The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : `Social scientists must begin by trying to understand India'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 14, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

`Social scientists must begin by trying to understand India'

Staff Reporter

Study the differences that exist between people and eliminate them, says K.N. Raj

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: India has a long way to go before it becomes an integrated society politically and socially, noted economist K.N. Raj has said.

He was delivering the inaugural address at a seminar ion `Kerala in the Global Economy, Opportunities and Challenges' organised by the Stanford Centre for International Development, the Asian School of Business and the Kerala Global Support Network at the Technopark here on Tuesday.

"Our methods of economic planning reveals how little we know about our own country," Dr. Raj said.

Social scientists must begin by trying to understand India, each State, its structures and how far caste and other social barriers affect the people living there. Publicly everyone says that caste system no longer exists in India. But the reality is that caste system is very much there. There may be exceptions; individuals who marry outside their caste and religion. Kerala is an outstanding exception in this matter. Here, there has been a genuine social revolution and it does not really matter which caste or religion you belong to. But social scientists must not focus on exceptions but must study the social and economic differences that exist between people to find out what they can do to eliminate these differences, Dr. Raj said.

The United States as a country has not done enough to analyse its own problems and convey them to the rest of the world. In Britain, on the other hand, during the last 100 years there have been thinkers who examined their own societies, he said. Dr. Raj concluded with a piece of advise for the organisers; start with modest targets - things that you can do in, say, 10 years - and then think of scaling up those targets.

In his keynote address, Roger Knoll from the Stanford Centre said Kerala's deep-seated commitment to social equity and the fact that it has the least amount of disparity in public access to resources must be packaged in the international market to promote wealth generation in the State. Institutions must be reformed - those parts that are dysfunctional - in a manner that conforms to the culture and traditions of the State. It is nice to note that institutional reform is a good word in Kerala today. In the energy sector and in decentralisation, Kerala has taken bold steps forward. It takes a lot of courage for Government officials to let so much of decision-making powers go away to other officials, he said.

One basic question that Kerala needs to ask itself is, why are its children forced to go away in search of employment. At the same time the fact that Kerala's children can be employed anywhere in the world speaks well of the State's education system, he added.

In his address, Chief Operations Officer of Infosys Kris Gopalakrishnan said Kerala needs a brand makeover to make more businesses comes its way. Case studies, especially success stories in business, need to be created and highlighted. Likewise, it is very important to accelerate the creation of infrastructure. For this private capital in setting up Technopark-like institutions can be thought of, as also more private parks, he said.

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