Kerala was in the national news for two reasons, first was the brazen dacoity at Sabarimala Shrine of Lord Ayyappa, orchestrated by the Marxist-controlled Devaswom Board, an organized temple loot, the first of its kind in India. Next came the proclamation that Kerala had eradicated ‘extreme poverty’, first by any State in India. Perhaps nowhere else in the world has any government announced that it had eradicated ‘extreme poverty’.

While there is no definition of what constitutes ‘extreme poverty’, by any national or international body, the fact remains that by making the announcement, the Marxist government has stolen a march over all its political rivals. It is literally a tour de force, and the Chief Minister deserves kudos, as stunned political rivals are flummoxed by this sleight of hand performance!

For the beleaguered Marxist government, this comes as a welcome relief after facing a string of accusations, including gold scam, corruption scandals, and looting of temple wealth and land. This will be the self-congratulatory banner that will be held aloft by team Pinarayi, claiming it as a global first, to decimate a lacklustre Opposition, in the coming 2026 elections.

There is no precise yardstick as to what constitutes ‘extreme poverty’, even the Kerala government has not defined as to how they computed the various parameters and arrived at this conclusion. But one thing is certain, Kerala does not have the stark poverty that one sees in many other States. Kerala’s bountiful affluence derived from the Gulf NRI’s has been prudently invested in real estate, residential and commercial buildings, glitzy malls, opulent jewellery showrooms, textile showrooms, and innumerable eateries and bakeries, spread out from Kasaragod to Parasala. This apparent veneer of prosperity, accentuated by lavish liquor consumption and youth revelling in drugs of all kinds, glosses over the hardships faced by many families in their day-to-day existence.

A casual visit to pilgrimage centres like Guruvayur or any other places of worship reveals the large number of destitutes and homeless elderly people, depending on Annadanam, and sleeping on shop pavements. Lottery sellers are all very old people, literally wallowing in extreme poverty and struggling to eke out a decent living.

No doubt, it is impossible for any government anywhere in the world to wipe out every tear from every eye. For example, even in supposedly advanced countries like Europe, in 2024, 93.3 million people in the EU were at risk of poverty or social exclusion; this was equivalent to 21.0% of the EU population. Eurostat's online publication, Living Conditions in Europe, focuses on people at Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion (AROPE), which is not dependent strictly on a household’s composition and level of income, as it may also reflect joblessness, low work intensity, working status, or a range of other socio-economic characteristics. Over one in five people in the European Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2024, according to the latest Eurostat figures. In the past three years, at least 11 EU countries have seen an increase in poverty levels. Women and young adults often face poverty or social exclusion.

Bulgaria (30.3%), Romania (27.9%), and Greece (26.9%) reported the highest shares of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion. France has also registered strong numbers, with the poverty rate, which rose from 14.4% in 2022 to 15.4% in 2023, according to France's statistics bureau, the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). Women, and young adults aged between 18 and 24, people with a low level of educational attainment and unemployed people were also, on average, more likely to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2024 than other groups within the EU population.

In the US, approximately 37 to 41 million people lived below the poverty line in 2023, representing about 11–12.5% of the population. Factors like income inequality and the inadequacy of the official poverty measure (which doesn't account for modern costs) contribute to this high poverty rate, despite the US being the wealthiest nation by GDP. Overall, in 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau reported 37.9 million people (11.6% of the population) living in poverty, though another source using the American Community Survey reported 40.8 million (12.5%) in 2023. The U.S. government uses income to measure poverty. A family of four needs more than $30,000 a year to afford basic necessities.

The UN computes poverty primarily through a monetary measurement using an international poverty line, which is updated periodically to reflect changes in purchasing power parity (PPP). It also uses the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to measure non-monetary deprivations in areas like health, education, and living standards, providing a more complete picture of poverty beyond income alone. For the monetary approach, it establishes a threshold income, like the updated extreme poverty line of $3.00 per person per day, and compares each person's income or consumption against it.

In Kerala, no survey whatsoever was conducted, but a thundering claim was made that the eradication of extreme poverty was accomplished. Maybe it is just hyperbole, but it has become a fait accompli. The "IMF poverty line" is not a standard term, but refers to the World Bank's International Poverty Line (IPL), which has been updated to $3.00 per day in 2021 PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) terms, replacing the previous $2.15 line. This new line is used to measure extreme poverty globally and helps the World Bank track progress toward its goal of reducing extreme poverty to less than 3% by 2030. But Kerala’s politicians are claiming that they have totally eradicated extreme poverty by 2024 itself!

Catherine Ponder in The Prosperity Commandments states “Thou shalt not speak words of failure, poverty, unhappiness or disease”.

The author is former Director General of National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics