Calling the believers

Set up to train one in every home to handle the computer, Kerala IT Mission8217;s 8216;Akshaya Project8217; found an unlikely synergy here8212;in a set of unassuming men working out of a rusty collectorate. Led by then district collector Sivasankar, an engineer with the IT Mission who migrated to the IAS, the team worked with a motivation rarely seen in government. For long in the radar of eager-to-please ministers, the patronage-driven district has had its share of bright administrators. What is new in Malappuram, to borrow our PM8217;s favourite phrase, 8216;8216;is an idea whose time has come.8217;8217;

With elections in the offing, party flags, green to red and saffron to tricolour, will soon be flying high here but none would dwarf the phone tower. People have evidently grown tired of politicians of every kind8212; Islam-driven, Islam-wooing and Islam-hating. Strange for a place that once had near religious reverence for political heroes like the late C.H. Mohammed Koya. It is the uneasy combo-rule of the Muslim League and the Left that created this district in 1969. From then on politicians gave the place lots of politics but little else. In 37 years no new institution worth the name came up here. Pet district of successive education ministers, Malappuram in north Kerala, never thought big enough to bid for an IIT. The proposed central university for Ayurveda is still awaiting clearance.

MEANWHILE people were being constantly led into developmental hypochondria. The keyword in the politico-speak was 8216;8216;neglect8217;8217;. The state neglects the district, the centre neglects the state and now, the Western World is out to get Islam. Amidst this cacophony, men found jobs in the Middle East and started sending home money.

With this the leaders found a new cash-rich neglected sector to tap8212;8216;8216;the poor NRIs sweating it out in the Arab desert.8217;8217; Nothing of course was done to channelise remittances or build assets. So people fended for themselves. With a commercial culture dating back to centuries before Vasco da Gama came, this Malabar region doesn8217;t need lessons in trading. With money flowing in those who could, turned to trade and went on a start-up spree and the rest became avid consumers.

Every twenty minutes or so on the highway, a cluster of shops pops up in the middle of breathtaking greenery. A furniture company in Kottakkal called 8216;8216;Tiptop8217;8217; that claims to be Asia8217;s biggest has a floor space of 36,000 sq ft across 8 floors linked by a capsule lift. You drive out of single streets with many jewelers into small towns with many hospitals.

Perinthalmanna Town has four super speciality hospitals. Malappuram is way up in lifestyle diseases. Eateries abound that mostly serve you what you ought not to touch from viscous fruit drinks named after Sharjah and Dubai to a Malappuram speciality called Broast, a full chicken dish that should excite Obelix, the boar-eating friend of Asterix.

More mosques have been built than hospitals, more showrooms than schools. In the middle of nowhere stands fairytale houses, you can only reach on a four-wheel drive jeep. Incidentally, yet another small town here, Mongam has the largest sale of jeeps in the country. Bank after bank has come here chasing remittances that grew to

Rs 1,682 crore for the year ending March, 2004. The figure dropped to Rs 1,301 crore last year making little evident dent on liquidity. With the drop in interest rates, says a banker, the hawala share must have gone up.

There is a booming gray market for big brand look-alikes to sundry gadgetry and now computer accessories for the neo-e-literates. Economic offences exceed social ones. Hindu-Muslim rivalry is uncommon.

THERE is more tension within the holier-than-each other Islamists. Even this gets played out in this football-crazy region like an exhibition match. No lasting loyalties. The post-modern activists work for one group by the day and moonlight for another. The Hindus haven8217;t been left out of the developmental fast track. Ayurveda to Adharvaveda flourish here.

While Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala has long been a globally known ayurveda centre, the local Namboodiris are reinventing an age-old career. There are young Brahmins who earn over

Rs 1,00,000 a month out of vedic rites and rituals. Needless to say the prosperous clientele that seeks spiritual solutions includes non-Hindus.

Not so much religion as a certain resistance to authority drove the region8217;s history from the days of Moplah Rebellion in 1921, says

P. Mohammad, a chronicler of local lore. Today people may not actually defy but seem a bit wary of officialdom. Those who can, pay their way through the bureaucratic maze. The rest keep off. The ice might be finally melting with the new administrator, no longer tough and evasive but smart and even friendly. The administration owes its recent success to the relationship it built up with the local bodies.

ONCE dysfunctional and perennially broke, the state8217;s panchayats and municipalities were revived by the last Left government8217;s People8217;s Planning Scheme. The much-needed money came and with it sharper public gaze.

Some of the state8217;s finest panchayats are in Malappuram. Politics of every kind seems to work in decentralised doses. Muslim League8217;s twenty-something Shahina headed her panchayat as well as CPIM8217;s Kamala, a retired school teacher runs hers now. Some local bodies are going upscale.

Malappuram District Panchayat has raised Rs 13 crore to rebuild the Manjeri government hospital, which records Asia8217;s largest number of child deliveries. The project includes a shopping complex to cross-subsidise the hospital. When the good administrator gets the local politician on his side a lot gets done. Sometimes an awesome lot. Who could have imagined that Kottakunnu, a hilltop once home to reptiles and hooch brewers, could be cleared for an art gallery, amusement park and an open-air theatre? Here a 10,000-strong crowd sat quietly through a two and a half hour-long light and sound show on M.T. Vasudevan Nair8217;s literary characters. The next day some from the audience were spotted in the town8217;s bookstores looking for the author8217;s new titles.

It would take a hugely dumb politics to rollback this new Malappuram.