Comparative Notes on Indian Experiences of Social Democracy: Kerala and West Bengal

This paper compares, in historical perspective, the conditions for democracy, economic development and well-being in India and Scandinavia. Within India, it compares the states of Kerala and West Bengal. Kerala’s development has been dominated since the 1990s by the dynamics of globalization, economic liberalism and labour migration, and the full potential of high education levels has remained untapped. Achievements with regard to social justice are more the outcome of broad mobilisations in society than of leftist policies. In West Bengal, after initial improvements in rights and well-being brought by agrarian reform, the Left’s continued reliance on patronage networks and more recently, policies that favoured big companies and external investment, led to stagnation and electoral defeat.