A judgement of "sufficient resources" is often set as a behavioral question, "How much is enough?" with no measurable answer. In the context of human sustainability, however, sufficiency may be measured. It is easily shown that a certain level of well-being is necessary before moms and dads will voluntarily choose to limit their family sizes. In this analysis, both North America and Kerala have achieved sufficient well-being to cause small family choices. The Kerala achievement of zero population growth provides us with a measure of resources sufficient for sustainability called the Kerala benchmark.

Let us think. Given a condition of sufficient resources in Kerala, surely there is also a condition of sufficient resources in India. The third set of bar charts above begs the question, "Why is Indian Well-being so small?"

Indian Paradox

While considering the equally low levels of Earth resource use in India and in Kerala, we observe the much higher levels of well-being in Kerala. Common sense judgement informs us that consumption must be higher (as in North America and world wide) in order for the well-being to be so high. Here we experience the Indian paradox---common sense telling us to deny our observation of the much higher well-being in Kerala.

A thoroughly understood answer to the following question shifts both the Earth paradox and the Indian paradox into useful paradigms---useful to allow sustainability and a good life for our grand children. Against the background of similar history and culture, and the background of the same per capita taking from the ecosystem within India,our question has become: What has caused the higher well-being in Kerala?

A first step in both viewing and understanding our answers is to place Kerala within the deep historical context of India. This context began before what is usually called history, certainly before any well recorded history. We began from a creation history, a creation history which displays crucially different relationships between men and women. We will follow the lead of Pearl Buck, "The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between its men and women." (Raju)
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