Guess why so few Keralites are hire-able in companies outside Kerala?
They may know to read and write, but for the rest, they are bad. Even IIT enrolments are low from Kerala.
Reading and writing is not everything. A state with half its population full of illiterates and a few million talented businessmen will do much better than another state with all its people literate, and not many good businessmen running enterprises.
Oh and about the literacy... thank the Christian school networks, not the Communists.