Church and Communism, Kerala, and the National Government

The Red flag flying high

Political poster by a ferry stop

The Hammer and Sickle

The church where Vasco De Gama was buried

A riverside Catholic school

         Kerala is an interesting mix. It has pride in having the first and most enduring freely elected communist government in the world. The Hammer and Sickle are printed on ubiquotous red flags and are emblazoned on concrete monuments. Politics is loudly expressed by burly mustachioed men on microphones on street corners to crowds of gathered luchtimers. But also the Catholic church looms large here, the state crowded by churches both recently built and ancient relics contructed by the Portuguese long before St Paul's rose above the City of London. And these churches run a truely flabberghasting number of schools. I have passed hundreds on buses.
The benefits of this broadness of attitude and mind, and the commitment to society and education, are large. Kerala has near 100% literacy - far above the national average of 67%. It is also a wealthy place comparatively, buoyed by large numbers of skilled workers in Dubai and Europe, tourism, and a massive trade in Cashew nuts. It is also cleaner than most places I have been, while the cows that freely wonder the streets in other states are confined to the fields here.
This disparity, a communist state within a nation that has increasingly embraced free market economics in the last twenty years, is testament to the richness and diversity of Indian democracy.
        The national political system is truely vast - modelled on Westminister but also bearing similarities to the US Congress Federal/State system - 550 lower house and 225 upper house elected MPs sit in Dehli to adminster the will of nearly 800m enfranchised voters. Dehli controls foreign policy, economic policy, fiscal policy, defence, and national taxes while each of the 28 states tend to exercise policy (within certain national set parameters) over education, health, social issues and local taxation. It is in these areas that Kerala has had its success.
And if you consider the shocks that India has experienced in the last 62 years of independence the durability of this system is truely impressive. Three wars with Pakistan, several major fiscal crisis, divisive tenurs of political figures such as Indira Ghandi, the rising power of Hindu nationalism, the chafing between North Indian and South Indian broad alliances, the interference of the United States, China and the Soviet Union; all of these have challenged but never defeated a constitution that binds a people far more diverse in language, culture and religion than the whole of Europe combined. In the same period numerous South American, African and Asian democratic governments have buckled under the strain of Cold War politiking and the buffeting of global economics.
It staggers the mind, and long may it continue. There are issues of course, and I am a total amatuer at understanding the complexities and history of Indian goverment, but it is impossible to not be awed by scale.