Regional and Cultural Context

Regional and Cultural Context

Tamil Nadu, our place of focus, is the southern-most state of India, a dichotomy of agricultural focus and rapid industrialization. The state has the highest number of business enterprises in India, with one of the highest literacy rates in the country. Despite significant development, increasing urbanization is producing an ever-widening gap between rural and urban areas in the areas of education, health care, and poverty. Historically, multiple empires have governed the area of Tamil Nadu, including the British, French, and Dutch. In the last half-century ethnic conflict has caused an influx of many Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka; the political atmosphere of the region was especially influenced by this in the 1970’s and 1980’s, as well as in recent years due to the brutal Sri Lankan civil war that has only just recently come to resolution.

The Tamil Nadu region today fulfills the role of India’s leading producer of agricultural products. Important crops include produce such as bananas, tapioca, mango, sapota, as well as flowers, natural rubber, coconut, groundnut, coffee, tea, sugarcane, livestock, poultry, and fish. The agrarian sector, however, is heavily dependent on monsoons, and is thus prone to severe drought when these rains do not come in sufficient supply. As a result there has been recent development towards industrialization and manufacturing, especially in textiles, automobiles, electronics, and software. This only further raises concerns about the future of food security in the region, especially in the wake of the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004 that caused the death of 8,000 people in Tamil Nadu. Access to water and land continue to be basic fundamental needs, and these are tangible issues that have been the recent focus of aid and development. To try and create jobs for its rural citizens, the government of Tamil Nadu passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 2005. Though NREGA guarantees 100 days of labor for every rural citizen—usually working on infrastructure projects—the implementation of the act has been inadequate.