Many non-Keralites would have heard of the Assembly elections about to happen here on 16 May only because of the god-awful ruckus made by the Congress that PM Narendra Modi ‘insulted’ Kerala by comparing it to Somalia. That’s not exactly what happened, and there were ‘nuances’ that many missed.

What he actually said was that the Scheduled Tribes of Kerala had child mortality rates approaching those of Somalia, which is factually correct: some 60 per thousand compared to some 90 per thousand. And it turned out that Communist supremo V S Achuthanandan had made the same comparison in 2013, and the Economic and Political Weekly had also said similar things.

Of course, the spin doctors went into overdrive, and #Somalia dominated the twittersphere and the discourse in Kerala for a few crucial days. That, in fact, was the critical outcome: it is of the ‘dog in the night-time’ variety. What did it displace as an object of discussion in the media? One Twitter user ( @sarath7750 ) put it well: “What Somalia gained for Chandy was the slow disappearance of #JusticeForJisha”

Well, it was the brutal rape-murder of Jisha, a Scheduled Caste law student. The inhuman violence (she was hit so hard that her intestines spilled out; her genitals were mutilated) of that crime had captured the attention of the public, and it was a major embarrassment for Congress CM Oommen Chandy that the murder was swept under the carpet. No mainstream medium covered it for a week; it was only social media pressure that forced the police and media to wake up.

Chandy calculated, rightly, that if Jisha were to be in people’s minds, he would be hurt. So he clutched at the straw that Modi gave him with the Somalia word, and manufactured a major outrage. I think he did a good job of that, so much so that poor Jisha has disappeared from the headlines. Her tormentor(s) have not been found; the police did a major cock-up by a) cremating her quickly and b) not sealing off the murder site and allowing the evidence including fingerprints to be trampled over. It is quite likely that this was intentional, based on orders from high-ups in politics, as Janmabhoomi newspaper, a BJP associate, claimed.

Jisha is a metaphor for what Kerala has become, and so are the tribals of Attappady, who have been dying of malnutrition and neglect. Their traditional highlands have been encroached or alienated by grasping low-landers who ply them with liquor, in addition to molesting their women. It is no exaggeration, and an immense shame, that in relatively well-off Kerala, these aboriginal people are treated like so much vermin (much like Native Americans were by white settlers in the US).

Jisha is a metaphor for how the status of women has deteriorated in Kerala. In a state that once boasted of its matrilineal respect for women, things have changed 180 degrees.

Furthermore, after 60 years of the formation of Kerala in 1956 from the kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin and the British-run Malabar, on almost every single measure, Kerala has regressed. Both the coalitions that have ruled the state, the UDF and LDF, are culpable. Not that Kerala was a paradise in 1956, but it had:

The highest level of general education in the country, with literacy at 2x the national rate

53% of the state’s income was from agriculture, and it accounted for the majority of India’s foreign exchange earnings. 90% of the nation’s production of coconut, rubber, pepper, cashewnuts, cardamom, tapioca and arecanut

Highest health indicators, with child mortality rates at half of national average; death rates were also half the national average

3x the national average in road density, 20% of all inland water transport

25 Public Sector Undertakings, all profitable



All that is a distant memory. Today’s situation is dire:

Education is pathetic. Kerala is now 17th in upper primary and 20th in primary level education in India, which itself was 91 out of 92 countries studied in PISA rankings

31% of students in class IV in state syllabus cannot read the class I textbook

Majority of state’s revenues come from liquor + lottery + Gulf remittances, none of which is sustainable. 30% of sales tax take is for liquor. 40% of state income is overseas remittances

Agriculture has been completely devastated. Rice cultivation has come to a virtual halt in this, one of the best rice-growing areas in the world. 89% of Kerala’s rice comes from outside. The state is dependent on imports for onions, potatoes (UP), pulses (MP), vegetables, milk, meat (TN), rice, lentils (AP), sugar (Maharashtra)

Drinking water of high quality available to 71% of public, compared to 94% in TN, 89% in Gujarat, 83% in MP. This in one of the rainiest parts of the country

Total 4-lane roads in Kerala: 120 km, in Tamil Nadu: 3437 km

Total PSUs in Kerala: 125, number that’s profitable: 43. In 2013-14 alone, 16 were shut down



These are general indicators of malaise, but there are differences among different communities. The general condition of Hindus in particular is staggering, especially of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Statistics courtesy the BJP unless otherwise indicated:

There are no programs for SC widows (but there are housing programs for divorced/abandoned/widowed non-Hindu women)

66% of SCs are below the poverty line, 55% live in colonies

25,408 SC families have no homes or land. 1,23,871 families live in one-room houses (Jisha lived in one such, a rickety, kaccha building)

86,333 SC families do not have electricity

79% of SC are day laborers. Less than 1% have government jobs

58% of STs have no basic conveniences, 57% have no electricity

80% ST homes have no toilets

Kerala is the only state in the country that has not implemented forest rights for STs

In contrast to all the above various schemes run by government of Kerala and private bodies have ensured that -