What Happened to Traditional Illam’s of Kerala?

If you had asked this question to great economist Joseph Shumpeter he would have suggested that they are the victims of the ‘creative destruction’. He suggested the idea of ‘creative destruction’ as the new technology emerges; old get replaced with new one. For example, before the advent of industrial revolution, British society was dominated by aristocracies and local elite whose main source of income was form landholdings. With the arrival industrial revolution, new system emerged with new workers, new output and life style which made agriculture less profitable as workers moved to industries causing wages to rise. Thus, they replaced with new system. Similar development can be seen in kerala also. With the economic prosperity brought about globalization and subsequent migration of labor to other parts of the world especially to gulf regions, considerable change in the socio-economic profile of the people occurred. This brought about a paradigm shift in the socio-economic perspective as well as attitude of the people in complete contrast with the era of Illams. For instance, while the vast stretches of farm land under the ownership of the illam in the remote areas away from the roads were considered to be a matter of prestige during the   glorious period of illams, today what matters is barren land often close to National Highways which can be used for realty business. This apathy to agriculture generated by the socio-economic freedom unleashed by the economic prosperity also made agriculture not only less economically attractive as happened in Britain but also made it tenuous to keep people under serfdom. In the past, while illams saved as much money as possible in their shelves and thereby saved for the future, today people are living with credit cards and thereby dis-saving for the future. Illams were not trained as well as accustomed to this type of socio-economic storm and therefore, they were sidelined. Of course, I do not believe that this destruction is fully creative, but partially as it enabled people to stand on their own legs, at the same time it has caused considerable destruction to the agriculture, health of the people and  as well as the ecology. Thus, illams are victims of a partially destructive and partially constructive destruction.