THE KERALA MODEL: ITS CENTRAL TENDENCY AND THE OUTLIER" 89 over the last decade have created a widespread awakening in the fishing community which has cut across religious barriers anc? narrow political considerations. These actions have already begun to make significant changes in the socio-economic conditions of the community. This is a proposition which needs to be further studied and verified. CONCLUSIONS Can another state in India today replicate the Kerala model? If a state government provides the financial allocations for particular public provisions that are essential to ensure a high quality of life— schools, health centres, public distribution systems for essential items etc.—will it ensure that deprived sections of the population will take advantage of them and raise their standards of living? Does the experience of differential access and use of the 'support-led security* strategy of Kerala provide any clue about the nature of the challenge before those who wish to emulate the Kerala model? The demonstrated success of a wide range of states (Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, China, Chile to name but a few) together with the influential writings of social scientists, seemed to have created a 'paradigm shift* among large sections of public opinion on how a state can provide a high quality of life for people. The earlier opinion that it can be achieved only by increases in the overall affluence of society has been replaced by the belief that public action is indispensable for social security and capability building. Our analysis of Kerala State—the central tendency as well as the context and condition of the outlier—serves to highlight another important, but less emphasised facet in this paradigm shift. Public action guaranteeing widespread access to the basic facilities required to attain a high quality of life, in the form of activities of the state alone, can never be complete without an adequate level of genuine people's participation in the form of collaborative and/or adversarial collective action. It really does not matter which comes first—the facilities or the collective^ction. The point is that without the latter, even radical and committed action by the state alone will remain a sterile challenge? For those who wish to emulate the 'Kerala model* we consider this to be the main insight from this paper. REFERENCES Centre for Development Studies, Poverty, Unemployment and Development Policy, Untied Nations, New York, 1975. J. Dreze & A. Sen, Hunger and Public Action, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1993.