Take the Kerala story with a pinch of salt. Kerala model is loved by the Indian left and is seen as competing model for right&#x27;s Gujarat model. The state was ruled by communists for long time but almost all parties focused on redistribution of wealth including forcibly taking away people&#x27;s land and giving it away to others. Over years economists like Amartya Sen have spoken about the model using it to demand that Indian government focus on redistribution.<p>There are pretty good counter arguments against Kerala Model too as outlined by Prof. Bhagvati in his book &quot;Why growth matters&quot;.<p>Kerala in 18th century was ruled by a king named Marthanda Varma who focused on trade. Unlike other states his lowered taxes, invested extensively in building trade routes, waterways etc. Through some clever ideas he also made his kingdom war-proof. This was the period during which Kerala bloomed economically. By the time British colonized India Kerala was already far superior in health,economy and education compared to other states which are ravaged by war, British plunder etc. (British could not plunder Travancore Kingdom in Kerala as much as they would have liked compared to say Kolkata which was another trade port.)<p>Since 1947 to 2016 Kerala&#x27;s progress on most parameters is pretty slow despite huge government spending. Kerala spends 7 times more on public health per capita than Punjab to get results only marginally better than Punjab. Despite having the highest per capita government spending on health, Kerala has even higher private expenditure on health than most other states to get results only marginally better than other states.<p>Despite the focus on redistribution Kerala has highest income inequality in the country.