Kerala
(2001 pop. 31.8 million). The state of Kerala is located in southwestern India bordering the Arabian Sea. It was formed in 1956 by merging the British districts of Malabar and Calicut, the district of South Kanara, and the princely state of Travancore-Cochin. Though measuring only 38,863 square kilometers, Kerala is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. The mountains of the Western Ghats separate this narrow strip of tropical land, where access can be gained only through mountain passes, from the rest of the Indian peninsula to the east.
Kerala differs in many ways from the rest of India. Almost the entire population speaks Malayalam, a Dravidian language with significant Sanskrit influences, Kerala being the only Indian state to speak the language. Its population of Hindus (60 percent), Muslims (20 percent), and Christians (20 percent) enjoys interreligious harmony. Christianity supposedly came to Kerala in 52 CE, with the Apostle Saint Thomas, who founded one of the earliest Christian settlements in the world here. Islam also came not by conquest but through trade from Arabia. Hinduism as practiced here exhibits rather different customs from the rest of India, such as matrilineal inheritance. Other religions in Kerala include Buddhism, Jainism, and Judaism, although most Jews have now emigrated to Israel.
Kerala's traditional association with spice production attracted traders from the early Romans to the Chinese (first through fifteenth centuries CE) to Western Europeans (from 1498 onward). Kerala developed as an important entrepôt connecting Europe, Arabia, Persia, South Asia, Indonesia, and China. The major international ports were Cochin and Calicut. The European commercial and military intervention, beginning with the Portuguese, gradually eliminated trading rivals and finally culminated in British control. The British ruled Malabar in the north and indirectly controlled the princely states of Travancore and Cochin in the south.
Modern Kerala was the first major region in the world to have a democratically elected Communist government (1957). The present ruling coalition is headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Today Kerala surpasses the rest of the country in literacy, health care, population control, equitable distribution of income, and popular participation in governance. Kerala's mortality and fertility indexes surpass China and are on a par with advanced Western countries. Though the state is the most advanced in India in its social indicators, it lags behind a number of other Indian states in terms of per-capita income.
Further Reading
Franke, Richard W., and Barbara H. Chasin. (1992) Kerala: Development through Radical Reform. San Francisco: Food First.
Menon, A. Sreedhara. (1979) Social and Cultural History of Kerala. New Delhi: Sterling.
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