeared in Tharamangalam, ed. 2006.
A recent study by an official committee appointed by Keralas left government, and chaired by
M.A. Oommen, who is also a team member in our KeralaCuba project, also sees the program
as only modestly successful, but beset with many problems. See Government of Kerala 2009.
393
We believe that Cuba has had greater success with decentralization in terms
of sustained and organized popular participation, and especially effective implementation of development programs and actual outcomes. Local bodies
have been actively involved in the planning and implementation of new economic and social policies, including initiatives in developing local industries,
new agricultural programs such as Cubas successful and now famous organic
and urban agriculture, and the organization of new cooperative farms called Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs).98 Decentralization has also extended to environmental protection programs and postsecondary education
(even Cubas premier University of Havana established extension centers outside Havana).99
In our view, Cubas greater success in decentralization and local development is attributable to several factors, chief among them a more effective state
apparatus and administrative system that is able to plan and coordinate policies
and well-established participatory institutions (described above) that could
adapt to changes during this period. Moreover, in a country where the private
sector is so marginal in all sectors of the economy, participation in publicly managed development efforts (such as cooperative farms) is critical for large numbers of people to access and sustain their livelihoods. It should be noted, however, that Cubas relative success with decentralized development is not proving to be adequate in itself to meet all the challenges discussed above. For
example, as Cubas policy-makers are well aware, its relatively successful organic and cooperative farmers will not solve the crisis in agriculture and food security. Cuba continues to spend its entire earnings from tourism (US$1.5 billion
in 2007) to buy food from abroad, much of it from the United States, for which
payments are made up front in hard cash.
4. Conclusion. The HD Approach

and the Lessons from Kerala and Cuba
The HD approach and the UNDPs HDRs have brought countries and regions
like Kerala and Cuba to the attention of the world. Previously such areas had not
figured in mainstream development discourse, which equates development
with GDP growth. The achievements of Kerala and Cuba, despite many continuing problems and challenges, are worthy of such attention. Indeed, these are of
world-historical significance in that they have shown that even poor countries
can remove chronic poverty and endemic deprivation, and can do so in a short
period of time and at relatively low costs. The excuse that poor countries cannot
98. Cubas revolution in organic agriculture has attracted worldwide attention. In 1999 the
Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) was awarded to the Cuban
Organic Farming Association. The literature on this subject is substantial; a summary of some
of these is provided in two papers, Tharamangalam 2008a and 2008b; the most important
sources include Rosset 1998 and 2000; Rosset and Benjamin 1993; Funes et al. 2002; Koont
2004; and Sinclaire and Thompson 2004. We have also benefited from several visits to organic
farms near Havana and two interviews with the manager of a much-visited farm in Alamar near
Havana.
99. In a municipality in Sancti Spiritus in central Cuba where we held two days of discussions with
municipal and local development experts and practitioners in December 2007, we found con-
394
afford to provide basic security and services to their people has been exposed as
an ideology legitimating prevailing power structures and systems of resource allocation.
The two cases bring to light the centrality of public action for HD. Public action encompasses public and democratic institutions as well as public space for
public discourse and public reasoning.100 The central public institution is, of
course, the state, which in both Kerala and Cuba has been proactive in public
provisioning for education, health, and social and food security. The record of
Cuba and Kerala in sustaining these provisions during the difficult years of liberalization and global neoliberalism is, on balance, better than that of other Indian states and most other third world countries. Free market advocates are at a
loss to show a single country anywhere in the world, especially in the Global
South, that has provided universal access to education, health, and food and social security through free-market strategies alone. Just as important, these outcomes are rarely produced by dis-embedded states (or benevolent dictators
running such states). Both Kerala and Cuba have created states that work, in
large measure, in synergy with society by means of institutionalized forms of
democratic participation. This does not mean this relationship is unproblematic and without tension, but these institutional mechanisms have been demonstrably successful in resolving problems such as managing conflicting demands
from different political parties in Kerala or, in the case of Cuba, managing rising
social tension and discontent during a serious economic and social crisis.
In both Kerala and Cuba public action has involved class struggles of an intense kind, at least during some critical periods, and these struggles have
helped to transform entrenched structures of inequality and power and of the
state itself, which had to be turned into an agent that acted in the interest of the
poor. The need to transform structures of power and to empower the poor and
the disenfranchised classes does not figure very much in the HD paradigm advocated by the UNDP or in the Human Development and Capability approach that
spawned it. Nor has the critical issue of the institutional instruments or mechanisms needed to bring about the transformations behind the HD outcomes received much attention. The methodological individualism that underlies the
liberal conception of capability and freedom seems to be at the root of this neglect of the institutional and structural transformations that have been so critical in the paths followed by Kerala and Cuba. In the end our study of these two
cases leads us to believe that the HD approach contains far more radical possi-
siderable enthusiasm and satisfaction with the planning process and the implementation of
programs. Several programs, efficiently planned and implemented, included cooperative
farms producing for local consumption and export, and small-scale processing of local marble
for export. The local municipality also owned and managed a hotel that offered Cuban citizens
room and board at subsidized rates, but charged foreign nationals US$2 per room per night.
The major complaint was a lack of funds.
100. The concept of public reasoning, as used especially by Amartya Sen is useful in providing a
mind/thought dimension to public action and participation, something we have done in our
section on cultural revolution. Sen draws on John Rawls, among others in this usage. See especially, Sen 2005 and 2009. The concept was originally used by Kant in his essay What Is Enlightenment?
395
bilities than the UNDPs policy models as it leads us to examine the methods
that have really worked in eliminating hunger, malnutrition, and atrocious inequities.101 The two cases also show the importance of a public culture of HD
rooted in the cultural revolution discussed above. The transformative values of
social justice and equality, of rights and entitlements, and the pursuit of the public good must not only become enshrined in constitutions and legal systems;
their implementation must also be ensured by an organized and vigilant public.
Finally, what does the future hold for Kerala and Cuba given their present
challenges? Although the heyday of neoliberal orthodoxy may be now behind
us, the consequences of globalization and its reform initiatives, still in progress,
and of imbalanced economic growth (much of it predatory in nature, especially
in India) are serious for both societies. Both Kerala and Cuba have shown considerable resilience; they have sustained their basic social welfare programs albeit at reduced rates, and public action has been at work when basic entitlements such as the rationing system have come under threat. Rising inequality is
a major concern, but this issue is also complex. On the one hand, there is a
greater appreciation among policy-makers in the post-crisis and post-stagnation period for the need for higher economic growth to sustain social welfare
programs; on the other hand, high growth has brought rising inequality and has
seriously compromised the ideals of equity. The return of the inequality predicament remains a major concern, and the question of how to achieve adequate
growth without increasing inequality is slowly moving into the center of the debate among policy-makers and analysts. Public action has not been absent or entirely ineffective, but we believe that more such action is needed and can be expected in the future. On education and health, Cuba has done much better, as
seen above, but it is important to recognize that Keralas education and health
systems were built with considerable private involvement of state-subsidized
community organizations. What is new during the reform period has been the
rise of self-financing institutions and the subsequent creation of two-tiered systems in education and health. While self-financing private schools and professional colleges are bad enough, as they deny access to low income groups, the
greater threat to the Kerala model is in the privatization of health, in our view. As
we have seen, the poor in Kerala no longer have their basic safety net; they can
no longer afford adequate health care. Given the states diminished capacity for
public provisioning in all areas, we think that health care ought to receive
greater and more urgent attention. Public action in Kerala is undermined not
only by the diminished capacity of the state for public provisioning, but also by
the diminished capacity of the public to act. Civil society appears to be less active than in the past, and Keralas dominant left party, the CPM, long known for
its organizational strength, vigor, and popular support, is itself split into fac-
101. Our colleague in the project, Henry Veltmeyer has prepared a critique of UNDPs approach to
HD, especially in relation to the HD experience of Cuba. See Veltmeyer 2007; and Rushton and
Veltmeyer 2008.
396
tions, its leadership believed to have become increasingly corrupted. It now

seems to have less capacity to mobilize support to counter some of the new policies such as mounting costs of health care for the poor. The rapid increase in
consumption and the spread of a consumer culture among the middle classes
are also undermining some of the ideals and values spawned by the earlier cultural revolution.102
Cubas situation is, in many ways, different. Against considerable odds, Cuba
has shown a resilience almost unmatched elsewhere overcoming the severe
crisis of the early 1990s, sustaining its socialist system and its HD achievements
(this, in sharp contrast to the experience of the Soviet Union), and maintaining
a relatively high degree of social consensus and public participation at all times.
Cubas unique geopolitical situation and vulnerability to U.S. interference and a
vicious blockade and its success in sustaining its socialist system in the face of
many threats have provided a certain collective self-confidence to its leaders
and its people. But the country faces increasing discontent, especially among
the young as a result of rising and visible inequalities, increasing inability of the
system to absorb its well-educated and qualified workforce and to provide them
reasonable remuneration, and very low levels of consumption available to the
masses in tandem with the rise of a new consumer culture and erosion of the
earlier revolutionary culture.103 The prospects of sustaining Cubas form of socialism combined with reforms and growth seem to be realistic at the moment
although much may also depend on economic and political changes in the
United States and the international community in the coming years (e.g., a possible economic decline and a subsequent move to more right-wing politics).
Neoliberal globalization has proved to be a perilous road for many countries
of the Global South. In general, countries with strong traditions of public action (interventionist states and vigilant publics) have negotiated globalization
better, sustaining their social safety nets and avoiding excesses of privatization
and the dismantling of public institutions as happened in many other countries
(e.g., in Eastern Europe).104 Kerala and Cuba have assets unmatched in the
Global South. They have used these in the past and can put them to greater use
in the future: their traditions of public action and the very product of their
sociocultural transformations, an educated and healthy population, a well-informed public, considerable space for public reasoning and public discourse
(especially in Kerala), and a hard core of the lower classes still behind the Left
parties. The most optimistic scenario is that the current turbulence in Kerala
and Cuba will lead to a renewal and revitalization of public action.
102. Mannathukkaren 2008, 2010.

103. Petras and Veltmeyer 2009.
104. Sandbrook et al. (2006) make a strong case that social democracies in the global south have
been more successful in preserving their social achievements under global neoliberalism.
These social democracies have interventionist states and strong traditions of democratic participation, the main ingredients of public action in our usage. The four cases they examine in
detail include Kerala whose successes they exaggerate, in our view.
397
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: This article is based on an ongoing comparative study of the Human

Development experiences of Kerala and Cuba supported by a Standard Research Grant
by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am grateful to
Henry Veltmeyer, Beatriz Diaz, and M.A. Oommen for participating in the study as co-investigators and to Mark Rushton and Farrah Fulton for serving as research assistants. I
also wish to acknowledge financial support provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and additional financial and institutional support provided by Mount Saint Vincent University. The findings of the project are still being
analyzed. The final results are expected to be published in 2011. Finally I thank the three
anonymous reviewers of Critical Asian Studies for their valuable suggestions and CAS
editor Tom Fenton for his untiring support and copy-editing assistance.
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Critical Asian Studies

Tharamangalam / Human Development

42:3 (2010), 363402

ABSTRACT: This article compares the development experiences of two societies

Walker, there is no road. The road is made as you walk. Antonio

To achieve as much as Kerala has done for a population of its size is no

With all the authority of hindsight, it is important to analyze and criticize

Benjamin, Collins, and Scott 1984, 180.

Tharamangalam / Human Development

1. The Achievements of Kerala and Cuba

See Burd-Sharps et al. 2008.

Human Development in Kerala

16. World Bank 2003, 44.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

Human Development in Cuba

19. Drze and Sen 2002, 99.

Tharamangalam / Human Development

dispersed classrooms; equality of basic educational opportunity, even in impoverished

Gasperini 2000, executive summary.

2. Behind the HD Achievements: Agency and Practice

30. Mehrotra 1997, 411.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

sues of development, democracy, inequality, and poverty reduction, much of it

the argument is that since famines

36. Sen 1999, 174.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

39. Uriarte 2002, 3 and 36; Uriarte 2004.

42. See note 13 above.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

47. Daz 2007.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

51. Morley 1987.

54. Saney 2004, 5052.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

delicately negotiated one since democratic participation involves and requires

Cultural Revolution and Paradigm Change

55. Mills 1960, 186.

57. Jeffrey 1992.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

3. Globalization, Reform, and New Challenges

Economic Growth and Human Development

63. Ibid., 402.

Tharamangalam / Human Development

Crisis in Public Provisioning

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

tor. Add to this the

71. Kunhikannan and Aravindan 2000.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

Return of the Inequality/Poverty Predicament

See Benjamin, Collins, and Scott 1984, 180.

Tharamangalam / Human Development

79. Zabala 1999, 2007; Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez 2005.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

The pattern of increasing inequality in Cuba shows some similarities with

83. Mesa-Lago and Perez-Lopez 2005, 72.

The Problem of Sustaining the Environment

85. This surpasses Cubas traditional export industry, sugar.

Critical Asian Studies 42:3 (2010)

Can Decentralization Be the Solution?