title: Kerala: Radical Reform as Development in an Indian State
author: Richard W. Franke
description: "This able, incisive book provides evidence against doom-sayers who argue that government policies cannot improve the lot of the poor." -- <i>Economic and Political Weekly</i>
zlib_text: # State Formation and Radical Democracy in India
  
    
    
  
  _State Formation and Radical Democracy in India_ analyses one of the most
  important cases of developmental change in the twentieth century, namely,
  Kerala in southern India, and asks whether insurgency among the marginalized
  poor can use formal representative democracy to create better life chances.
  Going back to pre-independence, colonial India, Manali Desai takes a long
  historical view of Kerala and compares it with the state of West Bengal, which
  like Kerala has been ruled by leftists but has not experienced the same degree
  of success in raising equal access to welfare, literacy and basic subsistence.
  This comparison brings historical state legacies, as well as the role of left
  party formation and its mode of insertion in civil society to the fore,
  raising the question of what kinds of parties can effect the most substantive
  anti-poverty reforms within a vibrant democracy.
  
  This book offers a new, historically based explanatio