[rdedev]

I guess my main point is that a communist type govt was not exclusively bad for Kerala since they took a lot of effort to improve education and public health.

You can look at other sources to see how good kerala is doing wrt other states but I do agree the article over emphasised the good parts without any hint to it's bad parts

[srean]

To put this in context, during Covid, hundreds of bodies were being dumped in the Ganges river, buried in shallow graves on the sandbars in states like Uttar Pradesh. The state govt took an active role to remove the grave markers so that an accurate estimate of the numbers could not be ascertained. These were covered by local bloggers, vloggers and news channels.

Kerala is one of the few states that managed medical supplies of Oxygen pretty well. In many other states many died because hospitals ran out of it.

[YouAreRONGS]

Is that because of the communist government, or simply because the state has a lot of money from the Middle East?

[moomin]

Spending money to remove grave markers is a choice. It's not about how much money you have, it's whether or not you care about the people in question.

[srean]

In India atleast, 'communism' or 'Marxism' in the names of political parties that actually run a state is just a name that has stuck. These entities and people have to be a lot more pragmatic. This is in contrast to those who are arm chair think tanks that you would find in advisory boards, universities etc. These would be people who do not run for elections.

Now, as for Kerala's handling of Covid, that was funded by state govt coffers. So Middle East money had a negligible contribution. What made a difference though is a history of preference for investing in social safety nets and basic infrastructure for people, such as schools, nutrition, hospitals.

[kelipso]

What really happened was that the health authorities in Kerala were prepared for an outbreak because Kerala has had a history of past outbreaks and a health system with very well trained doctors and health professionals to handle it. See the 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala that was handled really well, there was even a popular movie about it (Virus) that came out the year after.

It's the same story in east Asian countries where they had the SARS outbreak in early 2000s and so they were prepared for new outbreaks.

[trompetenaccoun]

To be clear I'm not saying Kerala is particularly bad by regional standards, it's not. But compare Kerala and India as a whole with other parts of Asia, they're not doing well. Look at China vs India in the 1970s vs 50 years later. Compare India/Kerala and Thailand in the same time frame. Kerala and Korea, etc etc. South Asia as a whole is doing worse than many other parts of Asia. Kerala government excels at what many socialist governments are good at: Praising themselves. In reality is has made little difference.

India has a lot of other issues, I grant you that the socialist ideology probably had a positive influence in some ways other than economics, particularly socially. But no offense, if you've ever walked the streets Trivandrum and other cities you know there are much more pressing issues.