Kerala’s ability to sustain its alternative development model in the face of adverse policies pushed by the BJP-led Union government sparked concern at a seminar on ‘Economic alternatives for the future’ organised as part of the Keraleeyam 2023 celebrations of the State government.
Speakers including economist and Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prabhat Patnaik, and Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat noted the need for drawing upon the Kerala experience for building a national-level alternative, but they worried how far Kerala can sustain its alternative development path in the present environment.
Noting that the neoliberal economic model has come to “a virtual dead end,” Prof. Patnaik observed that the essence of the Kerala Model is something that now needs to be “generalised” in the country as a whole. But for it to happen, the Kerala Model has to survive the “onslaught” the Centre has mounted on it, he said.
