Rs 1,52,905 crore – that was the size of proposed investment in Kerala, announced after a summit bringing together investors and government this February.
On the eve of the function in Kochi, while having a cup of tea with a journalist friend in the city, I could make out that the summit had created a buzz. Former colleagues, my friend and I were no strangers to the model in which states are advertised as great investment destinations, where a grand function harvests proposals from gathered investors, followed by claims of success in terms of the total money expected to land and the employment it would potentially generate.
The first time I saw these summits was back in the early 1990s, when India began liberalising its economy. The precursor to state level summits were those at the level of the country.
There were summits inviting investments to the country. There were instances of prime ministers traveling overseas with an entourage of eminent Indian business persons. There would be meet-ups with foreign entrepreneurs and chiefs of various large corporations. The promise of investment generated was ferried back to India as a promise for the future.
It was only a matter of time before these summits birthed smaller versions within the context of India’s federal structure. As states began competing with each other for investments, state-level summits emerged.
At the end of these, the concerned state government would take credit for the aggregate of investments proposed; the figure would be passed off as a litmus test of the investment climate prevailing under the administration. The model has been around for at least two decades. Today, we have a whole mountain range of such summits.
Blame it on a cynical journalist viewing the world through a prism of what can go wrong but I would trade the mountain range for a general sense of possibility, things actually working at ground level and investment promises fructified as real enterprise.
Brick and mortar, flesh and blood – these are far more believable in my eyes, than promises and impressions made digitally. However, my friend thought a bit differently.
He told me that compared to other states, corruption was relatively low in Kerala. The state had moved on from its days of labour militancy and hostility to private capital. There are successful businesses in the state now. And yet, these changes hadn’t sprouted wings strong enough to let the state fly. What Kerala needed for wings, he felt, was some big-ticket investments; something that would headline the state’s emergence as a good place to invest in.
As per news reports, by the end of the Kochi summit, 374 companies had submitted expressions of interest. Twenty-four infotech companies were keen to expand their operations in the state. The single biggest chunk of investment – Rs 30,000 crore – was promised by the Adani group, which already manages the Thiruvananthapuram airport and the Vizhinjam seaport in the same district.
As a non-resident Keralite periodically visiting the state, the biggest difference I have noticed between the Kerala I grew up in and the present-day state, is the primacy of money and status. Not that these attributes don’t count elsewhere but in Kerala, it increasingly has the quality of fundamental imagination.
One is assessed and evaluated for self-worth, directly and obliquely, even if one didn’t ask for it. It’s what happens when a society is obsessed with a well-settled life. To me, the inescapability of these coordinates is the most suffocating aspect of a visit to Kerala.
On the day the investment summit kicked off in Kochi, I left the city for Wayanad. At Cake Gallery in Kalpetta, I had just finished eating a slice of cake and begun sipping my cup of black tea, when two young men seated opposite me started discussing solemnly, “So, where do we go next?”
Something struck me about that question. ‘Where to?’ – that is a question, usually asked by those restless and traveling in the mind. Hearing it in the depths of Kerala’s settled society – one that spares no opportunity to highlight the well-settled life as the pinnacle of success – made me happy. One has to sufficiently un-belong to pose that question, I thought.
And so, we got talking.
One of the young men worked as an accountant. The other was a radiographer between jobs, hoping to move abroad. It fitted the general profile of young people in Kerala these days. They are waiting to leave the state. And it’s not all about higher education or job opportunities, as it once used to be.
The latest round of exit is more specific. The young man said that he had no real wish to leave. Given a choice, he would like to work and live in Kerala. “But life doesn’t operate that way.”
Besides Kerala’s intense politics, of late, there has also been a trend of religious competition. He shrugged his shoulders to indicate that it wasn’t a social environment that he enjoyed anymore.
Moreover, there are loans availed by the family, loans to repay. “You take on debt to repay another debt. It’s a cycle,’’ he said. Result – he has to work where income is good. Healthcare is often spoken of as a rising sector in Kerala. Large hospitals exist in the state.
“Won’t you get good income here?’’ I asked.
“No,” he said, pointing out that he could hope for a monthly package of less than Rs 20,000 and after taking care of loans and other expenses, little would be left. It reminded me of what a young rickshaw driver had told me in Thiruvananthapuram, a few days earlier.
Knowing that unlike before, the youth works and studies at once nowadays, I had asked him whether he did anything else other than drive the three-wheeler. Turned out, he was pursuing a diploma course focused on a specific skill set. He was funding his studies and that of his sister – who, after finishing her course in nursing, was studying German – with the income he earned by driving his rickshaw. He had no intention of working in Kerala after his diploma course.
He wished to be settled at least in the Middle East. “The problem here is that it increasingly costs a lot to study. After studies, if you work in Kerala, then your salary falls short of what is required to recover what you spent on studies and have a good life alongside,” he said.
The young man in Wayanad appeared caught in the same situation. In Kochi, I had met another young person who was working at a hostel, while also pursuing a course in logistics. I spoke to him about the new Vizhinjam port, the existing seaport in Kochi and the promise of more private investment happening in the logistics sector in the state.
It was the day before the investment summit and we were, as the crow flies, about a kilometre and a half from the venue of the event. But he, too, wasn’t thinking of Kerala as a place to work, post-studies. The preference was abroad and the reason was simple – better payment.
It amazed me that the wish to go abroad, consistently seen in the young I spoke to, was despite destinations overseas – from the Middle East to Europe and the US – being no longer as singularly rosy as they once were to Indian eyes. They have their own emergent challenges. In other words, there were other factors – likely non-negotiable – that were implicit in the decision to leave Kerala.
Most of the reasoning by the youth doesn’t seem to be without the pressures of long existing social prejudices and problems. What is the larger social milieu these young people would be leaving, for greener pastures overseas?
One angle herein is that after years of grooming by remittance economy, Kerala attaches premium to an overseas address. Just be away, ideally abroad. But that isn’t the only thing.
“My family does not like me working as a three-wheeler driver,’’ the young man in Thiruvananthapuram told me. It is an old prejudice – if one is educated, has been to school and college, then one’s own desire, as well as the insistence of others, is to be employed in an ambiance that is suitably lofty for one’s educational background. That was during my days studying in the state and I thought things had changed.
For instance, in 2022, I had met a person in Kochi who had previously worked in the printing press of a leading Malayalam daily. Laid off and unable to make ends meet, he became a rickshaw driver. He was sad about the development, yet tried to stay positive and happy. A society is one in which people like him do not feel sad and instead, others support him to work and live. Clearly, that isn’t the case, yet.
“It is a generation’s problem; their outlook,” the young man in Thiruvananthapuram told me of his family’s aversion for the work he did, and added, “it will change only when that generation exits. It will take time.”
These young people also agreed to another thing – despite the passage of time, the Kerala society still measures people by money and status. Gold, fabulous weddings, big houses, expensive cars – these are still the motifs of success. It’s what one is expected to afford in life, if others are to give you a damn.
Even the daily soaps on TV, featuring family dramas, have characters decked up in expensive sarees, gold jewellery and such, when they are at home. I told the youngsters from Wayanad how my work as a journalist had required me to speak to some of the wealthiest on the land and yet, my most memorable conversations and life-altering experiences had been with ordinary people. I wanted them to know that there is more to life than money.
They smiled; an old smile I knew from the mirror, one that betrays lurking inevitability. I couldn’t help feeling that there may be a whole generation of young people leaving simply because life is deemed worthless if one hasn’t measured up to the society’s yardsticks of establishing self-worth. And if that aspect of Kerala doesn’t change, what’s the point of investment summits fetching investments to generate employment within the state? It isn’t that project investments require Keralite workers per se to survive; they will employ from a nationally available labour pool, in tune with their financial viability.
In many ways, such a source-neutral labour market is what the sizable presence of migrant workers in Kerala already indicates. Besides, even if jobs go to others, investments will benefit the state in the form of tax payments and evolution of related support infrastructure. It is just that it will be a pity if Kerala society cannot create an atmosphere in which people work locally, are respected and can have satisfying lives.
Money alone as an indicator of self-worth will condemn Keralites to remain nomads in search of ephemeral greener pastures.
On the other hand, the state industries minister has announced that Kerala will host an investment summit every three years.
Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.