key: cord-274694-kdsv7v8e
authors: Chathukulam, Jos
title: The Kerala Model in the time of COVID19: rethinking State, Society and Democracy
date: 2020-09-23
journal: World Dev
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105207
sha: 
doc_id: 274694
cord_uid: kdsv7v8e

Kerala, a small state in South India, has been celebrated as a development model by scholars across the world for its exemplary achievements in human development and poverty reduction despite relatively low GDP growth. It was no surprise, then, that the Covid 19 pandemic that hit Kerala before any other part of India, became a test case for the Kerala model in dealing with such a crisis. Kerala was lauded across the world once again as a success story in containing this unprecedented pandemic, in treating those infected, and in making needed provisions for those adversely affected by the lockdown. But as it turned out, this celebration was premature as Kerala soon faced a third wave of Covid 19 infections. The objective of this paper is to examine Kerala’s trajectory in achieving the success and then confronting the unanticipated reversal. It will examine the legacy of the Kerala model such as robust and decentralized institutions and provisions for healthcare, welfare and safety nets, and especially the capacity of a democratic state working in synergy with civil society and enjoying a high degree of consensus and public trust. It will then examine the new surge of the virus and attempts to establish if this was due to any mistakes made by the state or some deficits in its model of “public action” that includes adversarial politics having a disruptive tenor about it. We will conclude by arguing that the Kerala model is still relevant, and that it is still a model in motion.

The Covid-19 pandemic that descended upon us suddenly, rapidly spreading across the whole world, has been wreaking havoc on our lives and established habits. It is challenging us to interrogate and rethink many taken-for-granted ideas about our lives and institutions-the relationship between the individual and society, the meaning and value of sociality and communitas, of the common good, and perhaps above all the institutions that serve, govern and constrain us. Our focus here is on the institution of the state, the critical actor in dealing with this pandemic. An important fact that has emerged in the wake of this global outbreak is that different states and political regimes behind them responded to the pandemic in very different ways with clearly different outcomes. A seemingly counterintuitive fact that has become clear is that some rich and powerful states (the US and the UK) have emerged as poor performers in effectively responding to the pandemic-in containing the infection by such timely measures as testing and isolating the infected, and in reducing fatalities by providing adequate health care in well-equipped medical centers. On the other hand, there are some relatively poor, so-called under-developed countries and regions, such as Vietnam (The Economist, 2020), Cambodia and the small state of Kerala in India (a state within a state) which have emerged as success stories with a record of early and effective interventions, of controlling the spread of the virus, healing the infected and reducing the death rate. This is a notable and significant fact despite later reversals and second and third wave of Covid 19 infections in some of these cases, including that of Kerala. This article focuses on the "Kerala model" of managing the pandemic. This small state in the south-west coast of India has been well known for nearly half a century for its "model" or pattern of development that achieved high levels of social and human development and rapid reduction in chronic poverty and endemic deprivations despite low economic growth and income (CDS, 1975) i . The "Kerala model" ii that has been studied by 5 researchers since the mid-1970s, is once again in the news across the world as a relative success story in containing the pandemic despite economic constraints and other vulnerabilities such as its dense population iii and constant exposure to foreign contacts iv .

Indeed, some of these observers see Kerala's pandemic management as a decisive test of the The objective of this paper is twofold: to highlight the ways in which Kerala handled the pandemic and to analyze the structural and systemic factors behind the state's success.

We will especially focus on the state and Kerala's model of an effective and vibrant democracy and "public action" in the words of Dreze and Sen. We argue that while Kerala was blessed with good and efficient leaders during this crisis, the more important factors behind Kerala's success have been robust institutions of state and governance built over many years with the capacity to take timely and effective measures in handling the crisis. We further examine the unexpected reversal and the rise of third wave of Covid 19 infections in an attempt to identify what, if any, mistakes may have been made by Kerala and if so if these were due to any deficits inherent in the Kerala model. We argue Kerala may have made a mistake in relaxing-even abandoning-the rules for the entry of a large wave of NRKs returning to the state, and for isolating, testing and tracing these returnees, as Kerala had successfully done earlier. While recognizing the unknown and unpredictable nature of this new virus (still being studied by experts) we also identify what may be some deficits in the model such as its tradition of public action that includes adversarial politics having a disruptive tenor about it, especially at a time of impending and contentious election.

We argue further that states like Kerala which have handled the crisis well have generally been relatively effective models of social democracies in which the state and its institutions work in relative synergy with society and representative social institutions. The paper is organized in four parts. This introductory Part is followed by Part I which describes the trajectory of the pandemic crisis, timely and effective steps Kerala took in managing the pandemic, and then failed to anticipate and prevent a third wave. It also examines deficits in the model that may have been behind the state's failure to prevent a third wave. Kerala's adversarial and competitive politics gave birth to public action which in turn laid the foundation for Kerala model of development. However, competitive and adversarial politics may have its limitations especially when it comes to managing pandemics like the present one. Kerala should have adopted a healthy combination of competitive and adversarial politics and a consensus based democratic approach to tackle the pandemic.

Part III analyses the structural and systemic factors behind Kerala's relative success, focusing especially on the capacity of the state and its institutions acting in synergy with society. Part IV concludes the paper by reflecting upon the Kerala experience and attempting to draw some generalizations about the capacity of "effective democracies" such as Kerala to eliminate endemic poverty and chronic hunger in contrast to India's abysmal failure in making any serious dent into its record in these as it continues to be home to the single largest pool of chronically poor and hungry people in the world. We suggest that the roots of these lie in a major democratic deficit in the Indian system--failed or weak public action, including rational-legal social movements and popular organizations, the space for these increasingly filled by communal, caste and nativist movements (Tharamangalam, 2016) . It also discusses about the dominance of adversarial and competitive politics as the reason of Kerala's failure to contain the Covid 19 pandemic in its third wave.

How did Kerala combat this virus better than India and many other countries?

Through what means? Much of the answer to this question is public knowledge by now; for example, Italy and the UK were battered by Covid 19 in the earlier phase of the pandemic outbreak since they did too little and were too late to take measures to contain the virus by testing, isolating and treating those infected and it resulted in devastating consequences.

Today, Italy, UK, Spain or much part of the Europe are slowly recovering from the onslaught of the pandemic. The US, the world's richest and most powerful nation, was also confronting this crisis with early denials followed by confusing pronouncements and frequently changing policy initiatives by its authoritarian president even as the virus has spread rapidly turning cities like New York into epicenters of the pandemic. Brazil's response to Covid 19 has also been a terrible one. India took some bold steps to contain the deadly pandemic by enforcing a stringent nationwide lockdown, but with little consultation, planning or provisioning in place to address the consequences of such a lockdown in a country with high levels of poverty, hunger, homelessness, weak health infrastructure and migrant laborers concentrated in its many urban centers. Despite three successive lockdowns, India failed to control the spiraling surge in new Covid 19 infections viii . India which is slowly emerging from the lockdown in a phase to phase manner has overtaken Brazil and USA and has become the global epicenter of Covid 19 pandemic.

To see how and why Kerala has been effective, we describe a few of the steps it has taken in a short time, then examine the policy priorities and values as well as the institutional structures that enabled Kerala to act quickly to battle the pandemic-all of these the legacy of the "Kerala model" over a period of time. Although, Kerala flattened the infection curve during the first two phases of Covid 19 ix , it failed to contain the surge in infections in the third phase. Kerala's strategies in containing the pandemic in the first and second wave of infections gave way to premature celebrations and it instilled a sense of false safety in the minds of people. The fear factor went completely missing and with the easing of the lockdown people paid little attention to observe physical distancing, hand washing and even wearing masks. deal to collate and handle the health data of those quarantined xi . The major allegation was that the data was collected without the informed consent of the people and the deal lacked strong data protection clauses xii . The government version was that such an exercise was carried out to help medical officials and doctors to make a well-informed choice about possible hospitalization in the case of those quarantined. Since the confidential data was collected under the deal made with the US company, questions were raised as to why the government did not disclose any details in the public domain regarding the deal. Opposition parties xiii also questioned the rationale behind single handedly appointing the US based Sprinklr company that too without putting a global tender for the same. Since the CM also manages multiple portfolios including the department of information technology, the controversial deal was enough to rake up a political storm that too in the midst of the pandemic.

The logic behind approaching a foreign company when Kerala has institutions like Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT) xiv and Kerala State IT Mission xv which are capable of handling big data analytics also raised doubts regarding governments decision. Even the government at the Centre led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came down heavily on the state government for inking such a pact with a big data analytics company like Sprinklr, when the country has central agencies like National Informatics Centre (NIC) xvi which could easily handle the task assigned to the Sprinklr. Meanwhile, the Kerala government defended its position citing that it took the decision to effectively analyze the Covid 19 data quickly. The government version was that it resorted to such a deal as it feared

Kerala might see an unprecedented jump in Covid 19 infection, following the easing of lockdown. It also stated that the ownership of the data lies with the Kerala government and not with the Sprinklr, which temporarily hosted the data in its server. The state government also said that strong data protection clauses were added to ensure the data privacy. However, the opposition parties weren't satisfied with these explanations and the reluctance of the CM to address the controversy openly added more fuel to the fire xvii . Meanwhile, the government constituted a two-member committee to look into the matter. On April There was an outpouring of resentment over Kerala government's stand. This unexpected move was dubbed as reluctance to accept more people coming by repatriation flights since the government feared that it will lose control over the fight against the pandemic. The opposition parties including Congress, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and BJP capitalized the public resentment against the stand of the governments. The opposition parties knew anything involving NRKs would be a highly sensitive issue in the state since it has been surviving with the support of the remittances xxvii by overseas workers.

It gave the opposition parties an opportunity to exploit the public anger and position themselves as true advocates of NRKs. Kerala will go to assembly elections next year and keeping it in mind, the ruling LDF, has been trying its best to turn the health crisis into an incredible opportunity to revive its political fortunes. The UDF have dubbed the Covid 19 management as a mere public relations stunt with an eye on the forthcoming assembly elections. The opposition parties including BJP have accused the LDF for the spike in the infections as the government was too busy with marketing its Covid 19 story to international media and conducting debate series called Kerala Dialogue. The opposition parties in the state have always been skeptical about the Kerala model of handling Covid 19 pandemic.

The criticism by the opposition parties even had misogynistic undertones xxviii . The opposition accused that the health minister was not interested in saving lives and mocked her with misogynistic epithet. xxix However, the segregation of the infected and non -infected returnees from abroad did not happen due to technical difficulties and reluctance of the Central government to conduct testing on expatriates boarding aircrafts from overseas. So, state government had no other go but to come up with an alternative strategy, where multi-layer screening facility was set up in airports for returnees xxx .Again, on June 11, the CM wrote to the Prime Minister to seek the help from the Central government to provide facilities for conducting Covid 19 test for expatriates returning to Kerala via chartered flights. But this move was also met with stiff opposition and criticism from opposition parties and NRKs xxxi .

In July, a new trend emerged where Covid 19 infections through "contact" and local transmission xxxii started to surge in the state with more cases of community spread than imported cases. On July 9, Kerala confirmed its first "Covid 19 super spreader" xxxiii incident in the coastal village of Poonthura and Pulluvila in Thiruvanthapuram, the capital of Kerala xxxiv . In Poonthura and Pulluvila, people blocked vehicles of police and attacked health workers. The residents in Poonthura and Pulluvila alleged that due to stringent lockdown measures they were not even allowed to venture out of their house to buy essential items from shops nearby. The residents complained that no shops in their vicinity were allowed to open and the men in uniform allegedly went around threatening and using bad words against the fishermen coming out of their homes. In addition to that a team of 25 commandoes were But first, a brief overview of Kerala and its specific characteristics will be helpful in providing a better context for this discussion. Kerala is one of 28 states in India, one of the smallest, but the most densely populated with 35 million people nestled between the Arabian sea and the hill ranges of the western ghats xxxvi .Kerala is the only state in India without the Historically, Kerala has had close trade and cultural links with the outside world across the Arabian Sea; Christianity and Islam made their substantial presence here in the very early centuries of the founding of these religions making the state one of the most multireligious and multi-cultural. The past few decades saw a mass exodus of Kerala's young people seeking employment outside the state, especially in the Arabian Gulf, but also in Europe and North America. The remittances sent by these workers amount to about one third of Kerala's state domestic product xxxviii (Krishnan,1994) . Note also that there is a substantial number of migrant workers from other Indian states (called "guest workers" by the Kerala government) who fill local vacancies at the lower levels of the labor market, attracted by the higher wages and better social security in Kerala. In addition to all this, unprecedented income growth and easily available bank loans in recent years have also spurred an exodus of Kerala students seeking technical and higher education abroad, not only in the west but even in some remote parts of China and Central Asia, new destinations for those seeking medical and other degrees at relatively low cost. It is noteworthy that this small state now has four international airports facilitating the high volume of international travel. It is not surprising, then, that Kerala was the first state to experience the Covid-19 infection. Indeed, the virus was initially brought by Keralites returning from Wuhan and Italy xxxix .

How, then, did Kerala react to the sudden crisis? The first point to be highlighted here is that Kerala may have been among the best prepared states/regions in the world to face this crisis. One reason for this is that it had the experience of successfully handling three crises in the past two years, a very serious Nipah epidemic in 2018 and two outbreaks of Kerala also failed to make use of the vast potential of alternative medical streams like ayurveda and homeopathy in treating Covid 19. Meanwhile, as the Covid 19 infections have alarmingly increased, the government has started promoting ayurveda as a way of boosting the immunity of the population xlvii . However, government has made it clear that diagnosis, medication and treatment of Covid 19 will only be done through scientifically-backed modern medicine. Another criticism against Kerala was that it was not testing enough. Critics point out that Kerala was testing less and thus it had relatively few cases earlier. In fact, whether Kerala was testing enough was a cause of concern. However, in the beginning Kerala, in March, the state was testing the most, followed by Maharashtra. Kerala with a population of 35 million people conducted 137 tests per million and Maharashtra at that time conducted 27 samples per million people. But in mid -April, when Covid 19 infections were slowing down in Kerala, the aggressive testing strategy was relaxed. There had been allegation that Kerala started testing asymptomatic and people with mild symptoms at a later stage. But as on September 3, 2020, Kerala has ramped up its testing from 20,000 to 30,000 tests per day. Critics also argues that Kerala invested its energy more in contact tracing than in testing which led to the drastic situation the state is facing now.

Second, Kerala took early steps in monitoring and enforcing the rules of isolation. It has also harnessed and deployed modern technology such as surveillance by drones identifying locations of social gatherings, use of "geofencing" xlviii to enforce quarantine, and location tracking devices to create spatiotemporal maps for re-tracking movements of those infected. Government resorted to surveillance technology to track the spread of the Covid 19 and to monitor people placed under quarantine. Government was forced to resort to technology-based monitoring as the number of lockdown violators and those evading quarantine were increasing in the state. Geofencing technology was one among them. 

What is behind Kerala's success, some unique factors specific to Kerala, a Kerala exceptionalism? This is a complex question, and it is possible to highlight some unique historical and social factors, mentioned above. But our focus here is on institutional and cultural factors that are comparable and amenable to empirical investigation. From this perspective we will highlight the legacy of the "Kerala model of development" that has created what some political scientists have called an effective or vibrant democracy (Heller, 2000) , itself the legacy of "public action", as explained by Dreze and Sen lxxiv . This latter concept includes a proactive and interventionist state that responds to popular demands for basic social security, and a mobilized and politically conscious society that puts pressure on the state and holds it to account.

How Kerala evolved into such a state, at least close to this ideal, has a relatively long history. When Kerala was born as a new state in India in 1957 by combining the two princely states of Travancore and Cochin and the British ruled region of Malabar, all the three regions, especially the first two, had a half century old history of anti-caste and social reform movements followed by trade union and socialist movements, these resulting in a mobilized, and a socially and politically conscious population. The new state's first democratically elected government was formed by the Communist Party of India (CPI), the first time a communist party came to power in a free and multi-party election anywhere in the world lxxv (Desai,2007) . This government did not last long in a highly contentious political On the negative side, it is important to note two points here. First, the left parties abandoned such critical radical programs as land redistribution. They did enact and implement tenancy reforms that successfully abolished predatory landlordism. The traditional landless classes, of whom the vast majority were (still are) the Dalits, received only their house sites or Kudikidappu land leaving them where they had been for centuries, landless laborers, now turned into modern types of casual wage laborers lxxix (Tharamangalam, 1981) .

Second, even the limited distribution of house sites, the most radical among Indian states, required organized struggles and intense participation of mass organizations, especially of landless workers. The newly gained home ownership, however limited, did succeed in bestowing a certain sense of dignity to the former hutment dwellers who could no longer be evicted from their houses at the whims of the landlords.

We have argued above that the two key elements in the Kerala model 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 Kerala has succeeded where many others such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Sri Lanka have not been so successful.

In examining state-society relations, scholars use different analytical lenses such as "equilibrium," "balance," "synergy," and "state-in-society." We find Joel Migdal's 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. .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. We argue that Kerala has been successful in maintaining a balance between state and society and among a variety of social groups and organizations. By this we do 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-legal, modern institutions of the state as well as political parties and other organizations. This is not to suggest that this "virtuous" relationship has been unproblematic, or without dilemmas, strains, or contradictions or that it will be sustained indefinitely and can now be taken for granted. In fact, such a relationship is always precarious and a 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 Kerala has not only been successful in maintaining a healthy balance but has, in fact, enhanced the "virtual relationship" between state and society in the context of confronting the four successive crises of floods and epidemics, and that the state's response to the latest and more ferocious Covid 19 pandemic, may have been a final test of the "Kerala model". Unlike the earlier crises, which were of short duration, the Covid 19 pandemic is likely to take longer time to resolve. It is therefore a crucial test of resilience of the Kerala model. Kerala's navodhanam was, indeed 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 (Jeffrey,1992) has noted, for instance, that by the 1930s large numbers of people in Kerala had enthusiastically embraced the belief that they had "entitlements", a concept that figures prominently in the writings of Amartya Sen. The social reform movements campaigned vigorously for the rights of the lower castes to education. An early associate of Sree Narayana Guru, Padmanabhan Palpu lxxxi 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" lxxxii (Ramachandran, 1998) . It is not accidental that universal access to education (first primary and then secondary and even post-secondary) became an issue of high priority in Kerala both in terms of public demand and public policy. A notable aspect of mass participation, especially important in health care, has been the pivotal role of "women's agency" (women's empowerment in terms of literacy, education and health, promoting general achievements in human development indicators such as IMR, child nutrition and health), as explained by Amartya Sen (Sen, 1999& 2006 and ( Dreze and Sen, 1998 

The unprecedented Covid19 pandemic has shaken our taken-for granted "common sense" in many respects. Kerala which successfully contained the Covid 19 in the first two waves of infections is now struggling to contain the pandemic in its third wave. The Kerala model of managing and containing Covid 19, which was lauded once across the globe is now looked upon with skepticism. It is also a cautionary tale for the government, media and public at large against celebrating Covid 19 success models. Kerala's biggest advantage was its robust healthcare system and participatory mode of governance or social democracy when it came to handling the pandemic. However, the pandemic has showed that even a participatory social democratic state face challenges in managing crises and ensuring basic security to all. We will conclude with a brief reflection on the concept of entitlement, made famous by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen in many of his writings but especially in his classic study of famines (Sen, 1983) . His now famous, but somewhat unexpected conclusion was that famines in the modern world are not caused by shortage of food, but by "entitlement failure" lxxxiii . As a corollary to this he also argued that self-governing democracies in the modern world have no famines for the obvious reason that such a government, responding to the needs of the people who elected them, and working in synergy with its citizens and civil society organizations has the knowledge, capacity and the will to take timely and effective steps to obtain and move food to the needy.

One of the notable successes of India's sovereign democracy has been the elimination of the periodic famines that had been a recurring feature of colonial India. The country has been free of famines since the 1960s; for the past few decades India has been not just selfsufficient in food supply, but has a substantial surplus, some of it often rotting or eaten by rats in ill-equipped public storages. But here comes India's famous paradox of "hunger amidst plenty" in contrast to Kerala, a food deficit state which has eliminated such hunger. As cogently argued by Patrick Heller, effective democracies put re-distributive pressure on the state. If so, it should be obvious that India fails this test; India is just not an effective democracy --in sharp contrast to Kerala which is. Atul Kohli, who has extensively studied these issues in India supports this conclusion (Kohli, 2004 (Kohli, , 2009 (Kohli, , 2010 (Kohli, & 2012 . He addresses the class basis of the Indian state even better. According to him the redistributive capacity of the Indian state, always low, declined even further during the post-reform period. This latter period, he says, has been marked by a shift in the character of the Indian state from "a reluctant pro-capitalist state with a socialist ideology to an enthusiastic pro-capitalist state with some commitment to inclusive growth" (Kohli, 2009 ).He asks if and how democratic politics can counter class power and if "…democracy and activism of the poor (can) modify this dominant pattern of development " (Kohli, 2009) .He sounded an optimistic note as he was writing at a time when popular demands had led to such beneficial legislative measures such as the MGNREGS lxxxvi and the National Food Security Act lxxxvii which were beginning to show some success. But the Indian state has shifted once again under the BJP which combines even more right-wing economic policies with the ideology and project of Hindutva, a militant form of majoritarian Hindu nationalism that moved from the fringes of Indian society and politics to its mainstream in a short period of time (Tharamangalam, 2016) .No wonder the figures for poverty and hunger are showing no decline as has happened in other southern countries, especially India's own poorer neighbors such as Nepal and Bangladesh. lxxxviii Meanwhile, it is indeed encouraging to see that a few states such as Kerala, Goa and the so called tribal states mentioned above have continued to follow more promising paths with easily visible outcomes in terms of their social development. We can only hope that the lessons learned from Kerala and other states and countries for their best practices during the Covid 19 pandemic will continue to resonate with the people of India and the world as they may be re-thinking and re-imagining a better world for the post-Covid era. They admitted that they hurled abuses at the health officials and scoffed at them, but residents added that they were forced into doing such activities based on misleading information given to them by external forces. They also said that they have apologized to the health officials in this regard. (Interviews with 12 residents on 13 July, 2020 lxiii In the wake of nationwide lockdown, 144145 guest laborers were housed in 4608 shelters in the state. With the easing of the lockdown, many of these the guest labourers are returning to their homes each day. The community kitchens served the guest laborers, the elderly, the homeless, the destitute, and the sick. lxiv A poverty eradication and women empowerment programme of Government of Kerala

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lxv Kudumbashree, 2020. On August 2, authors of this research paper interacted with 8 women who provided support to community kitchens (Interview on August 2, 2020). lxvi A model that contains multiple centers of sourcing and delivering food, but with a "hub" that coordinates the activities and provides a central point of contact to all the clients. lxvii At present there are a total of 253 Janakeeya hotels are functioning in Kerala. These days demand for Janakeeya hotels are also rising. As per records, 38,27,255 meals have been provided through these hotels. On July 25, authors of this research paper interacted with 12 women who manage Janakeeya hotels and some of them expressed their doubt towards the sustainability of the hotels. (Interview on July 25, 2020). lxviii A good example of this is sourcing community-based disaster management plans (CBDMs) already prepared by a large number of Gram Panchayats (village level governments) in the aftermath of the two earlier floods.These plans are based on extensive ward-based data on shelter management, hospital infrastructure, technical resource persons, and trained health workers. This valuable resource is now being used for the fact- lxxxiii Take the example of the Bengal famine of 1943 which killed over 2 million people. Sen asks why these 2 million (mostly the rural poor) died while others were well fed, yet others hoarded food and/or exported food out of Bengal. The answer has to be sought in the system of food distribution and resource allocation, a complex social, cultural, political and especially legal system. Those who starved were the ones who were excluded from access to food in this system, at the center of which was a "war economy" that determined and controlled such access, i.e., "entitlements" to food. lxxxviii It is noteworthy that the best performing Indian states in enhancing human development and reducing poverty also include some in the North East such as Manipur and Nagaland. We would suggest that the critical factor behind the difference between these so-called "tribal" states and the politically powerful, but socially backward North Indian states (also the main base of the BJP and the Hindutva movement) is the relatively weak presence (if any) of caste in the former and its entrenched and all-encompassing nature in the latter. A second factor may be the early lead of these North East states in literacy and education, mostly due to missionary activities.
