Roy C C [1637207]-Marriage, development, and the status of women in Kerala, India

In this article Elizabeth Chacko explain the distinction between women’s status and marriage in Kerala. Kerala is known as a progressive region where literacy, health, life span of people are number one in the country and with high levels of social development despite poor economic growth. Kerala is also fares exceptionally well in terms of the roles of women in the society. But when we look at closely we can easily identify that women are not considered in decision making matters and even in the selection of the bridegroom. She is also not free to select her own choice and the family structure doesn’t allow her. Woman have to stay with her in-laws family and her freedom is curtailed. We can also see that heritage rights are given to the men and woman’s family have to give lot of dowry in marriage. There are lot of violence against women in Kerala and the woman are considered to be sex symbol.

Date of reading: 02/07/16

Bibliography: Chacko Elizabeth, Marriage, Development, and the Status of Women in Kerala, India, Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Oxfam GB, Gender and Development, Vol. 11, No. 2, Marriage (Jul., 2003), pp. 52-59.

Roy C C [1637207]-Education and Socio-economic Change in Kerala

In this article the author Gopinathan Nair tries to make a course on education expansion and its interrelationship with other socio-economic changes in Kerala during the modern period of the history of religion 1793-1947. Kerala experienced a continuous process of educational expansion throughout the period at an increasing rate than elsewhere in the country. During the second phase the progress confined mainly to the southern region of Travancore and Cochin. The knowledge acquired through the enquiry shows that the socio-economic factors  which helped the socio-economic changes and the educational developments in Kerala inspired the whole world to promote the formulation of developing educational and economic policies in their respective places. In this article the writer divides the discussion into two parts. First the factors helped for educational growth and secondly evaluation of the education system and its impact on society.

Date of reading: 30/06/16

Bibliography: Nair Gopinathan P.R, Education and Socio-Economic Change in Kerala, 1793-1947, Social Scientist, Vol. 4, No. 8 (Mar., 1976), pp. 28-43.

Roy C.C [1637207] – Health

Kerala is also considered to be number one state in health industry. people from all over the world come to Kerala for a better treatment with minimum cost. The hospitals and doctors are well equipped  to treat any kind of diseases. In the past the doctors were able to diagnose the dieses without ant check up or scan. and the medicines they prescribe were very effective. the nurses were considered to be the angels from heaven to look after the patients with utmost care and concern. Kerala nurses had a great demand in all over the world because they have the knack of serving the patients with compassion and love. Now a days, it has become a business and non-medical interventions such as in sanitation, nutrition, sewages and environmental up gradation as well as the earlier integrated approach with emphasis upon prevention of diseases are being neglected for the sake of high-cost curative medicine, particularly for degenerative diseases. There was an emerging consensus that these trends should be opposed. On the other hand, there was also a perceptible awareness that under the old system of distribution, these basic services have not reached all sections. The quality of services rendered by public institutions has degenerated, and there is a need for diversification of  health services to cater to new requirements. The direct medical expenditure per household and per person is now so high as to be beyond the reach of the common people.  This is not only true of modern medicine but also of traditional medicine, which has the potential for a wide range of preventive and other applications such as in paediatrics and primary health care and greater relevance because of the health culture of the state is still found to be significantly influenced by a generalised ayurvedic worldview.

There was a general agreement that the state needs to draw up a formal health policy that seeks to build upon achievements of the past. The emphasis of such a policy should be improvement in quality rather than quantitative expansion. The new health policy would have to clearly define the role of the state sector, reorient the family welfare ser-vices, encourage novel ways of funding health care outside government allocation, emphasise paramedical training, draw up a slate level formulary and effectively decentralise the health care system. So that even the ordinary people are afford to get medical help with an affordable rate.

Date of reading : 25/06/2016

Bibliography : Isaac Thomas T. M. and Tharakan Michael P. K, Towards a New Agenda. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 31/32 (Aug. 5-12, 1995), pp. 1993-2004.

Roy C.C [1637207] – Education

Kerala is considered to  be the model state even in Education. It is the number one state in literacy in India. All states look at Kerala people with admiration and respect and they need Keralites in their academic institution. In this article the writer tries to capture our attention that though Kerala is considered to be the literate state, there are many problems that the state is facing today. Policy of privatization through self-financing institutions disregarded the requirements of social justice and it created useful education for a wide population. If we are to build upon the past achievements of  Kerala, then there should be proper educational planning taking into consideration the requirements of national, regional and local development. The lack of public financial resources may be taken care of by rationalizing the affiliated colleges system, by making the university departments more autonomous and flexible rather than by investing in research institutions outside the university system, and by varied methods of generating greater internal financial resources. There are manifold problems associated with tribal and fisher folk literacy which have to be tackled along with better use of primers, workbooks and neo-literate literature created with sensitivity to the problems of the marginalized sections. Existing movements like the library movement and their services should also be integrated in this effort. The writer wanted to convey that though Kerala is considered to be literate state, there are many problems it is facing and is to be solved.

Date of reading : 25/06/2016

Bibliography : Isaac Thomas T. M. and Tharakan Michael P. K, Towards a New Agenda. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 31/32 (Aug. 5-12, 1995), pp. 1993-2004.

Roy C.C [1637207]-Woman status in Kerala

Woman Status in Kerala

The status of women of Kerala were also a model. Women in Kerala are as literate and healthy as the males and not victims of the worst forms of gender discrimination as in most parts of India. Kerala is the only major state in India where the sex ratio is favourable to women – 1,040 females to 1,000 males against an Indian average of 928. This cannot be considered as woman liberated because even though they are educated visible work participation rate is one of the lowest in India. Open female unemployment is very high and even if they work, payment is very low. Women’s participation in any movements is absent and woman leadership is marginal. Three sessions were devoted explicitly to gender-related issues: ‘matrimony and modernity’, ‘social construction of gender’ and ‘feminisation of poverty’. A major gap was the absence of papers on women’s movements and groups in Kerala. The session on matrimony and modernity explained in some detail the construction of gender historically.

There was a general consensus that it offered greater freedom and security, to women in comparison to other agrarian societies that were patrilineal. The above positive features of matrimony also contributed to widespread progressive attitudes towards female education and survival. The session on social construction of gender revealed several constituents of patriarchal ideology that have been deeply embedded in Kerala society and political culture.Within the broad area of cultural expressions, various experiences of peoples’ lives can find expression, including that of the non-subaltern classes. Only on the basis of the inherent unity at that level could a phalanx of cultural defence be forged against the creeping in of mass culture.

Date of reading : 23/06/2016

Bibliography : Isaac Thomas T. M. and Tharakan Michael P. K, Towards a New Agenda. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 31/32 (Aug. 5-12, 1995), pp. 1993-2004.

Roy C.C [1637207]-Kerala model of Development

Kerala Model of Development

Kerala is considered to be a model of development in the world. In order to have development in a state, first of all agriculture and industry have to be developed and then improvement in the standard of living of people would take place, but these stages of development being challenged by Kerala. Though Kerala is considered to be one of the economically backward states of India with per capita domestic production below the national average, it has been able to provide for the basic needs; health, education and demographic transition, of most of its citizens. the quality of life in Kerala is far above the general situation prevailing in India and even in most parts of the third world. Though the conditions of Tribals and the fisher folk, stone breakers and coir workers has not changed much the miracle had bypassed the agricultural laborers too. Though the backwardness of Dalit persisted, their situation is far superior than rest of the India. there was significant occupational mobility in terms of Job and the gap in terms of development narrowed.

It is because of the active role of the people in demanding redistributive policies or directly pursuing such goals themselves. Kerala has been succeeded in achieving a quality of life nearly comparable to the developed countries in a much lower level of resource consumption. Hence Kerala has been hailed as the best sustainability model. The quality of life can be improved without economic growth or social change. Thus Kerala becomes an ideal ‘cheap’ model of development.

E M S Namboodiripad request the people not to let the praise divert their attention from economic crisis we face. we are behind other states in respect of economical growth. Alternative indices of development, taking into consideration per capital income, unemployment and other indicators of economic backwardness show Kerala slipping sharply down in the rank order of development. This portrays Kerala as a growth less model. But the paradox of Kerala’s experience lies precisely in achieving a relatively high quality of life at a low level of economic developments. Kerala is not only an exporter of raw materials but also of educated manpower. Kerala’s educational and health development as yet another variant of the underdevelopment paradigm.

Date of reading : 22/06/2016

 Isaac Thomas T. M. and Tharakan Michael  P. K, “Towards a New Agenda“, Economic and Political Weekly: Vol. 30, No. 31/32, (Aug. 5-12, 1995), pp. 1993-2004.

Roy C.C (1637207-Gujarati Dalit Literature an overview

Gujarati  Dalit Literature emerged in the mid-seventies as reaction to the ‘hallow modernism’ of the Re Mat movement and sterile romanticism. The genesis of Gujarat literature can be traced to the poems which appeared in Hoon. Rameshchandra Parmar started the first publication of Gujarati Dalit Literature in 1975. By eighties,  Dalit Literature became a dynamic counter literary movement in Gujarat. In Dalit Literature “one finds the circumstances not the inspiration”. Dalit Literature has successfully experimented with regional dialects and has drawn extensively from the folk literature. Traditional poetic forms like ‘ghazal’ and ‘muktak’ have been re-molded by Dalit poets. Dalit literature created a subaltern mythology to counter classical Hindu mythology. Many poets felt that the term Dalit should be of more inclusive term, so they made an alternative term ‘bahujan’, consequently a new literary forum, bahujan Sahitya Sankul came into existence in 1991.Though the literature came as a protest of caste-hierarchism, it still produces poems, stories, novels and street plays. The author tries to bring the historical factors that lead to the development of Dalit Literature in Gujarat and the impact that made in the lives of Gujarat literature and culture.

Date of reading : 14/06/16

Bibliography : K.M. Sherrief, Gujarati Dalit Literature an overview,Indian Literature, Vol. 37, No. 1 (159) (January-February, 1994), pp. 9-11,Published by: Sahitya Academy.

 

 

Roy C.C (1637207)-Dalit Literature

India is a land of different cultures and caste systems. Dalit are the most economically oppressed, culturally ostracised and politically marginalized. The main aim of Dalit literature is the liberation of Dalit. The Dalit literatures were considered to be sick people by the upper caste people. Dalit literature is people’s literature and integral part of Dalit culture. In the history of dominants there was no room for the culture, art, language and literature of the Dalit. The process of inversion can be seen in Tamil oral tradition-the folklore. Dalit literature should not be viewed mere story of individual’s tragedy, but it is a story of dalit’s struggles and difficulties. Literature should bring chaos into the hierarchical relationship between the dominant and the dominated. the language of the Dalit should be the constituent of Dalit Literature, this will go against the slandered languages, pure, classical, divine and cultured languages but it is a language ‘decent’ for the delits. They will have different vocabulary and speech, it should be read like a dalit. Dalit literature should represent the historical events and the struggles they have gone through, the psychological oppression they have faced. It should not give any moral compensation for their struggles.

Date of reading : 14/06/16

Bibliography : Bama and M. Vijayalakshmi, Dalit Literature,  Indian Literature, Vol. 43, No. 5 (193) (Sept.-Oct., 1999), pp. 97-98, Published by: Sahitya Academy.

 

Roy C.C(1637207) Dalit Literature

This is a letter to the editor by K. Balagopal published in Economical and political weekly. In this letter he writes his experience in attending the Lokayan seminar on Gujarat-Marathi delit literature as a representative of the Revolutionary Writer’s Association of Andra Pradesh. He  criticizes the intention of the participants in attending the seminar because they were discussing more on politics than literature. They were asking the question whether the Dalit movements had any future?  what does the movement want to achieve? The Marathi writers had an answer to this, Arun Kamble says, “The aim of the movements is humanism, liberty, equality and fraternity, absence of exploitation”. The writers of the Gujarati Literature themselves were confused about their goal and they were thinking as of a second class. They were still using the sanskritised language instead of using the rural people. Dalit poetry is quite far from “coming up with almost revolutionary answers”. the writer vehemently criticizes the attitude of the Dalit literatures of Gujarat.

Date of Reading : 15/06/16

Bibliography: K. Balagopal, Dalit Literature, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 6 (Feb. 6, 1982), p. 177,Published by: Economic and Political Weekly.

 

Roy C.C (1637207) -Dalit Literature

The correspondent speaks about his experience of his participation in a seminar on Dalit literature in Bombay. Since it was the first get-together of Marathi and Gujarati Dalit writers and critics it discussed about the problems that the Dalit writers faced especially in Gujarat. Gujarat writers had published a magazine called Akrosh and soon became known worldwide due to the ban of one of its issues. The seminar was a great success because the participants made serious effort to go into the social and historical genesis of Dalit protest in Gujarat. The speakers went into the history of Dalit consciousness and Dalit movement and observed that Gujarat has lacked continuous movement for social reform and protest. The Gujarat movement had better understanding of the questions of, does and should the rejection of ‘Brahmanical’ literature necessarily involve turning one’s back on traditional literature as literature and language. The seminar also discussed about the critical estimate of the trends in the Dalit literature. The Gujarat Dalit literature was less dominated by Ambedkar and his personality and the movement appeared more open minded. The main stream literatures relate to a world of experience which is very small and narrow but the Dalit writers were unaware of a bigger world of which even their areas of experience are a part. In this article the writer feels about the narrow mindedness of the Dalit writers.

Date of Reading: 16/06/16

Bibliography: G. P. D,Dalit Literature, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jan. 16, 1982), pp. 61-62, Published by: Economic and Political Weekly.