Dravidian Models

 Om Namo Bhagwate Vasudevay Namah

Dravidian Models:

The term “Dravidian" is very much acclaimed recently among researchers in the field of social anthropology of the past (“Dravidian Kinship" aka marriage relations among the families practiced in Southern Peninsula to maintain Social Harmony) and politics of recent times (in Dravidian aka “TN Model").

“Dravidian Kinship" is outside the scope of question and here we will focus on “TN Model”- Tamil Nadu’s ability to combine comparatively high levels of human development with economic dynamism.

---

Tamil Nadu model delivers growth with equity.

1. Lower caste mobilization: It succeeded in building a bloc of lower caste groups under a Dravidian-Tamil identity that subsumed and sought to transcend individual caste identities. Mobilisation built an ethos that questioned the privileges of caste elites and the naturalness of merit in caste society. When the bloc gained political power, it ensured a relatively inclusive development pathway through several policy interventions.
2. Primary School Education for Women and Lower caste Groups: Tamil Nadu has been a pioneer in broad-basing entry into school education through a slew of incentives, the noon meal scheme being the most well-known. Over time, mobilisation and policy response fed into the creation of school and college infrastructure, apart from expanding the horizon of aspirations among lower caste households, and enabled one of the highest enrolment rates for women and lower caste groups.
3. Productive Economy: Attainments in education generated positive linkages with the productive economy. If we compare the levels and extent of education among its workforce, Tamil Nadu does better than most states. This also feeds into a process of “democratisation” of capital in the lower rungs, with new entrants from among the backward castes and a section of lower castes, especially through access to professional education. As per the Economic Census 2013–14, one out of every four lower caste enterprises in India in the “20–99 workers” category is located in Tamil Nadu.
4. All are not well- New Challenges: Nevertheless, this broad-basing of access has led to new challenges by way of inequities in quality, access and economic gains across caste and space in higher education. The disparities lead to labour market inequities across caste and class lines, which is feeding into assertions of caste pride among some sections of lower castes, particularly visible in the resentment among sections of backward castes against the mobility among the lower castes.

Om Namo Bhagwate Vasudevay Namah

Ref: ‘Centre and the Dravidian state’ a recent article in Indian Express.