The recent elections to the Kerala State Legislative Assembly brought forth one unpalatable truth — few voters were able to roll the dice in favour of development. Thanks to a lacklustre campaign by political parties, who chose to focus on mud-slinging and personality-based issues, voters were swayed to vote for faces and reputations, rather than consequences.

The Kerala media — in its myriad avatars, like print, TV channels, online streams — were only too quick to fall in line. Thus, reality shows quickly metamorphosed into electoral catechisms, and talk show anchors ruled the day, spouting empty wisdom and vapid bantering.

What a pity for a State that is ideally poised to plunge into a new development divide. As a State with limited industrial possibilities, Kerala should be plugging into non-traditional, alternative avenues of socioeconomic growth — an idea that not one political party espoused during the recent electioneering.

Specifically, Kerala needs to pursue the ‘Creative Economy' — the collection of industries dedicated to the production of culture and heritage, such as traditional and folk arts; performing and visual arts; print, TV, radio and digitised media, and functional creations like architecture, jewellery and interior design. Creative goods and services include arts and crafts, audiovisuals, books, design work, films, music, new media, printed media, visual and performing arts, and creative services — all of which are in abundance in industrially lackadaisical Kerala.

According to the Creative Economy Report 2010, produced jointly by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), global exports of creative goods and services more than doubled between 2002 and 2008. The total value of these exports reached $592 billion in 2008, and the growth rate of the industry over that six-year period averaged 14 per cent.

And this fact should cheer the heart of anyone with a mobile phone: “75 per cent of the world's 4 billion mobile phones are in use in developing countries and greater efforts [are needed] to expand broadband Internet to such nations, as marketing and distribution of creative goods are increasingly based on this technology.”

The Creative Economy Report 2010 report cited examples of creative economic successes, such as soap operas in Mexico and Brazil, the film industries in Nigeria (labelled ‘Nollywood,' whose annual worth was $2.75 billion off some 1,000 films a year, ranking third after the United States and India in terms of movie production), India (Bollywood), reggae music in Jamaica and carnivals in Brazil and the Caribbean.

Cultural production

The report also notes the need for creative economies to expand into every level of society, and to ensure that cultural production does not remain in the hands of the elite, intellectual classes in society.

In this respect, Kerala is eminently poised to tap into the world of creation. Given its glorious tradition of egalitarianism and inclusive politics of public action, Kerala would do well to harness the power of the creative economy.

(The writer can be contacted at: >kgkumar@gmail.com )

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