March 17, 2010

Kerala: Nothing Ever Changes

The BBC reports on Kerala in southwest India, west of booming Bangalore. Kerala is a sort of Nicholas Kristof Utopia. But all is not well:
Why is India's most socially developed state - and one of the developing world's most advanced regions - an economic laggard?

This question about Kerala, known all over the world for its lush landscapes, sun-drenched beaches and idyllic backwaters, has been a subject of intense debate among economists and social scientists.

Kerala defies all stereotypes of a "socially backward" Indian state - swathes of people living in abject poverty, men outnumbering women because of female foeticide, internecine caste politics.

Many of its social indicators are on par with the developed world and it has the highest human development index in India.

It also has the highest literacy rate (more than 90%) and life expectancy in India, lowest infant mortality, lowest school drop-out rate, and a fairly prosperous countryside.

That's not all.

In contrast to India's more prosperous states, like Punjab and Haryana, Kerala can boast a very healthy gender ratio - women outnumber men here.

Life expectancy for women is also higher than for men, as in most developed countries. Thanks to a matrilineal society, women, by and large, are more empowered than in most places in India.

When it comes to low population growth, Kerala competes with Europe and the US. And all but two districts of the state have a lower fertility rate than that needed to maintain current population levels.

All this happened because of the region's early trading connections with the West - the Portuguese arrived here in the 15th Century, followed by the Dutch and then the British - and a long history of social reforms initiated by the missionaries and the kings of two princely states that were later integrated to create Kerala. [I believe Kerala has a Christian population going back to Doubting Thomas the Apostle.]

And thanks to pioneering land reforms initiated by a Communist government in the late 1950s, the levels of rural poverty here are the lowest in India. Decent state-funded health care and education even made it the best welfare state in India.

Yet, today, Kerala is a straggler economy almost entirely dependent on tourism and remittances sent back by two million of its people who live and work abroad, mostly in the Gulf.

Joblessness is rife due to the lack of a robust manufacturing base - more than 15% in urban areas, three times the national average. More than 30 million people live in the densely populated state, a third of which is covered by forests

More people here are taking their lives than anywhere else in India. Alcoholism is a dire social problem - the state has India's highest per capita alcohol consumption. People migrate because there are no jobs at home.

Apparently, nothing much has changed in the dozen years since The Atlantic ran an article on Kerala in 1998 praising it as "Poor but Prosperous" (but the details painted a darker picture).

My guess is that the lesson is that if you want to turn your country into Sweden, it's best to get fairly rich first.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

72 comments:

Black Sea said...

"In contrast to India's more prosperous states, like Punjab and Haryana, Kerala can boast a very healthy gender ratio - women outnumber men here."

Well, if the men are migrating to other regions for work, this would be expected.

Why is a preponderance of women considered a "healthy gender ratio"?

rec1man said...

Kerala is a remittance economy like Mexico. 80% of its GDP comes from keralite workers working in the Gulf, like animals. Whereas they refuse to work at home

Kerala has also been funded by hundred billion wahhabi dollars from Saudi Arabia, over the last 40 years, busy radicalising the local muslims

The positive effect of the global recession is that this house of cards will come to an end

One of the pernicious effects of the church influence is that the women have become westernised amazons like feminist women in the west

Over-educated, underbreeding hermaphrodites. The Hindu and Christian women have fallen below replacement fertility

In the meantime, the burkha clad muslim women have breeded their way to victory. The muslim % has risen from 17% in 1961 to 25% today and heading to 33% in 2050

Thanks to the increased muslim %, Kerala is on its way to becoming the next Kashmir or Lebanon ( where muslim over-fertility tilted the demographic ratio )

Catholic bishops in kerala have issued an open call for Hindus and Christians to have lots of kids to match muslim fertility

rec1man said...

In Punjab and Haryana, they practise illegal female foeticide, whereas not so in kerala

rec1man said...

The reality of kerala is that in 25%of kerala, commies run a parallel administration and kangaroo courts and in other 25%, the islamists run a parallel administration and kangaroo sharia courts

The christian areas of kerala are generally civilised

Ann said...

"Why is a preponderance of women considered a "healthy gender ratio"?"

If females aren't aborted or deliberately killed off, and a country has a high life expectancy and low death rate in childbirth, women will live somewhat longer. The typical gender ratio at birth is slightly more male, but because of the greater life expectancy women *should* outnumber men in an advanced society.

They're just saying women are not being killed off as they are elsewhere in India.

Glossy said...

"Yet, today, Kerala is a straggler economy almost entirely dependent on tourism and remittances sent back by two million of its people who live and work abroad, mostly in the Gulf."

All of those skyscrapers in Dubai, including the tallest one on Earth, were built by cheap Indian labor, though I don't know what percentage of the workers came specifically from Kerala.

PatrickH said...

Why would the fact that Kerala is matrilineal have anything to do with women being "empowered" there? Matriarchy and matrilineality are not the same thing.

vmkiopxkwk said...

My guess is that the lesson is that if you want to turn your country into Sweden, it's best to get fairly rich first.

Lol. So true. Only rich capitalist nations can AFFORD socialism. Socialism is distributive, not productive. A place like Kerala may be 'fair' but there isn't much to share nor distribute since leftist policies don't encourage entrepreneurial types to organize and build economies.

Liberals got it all backward. They look at advanced Western countries and think... "gee, rich countries are progressive and socially egalitarian, therefore progressive and egalitarian policies will make poor countries rich." They got it backwards. It was economic growth which did so much to pave the way for social reforms receptive to a growing middle class.

Also, life is no fun in a society that doesn't allow imaginative and enterprising busybodies. A place like Kerala tells people what to think and how to act and etc. People get tired and bored with this shit after awhile. They turn to alcohol and diversions since their creative and ambitious 'greed' is not given a free run to DO SOMETHING.

uvikemxjj said...

Kristof is a dumbass who used to wax romantic about Maoist China back in the days. Like everyone else, he found out about the horrors of Maoism in the 80s, but he still cannot let go of utopian leftist dreams.

Not long ago, he wrote that Chinese women are more equal than South Korean women, thus better off. This sounds patently absurd. South Korean women have the right to vote, to voice their opposition, to run for office in free elections, to organize, to travel, to read whatever they please and etc.
In China, neither men nor women can vote, have the freedom to express themselves without threat of arrest, can travel with outside China without government approval, can gain full internet access, can read whatever they want, etc.

So, why would dumbass Kristof say Chinese women are better off than S. Korean women?
Ah, because he is technically right in a way. There is more EQUALITY between Chinese men and women than between Korean men and women. Korean women do have more freedom and choices than Chinese men and women, but Korean men are more privileged than Korean women whereas both Chinese men and women share the same limited choices.

So, to a jaded leftist like Kristof, Chinese women are better off since they are more EQUAL with their male counterparts even if they have less freedom than Korean women who are less privileged than Korean males.

Equality is like a religion to the Left. Even equality in an unfree society is more appealing than inequalities in a free society.

Now, we know why leftists still wet their pants about Cuba. Hey, it's poor and unfree, but most Cubans are equally poor and unfree.

Anonymous said...

Indians pretty much run the UAE's economy and many of them are Keralites.

One issue might be that Kerala is really hot, which tends to sap initative. C

Anonymous said...

Is there an HBD story here?

Any evidence that average iq in Kerala is much lower than in wealthier regions of india?

Jeff said...

Trying to determine what causes economic growth seems like a hopeless task.

Economist still have trouble explaining how Europe emerged as an economic and political powerhouse. It just sort of happened.

One thing which seems clear is that the further north you are on this planet, you will likely have a higher standard of living

Anonymous said...

So what is India's most high functioning state? (not counting Goa)

Tamil Nadu?
Gujarat?

Anonymous said...

Gujarat functions very well economically. The South (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune) has the bulk of the technology industry. Punjab has quite a bit of agriculture.

One of the most prosperous regions of today's India is an area, in Punjab, with a very high % of Sikh untouchables. Much of the UK Sikh population, which is well to do, come from there. HBD wouldn't have predictd that.

kudzu bob said...

>the lesson is that if you want to turn your country into Sweden, it's best to get fairly rich first<

Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew would agree with that statement. In a fascinating National Public Radio interview some years ago he discussed how, in the heady days after independence from Britain, he had the typical leftist desire to redistribute the wealth. But then he looked around the island and realized to his dismay that they didn't have any wealth to redistribute, so he decided that Singaporeans had better get some, and fast.

Anonymous said...

Economist still have trouble explaining how Europe emerged as an economic and political powerhouse. It just sort of happened.

Lol!

It certainly helps to rule out any racial/ethnic factors, which as all correct thinking people know have nothing to do with anything at all - ever.

Anonymous said...

Is there an HBD story here?

Any evidence that average iq in Kerala is much lower than in wealthier regions of india?


I thought the point was the average IQ in Kerala is higher than elsewhere in India. But you don't get a society like Sweden with that elevated IQ without first getting economic development. Kerala is therefore what a poor Sweden would be capable of, once it has become completely impoverished by its reigning socialism.

Anonymous said...

Articles like this underscore for me how unknowable India is, with its matrix of cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Even "foreign" China and Japan seem comprehensible compared to it. India's emerging with a powerful economy and immigration from it is going to have big effects on the US (at least in the east where I am) but I'll be darned if I can figure out how all the pieces of that country fit together.

Anonymous said...

I want to make sure that I understand what the concensus is here.

In this thread, the concensus is that the average IQ in Kerala is a little higher than the average IQ in some other places in india that are doing better than Kerala and the reason for low per capita income is socialism

Putting it another way, genetically South Koreans and North Koreans have the exact same IQ but the South Koreans have more than 5x the per capita income.

therefore the political system can have a huge impact on per capita income

to improve Kerala you need to remove socialism and put in a more libertarian economic system (kind of like the one in Hong Kong)

How does this happen? Best example I know of a country going from socialism to a successful libertarian system is Chile. but of course a majority of the population didn't want a libertarian system and implementation required Pinochet to pre empt democracy for a few years

I guess ideally you would want to go to a socialist place like Kerala and act as a missionary for liberarian economics.

If christians can persuade people to give up their native religion for a new one, perhaps missionaries of another sort can persuade people to give up socialism?

I don't know. What is the path to wealth for Kerala? Anyone got a better idea than me>

Mr. Anon said...

"My guess is that the lesson is that if you want to turn your country into Sweden, it's best to get fairly rich first."

A corrolary might be: If you want your country to be Sweden, then it should be full of Swedes.

Anonymous said...

The muslim % has risen from 17% in 1961 to 25% today and heading to 33% in 2050

If those numbers reflect all age groups, then the society might already be effectively Muslim [i.e. past the point where >= 50% of all births would be to Muslim], and it certainly would be drawing very near to becoming effectively Muslim.

Glossy said...

"Articles like this underscore for me how unknowable India is, with its matrix of cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Even "foreign" China and Japan seem comprehensible compared to it."

I've worked with a lot of Indians and I've long had the same feeling. It's easier to "get" a country like Japan because it's unitary. There's only one culture to get. India is split up into thousands of little pieces which are very different from each other. Many of them don't have parallels in the outside world. Can anyone recommend a good book about India? Something that explains at least some of the complexity? It doesn't have to be explicitly HBD, just non-PC enough to look at things realistically. rec1man, if there isn't one, you could write it. You could get famous that way - there is a lot of curiosity out there, and you wouldn't be shackled by PC nonsense. Physical, mental and emotional portraits of the individual groups, their occupational profiles, politics, religion, bits of their histories that can help explain their present, their interactions with other groups, speculation on how everything got this way - stuff like that.

Anonymous said...

Be careful Steve, indian are highly allegic to any criticism or bad news. They are living in their own bubble world, like Bollywood world, where indian are the smartest and fairest of them all. Any actions to wake them from their sweet wet dream will be harashly rebuffed.

Regular Joe said...

"One thing which seems clear is that the further north you are on this planet, you will likely have a higher standard of living"

Here's this same dumb trope again. Look, Europe is bizarrely temperate for its latitude due to the golf stream,and Europeans are wealthy. Its an outlier and correlation, not a causation. The Indians of Canada and Tiera Del Fuego were not wealthier or more civilized than the Inca and Aztec, the Mongols not more than the Chinese, Siberia is not the global hot spot of civilization and economic dynamism.

I think the condition you are looking for is "temperate" not "northern", a climate that gives sufficient conditions for a robust agricultural development as only one of many preconditions to civilization.

Lay off the stupid theorizing about how 'northerness' has something to do with it, else you sound like a David Duke dummy muling over why civilization supposedly 'arose' amongst the snows of Germany, a proposition that would have made Tacitus blow wine out his nose all over his toga.

Anonymous said...

> you don't get a society like Sweden with that elevated IQ without first getting economic development <

Backward. Elevated or high IQ is a necessary condition of economic development.

qiivnndk said...

"My guess is that the lesson is that if you want to turn your country into Sweden, it's best to get fairly rich first."

A corrolary might be: If you want your country to be Sweden, then it should be full of Swedes.


Don't be too sure. Sweden was a late-comer to economic progress. Even in the late 20th century, most people were very poor so that many people left for America.

The rapid rise of Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries proves you don't need Swedes.

And India was held back by socialist policies its elite adopted from British intellectuals of the postwar Era. These policies were bad for UK and bad for India. UK sunk and India went nowhere.
But, look at the rise of India since the early 90s, and it's not a country to laugh at.

Of course, there is the problem of diversity. India's diversity is its richness, beauty, and color. It is also its paralyzing weakness, contentiousness, and frustration. But, maybe there will a rise of a new kind of Indian Nationalism which will unite the people together like never before. Then, it is a country to watch.

Also, many Indians are HUNGRY whereas the Scandanavians are only trying to hold onto what they have. Indians, from small businessmen to big enterprisers, have grand dreams. White Europeans no longer have the fire in the gut.

50 yrs from now, if India plays it right, it could be a superpower. Sweden will likely be 30% Muslim and paralyzed by dull liberal homogeneity of dumbass white thought.

lmiijduuei said...

Swedes, like Germans and Japanese, are not particularly high IQ. Rather, they have a culture of working well together and group cohesion and work ethic.
It's like the story of hare and tortoise. Tortoise won because it stuck to the race whereas the hare goofed off.

Just compare Germans and Russians. Same IQ. But different cultures. Germans developed a culture of thoroughness, pride in individual work, discipline, and efficiency. Russians developed a culture of bearish vodka drinking and dancing-on-the-table-ness. Poles are a little better but have been traditionally lazier than Germans.

Or compare American whites and Russian whites in the 19th century. American whites were individualistic, enterprising, inventive, full of confidence. They tamed a continent in a few decades and made their country #1 power in the world.
Russians had occupied Russia for much longer than American whites occupied America, but what did Russian whites do? The serfs just bowed before their masters and drank vodka. The elite just threw balls and drank vodka. Russians finally got to work under Stalin but had to forced like cattle. Once the coercion gave way to milder communism, everyone was slacking off again. Even after communism, most Russians would rather drink vodka and dance on tables than really work.

dave fordwych said...

"the further north you are on this planet you will likely have a higher standard of living"

And your explanation for Australia and New Zealand is?

Anonymous said...

The claim that Indians run the UAE economy is true in the sense that American Blacks were also running the economy of the antebellum south. That is they provided the labor input. A muslim Arab UAE citizen can kill a hindu Indian labourer in broad daylight and no court will convict him. At most, he will be obliged to pay danegeld to the victim's family.

Dan said...

Indian own quite a few companies in Dubai. Google Manu Chhabria.

rec1man said...

The educational system was set up in kerala around 1900, by the catholic missionaries since they found it useful to convert backward caste Hindus. About 30% of backward caste Hindu converted to xtianity. In response, Hindu Maharajss also set up public schools

The education system in kerala was set up before the commies took over
The private Hindu and catholic schools are very good, the public school system in kerala run by commie unions is horrible

The womens lib in kerala is solely among Hindu and Christian women.
Muslim women have no womens lib are locked up in Burkhas and produce 4 kids and are islamically divorced - talaked when they reach 35 and lose their looks and in the meantime they live in a polygamous islam harem

Kerala was rich when the Portuguese arrived and kerala was where the Portuguese wanted to go because of the spice trade

Kerala IQ is not noted for being high, except that due to the private school system, there is 90% literacy

Kerala is not too hot, actually in Summer, Delhi is hotter

Muslims are 33% by birth in kerala and by 2050, when this cohort grows up, the overall muslim population in kerala will be at least 33%

Anonymous said...

the produce a lot of writers though, no?

Why is a preponderance of women considered a "healthy gender ratio"?
as other have said female infanticide - through abortion or post birth murder - is not common in Kerla as it is, say in Rajsthan where the female to male is something lik 700 to 1000 -
Like all pagan cultures (europe before christianity) killing newborns is not considered murder.

rec1man said...

Hi Glossy,
The way to look at India is to compare it with medieval Christendom or current EU

In each linguistic state, about 5% are Brahmins who are the cognitive elite
They speak the local language but have a shared pan-Indian Sanskritic culture and are closer to other Brahmins from other states than non-Brahmins in the next street
One may sometime marry a fellow brahmin 2000km away, speaking another language, but never the neighbor in the next street of a different caste

Unlike the Pope, there is no single religious authority

Wherever the Hindu % drops or the Brahmin is weakened, you will find secessionist movements -

This shared cognitive elite, mostly Y Haplogroup R1A, is the glue and so most parts have some similarity in culture with lots of regional variances

I have found that by stereotyping by caste, I can usually predict the behavior pattern and or IQ


Other than brahmin castes do not have a pan-Indian presence and are mostly concentrated in 1 or 2 states
In other states some similar level caste occupies the ecological niche

The thing that keeps the brahmins together is fear of islam, internal and external

The linguistic states do not fly apart since the cognitive elite , brahmins , in most states is committed to the Union

ATBOTL said...

"Swedes, like Germans and Japanese, are not particularly high IQ."

Compared to who? Japan has the highest average IQ of any country. Germany and Sweden are near the top too.

"Rather, they have a culture of working well together and group cohesion and work ethic."

You are talking about a psychological trait called "conscientiousness." Germanic people have very high levels of this trait, as do Japanese. Conscientiousness explains much of the cultural differences between European countries.

kmfkvokem said...

"Swedes, like Germans and Japanese, are not particularly high IQ."

Compared to who? Japan has the highest average IQ of any country. Germany and Sweden are near the top too.


Look, we are talking of Natural IQ, not results on IQ tests.
Though much of one's IQ is inherited, at least 25% is surely socially conditioned--through cultural values or good education.

Possibly, social conditioning probably accounts for at least 10 pts on IQ tests--which is why blacks from stable families score higher than blacks kids from single mother families.

Clearly, a black kid raised in a good home will score higher on IQ than his twin raised in a rotten home. Even if blacks in general are less intelligent than whites, it stands to reason that social values and factors will affect IQ tests to some degree.

Japan has long been an education and test obsessed society. Cram schools are popular. Given that Japanese students study like crazy through much of their youth, their IQ tests will get an extra boost of about 5 pts due to extensive book learning and experience with test taking. Big deal. It doesn't mean they are naturally more smart. If Japanese kids were raised in Mongolia as herders, they would prolly score no higher than Mongols or Eskimos.

The NATURAL IQ of Japanese is probably the same as any other Asian or white person.
Japanese are not remarkably more intelligent, like the Jews are.
If you've come across East Asians, you notice they don't have the hallmarks possessed by truly naturally smart people--quick wit, brilliance, originality, elliptical way of seeing things. Jews have those qualities aplenty.
Asian and German IQ are sound and good but nothing special.

levi johnston said...

As rec1man notes, the higher income states have economies which are heavily based on resource extraction.

Comparatively, it appears the state's per capita income is right around average for an Indian one. It's really just unfortunate that Kerala has to be located in India.

Anonymous said...

Out of 1.1 billion, there are some smart indian. However, on average, they are not that smart (IQ ~ 82). But they love to talk, and Westerners love ppls who are articulate. In US, lawyers always got more respect than engineers. A quiet east asian seem so dull and square when compare to an average indian. Similiar to Black, this characteristic mask indian shortcomings. And ppls wonders why indian always underachieve: Education, health care, sports..........
Indian can talk the talk, but couldn't quite walk the walk.
They didn't underachieve.

Anonymous said...

Innovationa need more than IQ, the most innovative country title moved from culture to culture. Egyptian-Greek-Roman-Tang-Muslim countries.........US
Critical factors: Stable environment, rich and social Openness (middle age muslim society was much more open-minded than their europe counterpart). For japan, they file more patents than any european country, including Germany. So, what do that tell you?
But japan do have two weakness that stop them from being superpower. First, they are not really that open minded ppls, even in its heyday, 1980s, japan rarely allowed many foreigners to study/invest there, let alone becoming its citizen. This limit the some great talents from moving there.
Second, japanese women are not fully educated and used in formal economy. Most of them attended shortterm unv., and become full time housewives after marriage. The lost of productivity and brainpower of half of it population (muslim countries suffer the same problem) robbed japan any chance to become a true superpower.

Anonymous said...

Possibly, social conditioning probably accounts for at least 10 pts on IQ tests--which is why blacks from stable families score higher than blacks kids from single mother families.

Or maybe higher IQ leads to greater family stability?

Chicken, egg.

Egg, chicken.

Hmmm...

Anonymous said...

"Like all pagan cultures (europe before christianity) killing newborns is not considered murder."

Sure it is.

Forget newborns even abortion the Hindu scriptures condemn abortion as being on par with murder.

The same thing applies to Sikh scriptures (sikhs have the worst male female ratio of all religious groups in India).

It's another matter that most idiots who claim to be a follower of the said religions don't obey those things just like most self proclaimed Christians in the West also do abortion or fornicate before marriage etc.

Anonymous said...

<<>>

So how did these 82 IQ dumbasses come up with the concept of zero & the other numerals that were transmitted to Europe by the Arabs.

I am also intrigued how these dumbasses were able to have a massive cultural influence through out South East Asia.

You can see their epics like Mahabharata performed in Indonesia & the largest Hindu temple complex is in far away Cambodia I believe called Angkor Wat.

Indeed India seems to have culturally influenced the so called high IQ North East Asian countries like China & Japan than the other way around through Buddhism.

Can you show me any comparable achievements from the American blacks with their 85 IQ in science or maths?

Anonymous said...

Right. Indians are a great talkers, no doers. Which is why you never find Indians working as IT programmers or doctors or motel owners, but lots of Indians are lawyers or salesmen. Also, being a rather incapable group of people, nobody outsources to India anymore since Indians do such crappy work. In fact, all the IT outsourcing goes to low wage Eastern European countries and to China. Indians have completely failed to get any jobs outsourced to them. Cities like Bangalore and Hyderbad are decaying slums, filled with empty buildings and unemployed vagrants.

In the UAE, Indians are also never brought in as workers because they are incapable of doing any work. All the labor is done by the highly industrious and high IQ men of Eastern/Southern Europe and China.

In England, the surname Patel has become synonomous with crime and social decay. Almost every Chav gangster is named Patel or Mehta or Singh, but when was the last you met an English doctor named Patel? The white British, being sober and education oriented folk with strong families, are naturally appaled at the lack of respect for education and entrapranuership that the Indians have shown.

The comparison between UAE Indians and black slave laborers in the South is right on too. I mean, when was the last time you heard of an Indian owning a business in the UAE? Can Indians even run businesses? Back in the 1970s, lots of Patels came to the U.S. to run Motels. Being big spenders with no sense of thrift or hard work, they all went bankrupt. Today, all American Motels are Chinese-owned and Patel kids are thronging the welfare offices.

Anonymous said...

In all seriousness, Kerala is kept stagnant partly by its embrace of Communism.

People are definitely hardworking, education-oriented, diligent, thrifty, long term in orientation, and have strong families. All the traits that are conducive to an affluent society are highly present in Indians, probably even more than whites or NAMS. They just don't have anywhere to go to work or the opportunity to study at a good university. If they did, I guarantee they'd go ahead and better themselves. If you look at the Sikhs in Britain or Gujaratis in Africa, they were able to work their way up from common origins. I have a tough time accepting what Rushton, Lynn, HBD, and the rest of you people claim about Indians. This idea that tropical weather people are slouches is countered by Indians.

I hear a lot about low IQ, but Indians don't strike me as being dumb people. Maybe the mean IQ in India is lower than the West, but no way is it 81. The actual IQ for Indians, assuming good nutrtion and schooling, can't be too much lower than whites/East Asians.

If I had to identify a weak spot for India, I'd say that it seems to produce relatively few leaders and innovators - the type of people that can drive progress forward, get big things done, break the social lethargy, create opportunities, etc. The West seems to have an abundant number of these types. India, for all its strengths, seems to lack dynamic people that can jumpstart things and change the game.

Indian culture tends to be rather conformist and conservative, not to mention steeped in decades of socialism and centuries of feudalism and despotic imperialism. So maybe that explains the inability to produce dynamic people. I think it says a lot that Lakshmi Mittal had to go overseas to succeed in steel and that Dhirubhai Ambani spent decades fighting with India's socialist government so that he could expand Reliance Industries. How many bright entrapranuers are being kept down by the system and the culture? How many big thinkers, say Jagdish Bhagwati or Amartya Sen, are there waiting to emerge? I'd say a lot.

If India can nurture these type of people that can unleash India's vast human capital, things will get a lot better. So far though, India has done appalingly at this task. Only in IT, which is a new sector with a lot of foreign influence, do you see lots of creative people doing and dreaming novel ideas.

Anonymous said...

US/UK get the best of the best from india, indian seem to function just fine in white majority country. But they cannot rule themselve effectively, and repeatedly conquested by foreign powers. BTW, the REAL AVERAGE indian live in india and average IQ 82 seem reasonable if you had really visited india like i did. It is one filthy and corrupt country. Indian, if you got talent, help to rebuild your own country, rather than running to other countries.

Anonymous said...

No, stupid. The UK got Sikh villagers from rural Punjab, many of whom were of untouchable. Today their grandkids are earning and achieving at about the white British mean. They tend to be a successful, middle class model minority. The Gujaratis, who ancestors went to Africa as dirt poor laborers, are outperforming white British easily.

India's poverty is a consequence of despotic Muslim rule, British mercantilist rule, and the adoption of Western-derived socialist economic policy. Before the foreigners showed up, India was doing just fine.

Civilizationally, India was up there with China until the 1700s. At that point, it accounted for 25%of the world's economic ouput and was comparable to China. Indians have shown a capacity for productive civilization and accomplishment for all of modern history. I wouldn't expect you to know that though.

The reason many of you HBD/Lynn/Rushton people don't know this is because a large percentage of you are stupid and intellectually lazy. You haven't been out much, you haven't read anything, you may not know any history, etc. So you have a lot of dumb ideas that you pick up on Stormfront and American Renaissance and see Rushton's r-k theory as your gospel.

Please educate yourselves a bit more. Some of you are embarassingly dumb for people that like to obsess about IQ. Even us mentally retarded, 82 IQ Indians are whipping you in this debate.

Truth said...

"All the traits that are conducive to an affluent society are highly present in Indians, probably even more than whites or NAMS. They just don't have anywhere to go to work or the opportunity to study at a good university. If they did, I guarantee they'd go ahead and better themselves."

If all of the traits are present, why haven't they created more companies in which to work, or Universities in which to study?

Anonymous said...

"All the traits that are conducive to an affluent society are highly present in Indians, probably even more than whites or NAMS."

Oh man and Indians wonder why hbd bloggers are so ready to counter Indian myths about themselves. Indians might just have the biggest egos.

Anonymous said...

The christian missionaries found that the most effective way to sell christianity in India and especially kerala is to focus on the propoganda of christianity being an egalitarian religion and for social justice, with some missionaries going to borderline liberation theology

This message was sought to be spread by english medium schools
This struck gold in kerala, and about
30% of the backward castes converted to catholicism. The rest of the backward castes in kerala bought the egalitarian message but did not convert to christianity , instead they converted to its western cousin the most egalitarian communism

The kerala commies are almost entirely backward castes, with a few renegade upper castes as its leaders

The christian areas are heavily alcholic
The catholic church also uses kerala as its h1b pool for nuns and priests
In the west due to celibacy rules, there are very few new nuns and priests
In kerala, the catholic church pays poor kerala catholics, free college tuition and stipend if they agree to become priests

Catholic monasteries worldwide are infested by keralite nuns and priests

Due to the private school system, about 90% of keralites do attend high school

There is a statewide 10th grade exam that is hard to pass and similarly a statewide 12th grade exam, much harder to pass

Most keralites do seem to pass 10th grade and many do pass 12th grade exams

These are graded not at the high school,
but at the state capital

This leads me to beleive that given nutrition and education, kerala IQ is at least in the low 90s

Anonymous said...

Islamic Polygamy in kerala -
Polygamist societies have the problem of too many men and too few women
In the USA, polygamists solve the problem by expelling their teenage boys

In kerala, muslims solve this by the method of Love Jihad

The bait is a handsome muslim youth
He is well funded by the mosque
The target is middle class Hindu or Christian girls who are PC-multiculturalist-secularist, believing all religions are same

The handsome wealthy muslim youth first evinced interest in the target girl who creams her jeans
She then elopes with him and in the grip of her hormones converts to islam
This gets her outcasted from home

After a few weeks, the youth islamically divorces her , by saying talak, 3 times and the girl often pregnant by now, has nowhere to turn. At this time the local mullah agrees to rescue the girl by marrying her
After a few months as the mullahs wife, the mullah divorces her again and passes her onto some middle aged muslim men

In the meantime, the handsome muslim youth moves onto the next Hindu or Christian middle class girl

Anonymous said...

Excavation in kerala
-
More evidence unearthed at ancient port of Muziris
Pattanam, a small village located 25 km north of Kochi, is the new pilgrimage spot on the international archaeological map. This quiet place, archaeologists now confirm, was once the flourishing port known to the Romans as Muziris

Despite abundant references in Roman and Tamil texts, Muziris, the famous western trade post, remained elusive to archaeologists for long.

Dr. Cherian's team has found a multitude of pottery shards, including that of a Roman amphora, early Chera coins, turquoise glazed pottery and cameo blanks (cameos were popular jewellery in ancient Rome). These attest to the existence of an active habitation and trading activities.

Anonymous said...

According to Poseidonius, later reported in Strabo's Geography,[1] the monsoon wind system of the Indian Ocean was first sailed by Eudoxus of Cyzicus in 118 or 116 BC. Poseidonius said a shipwrecked sailor from India had been rescued in the Red Sea and taken to Ptolemy VIII in Alexandria. The unnamed Indian offered to guide Greek navigators to India. Ptolemy appointed Eudoxus of Cyzicus, who made two voyages from Egypt to India. The first, in 118 BC, was guided by the Indian sailor. After Eudoxus returned with a cargo of aromatics and precious stones a second voyage was undertaken in 116 BC. Eudoxus navigated the second voyage, sailing without a guide. Strabo, whose Geography is the main surviving source of the story, was skeptical about its truth. Modern scholarship tends to consider it relatively credible. During the 2nd century BC Greek and Indian ships met to trade at Arabian ports such as Aden (called Eudaemon by the Greeks). Attempts to sail beyond Aden were rare, discouraged, and involved a long and laborious coast-hugging journey. Navigators had long been aware of the monsoon winds. Indian ships used them to sail to Arabia, but no Greek ship had yet done so. For the Greeks to acquire the expertise of an Indian pilot meant the chance to bypass the Arabian ports and establish direct commercial links with India. Whether or not the story told by Poseidonius of a shipwrecked Indian pilot teaching Eudoxus about the monsoon winds is true, Greek ships were in fact soon using the monsoon winds to sail to India. By 50 BC there was a marked increase in the number of Greek and Roman ships sailing the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.[2]

Anonymous said...

Levi wrote - As rec1man notes, the higher income states have economies which are heavily based on resource extraction.
--

The highest income states are
1 . Gujurat - due to free market policies
It has no resource extraction and no IT

2 . Delhi - capital region, back office
no resource extraction, millions of central govt bureaucrats drawing a fat salary

2 . South Indian states in general due to better administration and IT / back office

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Periplus_of_the_Erythraean_Sea.jpg

Map of Roman trade with India

Anonymous said...

European traveller accounts of Vijayanagar in South India
-
The whole city was full of gardens, and because of them, as an Italian visitor in 1420, Nicolo Conti, writes, the circumference of the city was sixty miles. A later visitor was Paes, a Portuguese who came in 1522 after having visited the Italian cities of the Renaissance. The city of Vijayanagar, he says, is as "large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight"; it is full of charm and wonder with its innumerable lakes and waterways and fruit gardens. It is "the best-provided city in the world" and "everything abounds." The chambers of the palace were a mass of ivory, with roses and lotuses carved in ivory at the top--"it is so rich and beautiful that you would hardly find anywhere, another such."

rec1man said...

The kerala demography is as follows
Backward caste Hindus = 35%
Upper caste Hindus = 20%
Christians = 20%
Muslims = 25%

Muslims being the swing vote are courted by all parties and their price is freedom to indulge in islamic activities like rioting and setting off bomb blasts

Kerala muslims are responsible for 90% of the islamic bomb blasts all over India

Anonymous said...

In the recent Frederick Forsythe novel,
The Afghan, dealing with islamist terrorism, he notes that keralite muslims have been radicalised by the saudi wahabis and he makes one of the key villains, a keralite muslim

rec1man said...

Kerala has no manufacturing base as no one dares invest in Kerala- within 6 months strikes and go slow tactics will bring the industry to a grinding halt. Only government jobs are sought after as you need not work hard to earn your salary. No amount of inducements will work as industrialists know that when congress is in power, communists will instigate workers to strike and when communists are in power,


Having just come back from 3 week touring Tamil Nadu and Kerala it is very obvious the two states are miles apart. The infrastructure projects occurring in Tamil Nadu are bring it into the 21st century and the ability to travel on good roads all the way from Madras down to India's lands end at Kanniyakumari but then try travelling back up to Trivandrum and onto Kochi and its like travelling back onto unmade roads and sheer hell.

the citizens are well brainwashed by the unions to sit back and do nothing to get paid. Nookukooli, or something called a supervision-tax, is the most ridiculous concept, where local trade union members can charge you for doing work in your own yard if your property falls under their residing area. And they can demand payment for doing nothing but just being there !!

Anonymous said...

For those indian who repeadedly refuse to believe indian average iq is 82, please, please show me one study about iq of indian in INDIA above 80s. It would not be that difficult if that study exist, is it?

rec1man said...

Anon wrote - For those indian who repeadedly refuse to believe indian average iq is 82, please, please show me one study about iq of indian in INDIA above 80s. It would not be that difficult if that study exist, is it?
--

OK here it is
Long report follows

http://medind.nic.in/ibv/t04/i2/ibvt04i2p121.pdf


Original Articles, 2003
Pune Low Birth Weight Study – Cognitive Abilities and Educational
Performance at Twelve Years


This was a large scale study in Pune, with 180 low birth weight babies vs a control group of 90 normal weight babies
It was a longitudinal study over 12 years long uses Weschler’s Intelligence Scale - Revised
(WISC-R)(7):

Keep in mind, this is not caste selected, and not all upper castes are rich and not all lower castes are poor, so there could be upper caste babies among the malnourished and lower caste babies among the normal birth weight


Summary - For normal birth weight babies , weight over 2.5Kg or 5.5 lb, Mean IQ = 97.2
For moderate malnourished babies with birth weight between 1.5Kg to 2Kg, 3.3lb to 4.4lb, Mean IQ = 92.1
For severely malnourished babies with birth weight below 1.5kg , 3.3lb, Mean IQ = 86.1, and malnutrition in India is severe along with Iodine and micro-nutrient deficiency

Anonymous said...

Since you asked..............


1.) Lynn put the mean IQ of UK Indians at 96. This is consistent with stats that show Hindu Gujaratis and Sikh Punjabis performing near or above the white British mean. By the way, both groups are from non-select, dirt poor backgrounds. Especially the Punjabis, many of whom are untouchable by caste. Their kids and grandkids are doing just fine against the white British.

2.) Indian-American immigrant kids were found by AEI's Jason Richwine to have a mean IQ of 112. Against a East Asian mean of 106 and a white mean of 100. These kids represent a regression to a mean.

These 2 studies have the advantage of being done on well nourished Indians. The 82 IQ study focused primarily on people in abject squalor and who were completely malnourished.

Face it buddy. The data look good.

rec1man said...

Until recently there were no calculators and cash registers, and Indian store clerks and roadside vendors had to do math in their heads to make change and calculate price

rec1man said...

In 2008, I had posted an earlier version of the Pune malnutrition vs IQ study which had IQ data for 6 year old kids

The control group came in at 102 IQ, the moderately malnourished came in at 94 IQ

Anonymous said...

My goddess, i asked for a study about indian in INDIA, not indian in UK/US. Everybody know that the cream of india live aboard.

For a population of 1.1 billion, with average iq 82, standard deviation of about 15-16, there are about 2.5% indian in the world with over iq of 112. There are about 28.5 million of indian with iq over 112. What it mean is even there are lot of smart indian, the average indian is not. And don't reply with the bullcrap about indian have a larger standard deviation in iq, since none of those studies show anything like that.

rec1man said...

Anon wrote - My goddess, i asked for a study about indian in INDIA, not indian in UK/US. Everybody know that the cream of india live aboard.
--

I shall point you to the Pune Low Birth Weight Study, which compared 200 low birth weight kids vs normal weight control kids

At age 6, Normal Kids = 101IQ
Low Birth Weight kids = 94 IQ

At age 12, Normal kids = 97 IQ,
Low Birth weight kids = 92 IQ


report at age 12 = http://medind.nic.in/ibv/t04/i2/ibvt04i2p121.pdf

report at age 6 = http://www.indianpediatrics.net/july1999/july-669-676.htm

--

Social and Environmental Assessment

Thirty per cent of the mothers had some degree of college education, whereas one per cent of the mothers were illiterate. Five per cent of the children lived in independent bungalows and the rest in lower and middle class localities. Most of the children (91 %) came from middle or lower middle class families (SES II or III). Fifty six per cent of the children lived in overcrowded houses.

Anonymous said...

Oh well, let me point out why your study didn't mean a whole lot.
First, this is not a study of India population, but a population of an indian city, PUNE. I don't think you need me to remind you that Pune have literacy rate is about 81%, way higher than average indian literacy rate of 61%.

Second, IQ score of children are useless as ppl get older their iq score drop back to their natural level, there are countless studies (Steven Levitt carried out one of those) show that African american kids score the same as white kids, but their score drop year after year as they grow up until the difference between two groups stablize at about 15 iq point. Your example actually show the same tendency(101->97, 94->92).

So, can you give me a more representative study about how indian iq is above 82? if it exist at all?

Anonymous said...

Forest tribal kids near Pune were tested for IQ and out of 2200 kids, 60 kids passed Mensa

Meaning 3% scored over 130IQ

For comparison, among whites, 3% pass Mensa too, meaning that this group of tribals, despite severe malnourishment score at white levels

A caveat, there are hundreds of tribes and very likely IQ will vary from tribe to tribe
DNA shows some tribes have been endogamous for 30,000 years

This set of tribals is called Madia Gond, they carry Y-Haplogroup P, which is the father of R and great-grand father of R1A and R1B
( upper castes and Europeans )

About 30 years ago, I saw reports that among many tribal groups, a sizeable number was scoring near upper caste levels, whereas untouchables scored very far below upper caste levels

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/making-them-tribal-ambassadors-first-of-its-kind-training-centre-takes-off/253960/

neil craig said...

Entirely off the point but on of my hobbyhorses - Kerala has a truly enormous background radiation level (260 mSv is 170 times the average, 26 times Chernobyl & 17 times the official safe maximum):

"..person living in Ramsar for one year can be in excess of 260 mSv ... There are more than nine hot springs in the area with different concentrations of radioisotopes, and these are used as spas by locals and tourists. This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area and even possibly has made them slightly more radioresistant, which is puzzling and has been called "radiation paradox" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran#Radioactivity

Paradox - A politically incorrect result of observation

rec1man said...

neil craig, Kerala has huge radio-active thorium deposits

rec1man said...

Steve sailer wrote - The results Flynn and Dickens came up with are quite curious. They found strikingly different black IQs at different ages:

"95.4 at age 4, 90.5 at age 12, 87.0 at age 18"

--

For black children there is a 3 IQ drop between ages 12 and 18, using the same 3 IQ drop for normal weight Indian kids would change the 97 IQ at age 12 to 94 IQ at age 18

Anonymous said...

For that individual that mentions a regression to the mean of Indian IQ, let me educate you alittle more on the Pune nutritional study. 1) Indian IQ at age 6 is 102. This score is too much for the average 6 year old, thus it is obvious that it is the (environmental IQ) causing this large gain in IQ. At 12 years old, the environmental IQ starts to rub off, leaving the 12 year old with an IQ of 97. No one knows what the true Indian IQ will be like in a century or so, thus it is safe to assume that since the environmental effects have worn off, the true IQ for a 12 year old indian child is 97, with decent nutrition and all. At 12 years old, the brain is not fully developed, thus we must wait till age 24 to see what IQ the child will end up with.

It is highly likely that the IQ will rise or decrease by a bit. When environmental factors rub off, it is up to genetics to determine the IQ. So since the environmental IQ of the Indian child has rubbed off, a 12 year old has yet reached their potential since the brain matures up to age 24. We must have a follow up at age 18 and or 24. This will give us a good estimation on Indian IQ, but it is better to see the Flynn Effect.

Mridul said...

anyone know about the term about 'divide and rule'.Cause that is what is truly happening in here.By reading all these comments I understood one thing Indians hate Indians.So my humble request to fellow Indians is that don't fall again.We already gave up two centuries to earn freedom.

Anonymous said...

Kerala has high average compared to any state in India,regionally a survey is impractical as this population is distributed all over the country and also that hbd has average IQ or higher in rather urban settlements but rural settlement bring the stats down.moreover the wealth stats is comparatively very high towards Kerala due to the economical income across tourism,beverage corp.,International exchange.
tourism in hbd is quite high but the int. exchange is nowhere comparable.