Técnicas e instrumentos

This section explores these comparisons in greater detail, by examining individual pre- colonial boundaries in the data from within Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra. By look- ing within each federal state to show how regions under centralized precolonial rule differ from those that did not undergo such rule, it is possible to show the persistent effect of historical states can be found in each instance. Within-state comparisons may be more re- vealing, considering that all parts of India were grouped into ethnolinguistic units following 1956, regardless of whether they demanded it. The districts that were so amalgamated com- prised the same dominant ethnolinguistic group, lived in similar geographic conditions and were subject to following reorganization to the same statewide policies. They differed sys- tematically in only one fundamental regard, which is their legacy of public administration from the past. Looking internally to these new entities, and the persistent discrepancies in government effectiveness among their component districts, it is possible to make inferences about institutional trajectories and the long shadow of the past upon the present.

Figure 4.5: Illustration of the Regression Discontinuity. Response times of cities in Karnataka to RTI requests, with 1782 Mysore border as the discontinuity cutoff. Slopes on either side slide down towards the border, with a distinct discontinuity.

Born as “New Mysore” on November 1, 1956, and renamed “Karnataka” in 1973, the state of Karnataka promised a revival of the “greater” Mysore that existed in southern India of the late eighteenth century. After a hiatus of two hundred years, the territories of the rump Mysore princely state were reunited with the Kannada-speaking districts that were ceded to the East India Company following the third and fourth Anglo-Mysore wars. How- ever, as the basis of unification was linguistic rather than historical, this “new” Mysore also found itself in charge of a set of Kannada-speaking northern districts that had historically never been a part of the Mysore polity. These areas instead had been governed by declining Deccan sultanates and local potentates in the eigtheenth century.

A priori, there was no reason to expect that these new districts would have any difficulty integrating into the rest of the state, as they were of the same Kannadiga ethnolingustic origin. Moreover, there were also similarities in terms of religious composition (87.5 versus 91 per cent Hindu), caste structure (both sides with 3-4 per cent upper-caste brahmins, and a little over 20 per cent scheduled castes), and land inequality (with gini indices of 0.483 and 0.496)4. The experiences of the colonial period also did not offer any reason to expect a difference. During this period, half of the districts of the north were, like princely Mysore in the south, subjected to indirect rule. The other half were part of the Bombay Presidency, just like the central districts that lie within the former Mysore Empire boundary5.

However, a deep internal divide cuts across modern Karnataka. Since independence, “the region belonging to the northern part of the state has been lagging behind in almost all facets of development relative to the southern region of Karnataka” (Prabhakar 2010). As a whole, Karnataka is known as one of the better governed states in the country, with compact, efficient and responsive civil service compared to most other states (Rao, 2005), one of India’s best fiscal management records (Raju 2012)6. Independent surveys of ser-

4_{District-level data on household income from the India Human Development Survey (Desai et al. 2006),}

show similar averages (48,000 Indian rupees, in 2005) though official statistics show a large discrepancy; data on land inequality are from Iyer (2010).

5_{Bellary district was asigned to Madras, again under direct British rule, while Raichur was part of Hy-}

derabad. The southern portion of Karnataka was part of the rump princely state of Mysore, the remaining territories left by the defeat of the Mysore Empire in 1799.

6_{Combining both high and regular tax revenues (at 9.8 per cent of gross state product, the highest in India)}

Figure 4.6: Precolonial Mysore Boundary (Black) and Confidence in Local Government: “to Deliver Projects.” Karnataka Districts Only. Data from the India Human Development Survey (Desai et al. 2006). Green/red cutoff set to average value of 2.1 on a 4-point confidence response scale.

vice delivery across “health, education, bus transport, and subsidised distribution” place “Karnataka in the top decile of India’s states” (Paul et al. 2004). However, in northern districts, areas where the Mysore Empire never ruled, assessments of local government are among the lowest decile in all of India (Desai et al. 2006)7_{. This perception gap is shown}

in Figure 4.6, which shows the difference in the levels of confidence in local government between northern and southern districts.

Perceptions of poor service reflect the mediocre reality on the ground. Karnataka’s state government may be rated as one of the best investors in education, health and infrastructure in India. At the same time, the data on public goods provision in 1980 and 1990 show that in the 1980s, there was not one single tuberculosis clinic, nursing home, specialized health center, or primary health subcenter in any of the northern district villages. On the con- trary, all of these facilities existed in the south, including in districts relatively close to the northern boundary line. As far as the more basic healthcare services, such as medical dis- pensaries or hospitals, the differences in village-level access were stark. Over three times among Indian states.

7_{When asked to rate their level of confidence in a selection of public officials, ranging from the police, to}

as many possessed hospitals, and five times as many had maternity homes8_{. The “north”}

of Karnataka trails the “south” across every category of service provision, from roads, to hospitals, to recruitment of teachers, public employee absenteeism, student dropout rates, urban sanitation, or water supply (Das 2005). A qualitative assessment of schools across Karnataka in 2005 found northern institutions consisting of “dilapidated school buildings, often consisting of a single room with bare floor, with no seating facilities, no storage facilities to maintain teaching aids and equipments, if any, no playground, toilets.” How- ever, “the situation dramatically changes as one moves to developed localities in southern [regions of the state]” (Honnalli 2006: 104).

Why is there such a deep divide between the north and the south of one of India’s most economically developed states? One theory might be that southern politicians have more successfully monopolized the distribution of public resources since the state’s founding in 1956, depriving the north of much needed social investment. Yet while clientelist expla- nations are useful for explaining public goods outcomes in the south Asian context, where political coalitions are built to reward supporters, they cannot explain the position of north- ern Karnataka. This is also, considering that the, political elites of northern Karnataka have, been overrepresented rather than underrepresented in the state’s modern political his- tory (Keefer and Khemani 2004; Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007; Kohli 1987). In the 50 years since Karnataka’s reorganization, there have been many chief ministers from North Karnataka, and the former editor of the Economic Times of Bangalore, E. Raghavan, has argued that northerners often determine the outcome of state electios (Manor 2006). The North was also more engaged in the linguistic states movement. During the states reor- ganisation commission of 1954, almost all organisations and political leaders in the north submitted memoranda in favor of a unified Kannada-speaking region, unlike the southern Mysore government and Mysore Congress which refrained from giving evidences (Hon- nalli 2006). Alternatively, the agricultural conditions of northern Karnataka are sometimes cited as an explanation for the region’s poverty. But, even on the count if one goes by the Karnataka Human Development Report (2005), “the south is more prone to severe droughts

8_{In the north there was one hospital per 1321 villages, against one per 482 villages in the south, and one}

than the north, contrary to popular impression” (Das 2005). It can also be argued that state level politicians have ignored the plight of the north. In recent decades public policy in Karnataka has been highly attentive to the problem of its northern “backward districts,” and extensive sums have been outlaid in connecting the region with road links and rail, upgrading its educational and health infrastructure, and promoting its economic develop- ment. A plethora of initiatives since the mid-1990s have sought to bridge the growing north-south development gap, including a “Committee for Redressal of Regional Imbal- ances in the State,” the creation of a North-East Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC) to invest in regional transport links, initiatives to promote tourism in the re- gion, the relocation of government institutions to the north, or more tailored initiatives, such as a “Mid-Day Meal Programme” across government schools of the north, to redress the region’s high dropout rate.

Despite efforts at reform from above, the results on the ground have failed to close the gap. A recent study concludes that the ultimate cause for the failure of the northern districts to deliver, is not a lack of commitment from the center, but “above all, lack of political will” from “the political elite of the region.” Interviewing the members of this elite, the author finds that “the political leadership of the region... blame bureaucracy for inefficiency, corruption, and poor implementation,” while they themselves have “withdrawn themselves from the government operated education and health institutions and have raised their own [private] institutions with high quality infrastructure” (Honnalli 2006: 166)9_.

The absence of accountability between northern elites and constiuents is part of a wider anomic syndrome, characterized by apathy, disengagement, and lack of solidarity. Even the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, having no particular ties to the region, has remarked that “in minority pockets like Raichur, Bellary, Gulbarga and Bidar” there is “lack of communal harmony and [a] sense of insecurity” (cited in The Hindu, April 30th 2013). The “lack of communal harmony” in northern Karnataka becomes very evident from the survey data. The modal response among village respondents, when asked whether they “generally get along with each other” or whether “there is conflict,” was the latter. This

9_{The study substantiates this charge with a very long list of private schools and hospitals in the north,}

Figure 4.7: Precolonial Mysore Boundary (Black) and Households Reporting Experience of Theft, 2005. Karnataka Districts Only. Data from the India Human Development Survey (Desai et al. 2006). Red/green cutoff at 1.2 per cent of households reporting theft.

contrasts strikingly with responses given in the south of Karnataka (Desai et al. 2006). The “sense of insecurity” is also tangible from both the crime surveys and the official data. In districts north of the 1782 boundary, 22.2 per cent of households, or over one-fifth, report that they have experienced theft in the past year. Across the south of Karnataka, this figure is only 4.1 per cent, or 1 in 25 (figure 4.7). The homicide rate in northern districts is fifty per cent higher than in the south, and there is also a higher number of riots and twice as many highway robberies10.

The combination of unaccountable elites, apathetic citizens, and social anomie recalls the “social capital” arguments of Putnam (1993) or Knack and Zak (2002) regarding south- ern Italy or the American South. They show that entrenched inter-regional differences in administrative patterns are a consequence of differences in norms and networks of collec- tive action, that persist due to the transmission of social institutions and values. However, to paraphrase Joel Migdal (1988), the problem in northern Karnataka is not so much that society is insufficiently strong, but rather, that the state has been historically too weak. Su- perficially, the civil society in the region appears vibrant and citizens in the north have 2.1

10_{The murder rate per 100,000 was 3.3 in the north as against 2.2 in the south, and there were 8.9 cases of}

memberships per person (when asked about their memberships across a range of category of voluntary associations) compared to 0.76 in the south. Yet this apparent civic vitality is accounted for by an astonishing 77 per cent of northerners being members of “caste asso- ciations,” against only 13 per cent in the south, 75 per cent being members of “religious” societies compared to just 9 per cent among southerners (Desai et al. 2006). Together, these two forms of association together account for the entire north-south gap in voluntary activ- ity. Social bonds despite being dense are framed around what Putnam (2000) has termed “bonding” as opposed to “bridging” ties - networks of survival, that are more concerned with the challenge of “getting by” than the goal of “getting ahead” (Woolcock and Naryan 2000).

What then are the origins of this persistent difference in societal structure? The defen- sive civil society of northern Karnataka, rather than being a cause of its underdeveloped public institutions is its consequence. The patrimonial ties upon which everyday life is structured - as reflected in the strong majorities participating in sectarian and caste associ- ations - are a substitute for the existence of an impartial service provision, security, and the rule of law. As Prabhakar (2010) writes in describing the situation of northern Karnataka, ascriptive identities such as caste thrive in an environment where impartial institutions are unavailable. In the north of Karnataka, caste has “found a fresh lease of life in modern institutions such as panchayats, schools, factories and government offices” with individ- uals taking advantage of identity networks to access excludable goods and benefits. The response of citizens to a historical deficiency in public order, public goods and accountabil- ity has not been to “hunker down” but rather to mobilize segmentally in order to capture private gains. This has been done with the cooptation of political elites, as in the 1970s, in order to build a political clientele. The Chief Minister “used illicit funds to establish and then build up caste associations among disadvantaged groups that had previously been poorly organised or entirely unorganised” (Mason 2005). As will be explored in the next chapter, the origins of this pattern lie in the divergent paths taken by the two regions in the eighteenth century. In this period southern Karnataka experienced centralization under the Mysore Empire and the extension of bureaucratic administration, while the north under- went a steady path of state failure and the balkanization of political authority. The origin of the north-south divide in Karnataka has therefore deep historical origins. A recent report

Figure 4.8: Precolonial Travancore Boundary (Black) and Hospitals per Village, 1980-90. Source: District Gazetteers of Kerala (1995). Green/brown cutoff set at 25 per cent of villages with hospital access.

on the gap states that the “Karnataka model should more accurately be called the ‘Mysore model’ ” because it “has century-old roots in policy decisions taken by the princely state of Mysore” (Kadekodi et al. 2006), and the competence of local administration is rooted in institutions that existed already “in Mysore about 200 years ago” (Bayly 2006).

The State of Travancore within Kerala and Tamil Nadu

The Kingdom of Travancore ruled the southwestern tip of India from its founding in 1729 up to its abolition following States Reorganisation in 1956. This also included a brief period from 1948-1956 spent in union with Cochin. Among the states classfied by Ramusack (2003) as “warrior,” or challenger regimes, Travancore uniquely survived the ascendency of the British Empire, a result of a strategic alliance that was made following Mysorean invasion in the late eighteenth century. The Kingdom of Travancore cuts across two states of contemporary India, comprising the southern half of Kerala along with the district of Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu. Following States Reorganisation in 1956, the district of Kanniyakumari was prized from Travancore and made a part of the new Tamil state. The rest of Travancore was dissolved into the new state of Kerala and thereafter joined with the Malayali-speaking districts of Malabar that had mobilized for the creation of a united Malayali homeland.

The district of Kanniyakumari: An Enclave of Travancore in Tamil Nadu

The district of Kanniyakumari, at the southern tip of Tamil Nadu, is a Tamil-speaking district that was separated from Travancore and joined to the new state of Tamil Nadu in 1956. Once known as Cape Comorin, it is located at the southernmost point of the sub- continent where the Indian Ocean meets the Arabian Sea. Its long cliffs and beaches lined by coconut groves, similar to those of neighboring Kerala, earned it a description among European explorers as “a fairy land” (Aiyar 1920: 1)11_{. In common with southern Kerala,}

historically Kanniyakumari was part of the domain of the Travancore kings. Before the Travancore kings, it was under their Venad predecessors, who first established rule over the area in the first quarter of the 12th century, and established a capital there until 1747 (Gopalakrishnan 1995: 71)12. The separation of Kanniyakumari from Kerala arose follow- ing the movement for “States Reorganisation” in the 1940s and 1950s. Several parts of Travancore were mobilized into the united Kerala (Aikya Kerala) movement that called for a united Malayali homeland. However, Tamils in Travancore were faced with the possibil- ity of becoming a marginalized minority, unlike in Travancore where Tamil had enjoyed an official status as a language of state. As the prospect dawned of a Malayali federation, an All Travancore Tamil Congress was founded that won all seats in the Tamil-speaking areas during the 1954 elections. Under States Reorganisation two years later, these wards were subsequently adjoined to Tamil Nadu.

Much has been written regarding the superior social and governance record of Kerala with respect to other states of India (e.g. Heller 1996, 2000; Singh 2012), as well as the extent to which this derives from the institutional legacy of Travancore, or from the policies of the state’s post-1956 left governments (Sen 2004; Franke and Chasin 1989). The existence of a portion of Travancore which was never incorporated into the post-1956 Kerala state allows us to test such arguments under very strict control conditions. Today there are no particular reasons to expect Kannyakumari to be especially better governed than its neighboring Tamil districts to the east: Kanniyakumari is poorer than the rest of

11_{The description of Comorin as a “fairy land” is attributed to Lord Commemera, though repeated by other}

explorers.

12_{The Venads did not rule continuously from this point, however, until the foundation of Travancore in}

Tamil Nadu, with an average household income of Rs. 36,042, against 39,141 in the rest of the state13. It is also more socially fractionalized, with a large Christian as well as a smaller Muslim minority. Nonetheless, on every single metric of public service delivery or rule of law, Kanniyakumari is far in advance of other Tamil districts, so much so that it is not within a several standard deviation range. Kanniyakumari’s outperformance covers almost every category of public goods, from high schools (82.6 versus 17.6 per cent of villages with access), to hospitals (41 per cent versus 3.6 per cent), medical dispensaries (37.6 per cent versus 2.8 per cent) or nursing homes (5.8 per cent against 0.3 per cent). The gap between Kanniyakumari and the rest of the state on these measures is extremely wide: for example, the provision of hospitals or nursing homes is 12 standard deviations