72 SOCIAL SCIENTIST ensuring of minimum wages and the improvement of working conditions gave a big fillip to the physical conditions of life and also created a great upsurge and assertion of self-respect and dignity among the vast masses of the agricultural labourers and small peasants in Kerala. The success of agricultural labour in safeguarding their rights and enhancing their social welfare had a very strong demonstration effect among other occupational groupings both in the agrarian and traditional industrial sectors. The success of the toddy tappers, the cashew and coir workers, the beedi rollers, to name a few, in undertaking adversarial collective action which resulted in enhancing their socio-economic position are examples of these initiatives. They resorted to a variety of measures and pressures to maintain and expand the control they exercised in their respective occupations preventing loss of income and employment. The outcome of this pressure from below was that the state had to undertake various 'protectionist* measures. For example, it curbed mechanisation in the coir processing sector to prevent the large-scale displacement of low paid women coir workers. The state was also compelled to support the organisational efforts of the workers such as the cooperatives of the beedi workers by providing credit and assurances of supply of raw materials at concessional rates. The state also had to recognise the rights of self-employed workers like toddy-tappers to form trade unions which greatly enhanced their 'exchange entitlements'. The politicisation and awareness generated by these workers struggles against oppressive socio-economic forces not only protected their occupations and prevented a drastic fall in their incomes, it also resulted in the generation of well articulated demands from the communities for the expansion of social services which contributed to their basic needs of life—food, education, health and housing. The higher quality of life in Kerala is thus not merely the result of provisioning of services by the state in the form of physical facilities: schools, health centres, fair price shops, metalled roads, post offices, public transportation etc. It is equally important to recognise the growth of awareness among the masses and collective action by them to ensure that these facilities are utilised fully and well. The results of such a pattern of development are highlighted in the following indicators: a generally high literacy rate and more particularly a high female literacy rate; a low infant mortality rate; lower population growth rates and high life expectancies; and greater accessibility to essential services like health, water, electricity, public distribution shops, roads etc. These indicators are important because they point to attributes which must be widely available to, experienced by, a large section of