Kerala can never ignore the immense contribution of the Left movement in making it one of the most socially progressive places in the world. There have been huge investments in education that have produced a 95 percent literacy rate, the highest in India, and a universal health care system. These moderate socialist reforms also proved highly successful. Therefore, the reforms introduced by the communist governments in Kerala were moderately socialist. This reliance on the people’s opinions created what is called a “benevolent” communist government, but it also made it difficult to enact radical reforms. Party leaders, like E.MS Namboodiripad, didn’t support the idea of using military units to stay in power because it might give out a nasty portrayal of the CPI on a global stage. ![]() Communist Party of India’s 1957 constitution stated it might allow the existence of opposing parties. ![]() Unlike many other communist governments, it did not crush political dissent. The Communist Party in Kerala is exclusive because it has always functioned under the conditions of a liberal democracy, counting on success in multi-party elections to stay in power. But the story of communism in Kerala is absolutely different from that of the communist regimes existing elsewhere in the world, instead of transforming itself into an autocratic force, Kerala’s Communists embraced electoral politics and since 1957 are frequently voted into power. The socialist movement swept through one third of the globe by the second half of 20th century, eventually waned by stagnant economies, capitalist pressurisation and resistance from its own people. 2017 also marked sixty years of India’s first democratically elected communist government coming into power in Kerala. ![]() In October 2017, exactly a century after Russian revolution, an article was published in The Washington Post and described Kerala, a southern Indian state “one of the few places on earth where a communist can still dream”.
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