Kerala

Keralam’s Left Prepares To Defend Social Programs From New Government

June 30, 2026 Abdul Rahman, Breakthrough News. Organize! India, Kerala, Left Movements, Neoliberalism, Socialism

The left parties in India’s Keralam say they are laying the groundwork to launch mass struggles in defense of the state’s public sector and welfare system. As Keralam’s newly elected centrist government begins to push neoliberal economic policies, the state’s left says it will never accept the privatization of its public services. The various constituents of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) have already taken to the streets in the state to oppose some of the policy initiatives of the newly elected government, calling them contrary to the general political consensus of the state, which is rooted in welfarism.

Kerala’s Red Star Still Shines

May 8, 2026 Nitheesh Narayanan and Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Communism, Elections, India, Kerala

Every five years, the electorate in Kerala goes to the polls to elect a new state government. One of twenty-eight states in India, Kerala has a population of 35 million and has been governed by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) for the past decade. On May 4, the Election Commission of India announced that the LDF won only 35 seats of the 140 for the legislature and that the LDF’s longtime adversary, the United Democratic Front (UDF), won the election with 102 seats. It would have been a historic victory had the LDF prevailed because no front has won three consecutive elections in Kerala – a state with a highly educated and politically divided population.

Kerala Has Abolished Extreme Poverty

December 12, 2025 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. Strategize! India, Kerala, Poverty Eradication, Socialism

On 1 November 2025, the south-western Indian state of Kerala – home to 34 million people – was declared free from extreme poverty by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Kerala is one of the few places in the world to have eradicated extreme poverty, following China, which announced in 2022 that it had eradicated extreme poverty nationwide. Kerala’s achievement is significant for two reasons. First, in a country where hundreds of millions of people still live in poverty, Kerala is the only one of India’s twenty-eight states and eight union territories to have overcome extreme poverty.

Kerala Becomes First Indian State To Eradicate Extreme Poverty

November 5, 2025 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. Create! India, Kerala, Marxism, Poverty

On Saturday, November 1, India’s southern state of Kerala officially declared itself free of extreme poverty. This makes the left-ruled state the first and only state in the country to achieve such a milestone. Announcing the achievement during a session of the state’s legislative assembly, left leader and Chief Minister of the state Pinarayi Vijayan called it a “historic and proud moment” for the state and its people and hoped that “our experiments will become a model that states in the country can benefit from.” India has the world’s largest population living in extreme poverty, as per the data released by the World Bank last year.

Communist-Led Kerala Is Eradicating Extreme Poverty

May 27, 2025 Atul Chandra, People's Dispatch. Create! India, Kerala, Poverty, Socialism

In a region too often consumed by the drums of war, particularly between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan, the importance of a sustained ceasefire cannot be overstated. While military skirmishes and nationalistic posturing capture headlines, they divert critical attention and resources from the real battles against poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and public health crises. A nation’s greatness lies not in its arsenal but in the well-being of its people. The ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan in May 2025 offers an opportunity to reimagine national priorities, shifting focus from border conflicts to building equitable and just societies.

Kerala’s Healthcare Revolution: A Triumph Over Corporate Greed

February 18, 2025 Anusha Paul, People's Dispatch. Create! Capitalism, Corporate greed, Health Care, India, Kerala, Privatization, Public ownership

The New Indian Express reported on February 10, 2025, that Kerala has seen the closure of 99 private hospitals since 2011, citing the data from the Kerala Private Hospital Association (KPHA). The association believes this number is a conservative estimate, with the actual figure likely much higher. Hussain Koya Thangal, President of the Kerala Private Hospital Association (KPHA), emphasized that while the cost of treatment has remained relatively stable, the financial burden of maintaining infrastructure and running hospitals has increased significantly.

25 Years Of Kerala’s ‘People’s Plan’

September 20, 2021 Vyshakh T, People's Dispatch. Create! COVID-19, India, Kerala, Marxism, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) of the south Indian State of Kerala, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), came to power for the second consecutive time in April this year, securing 99 out of 140 seats in the State Legislative Assembly. This victory broke a 40-year-old trend of incumbents losing the elections. One of the key factors behind this victory was the successful response of the government to natural disasters, such as floods, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The highlight of this response was a community-centered approach with thorough people’s participation. People’s participation has been a feature of many other important initiatives in the State too. The ‘Public Library Movement’ helped set up reading rooms and little libraries while the ‘Literacy Movement’ contributed to Kerala becoming the most literate State in the country.

In Kerala, The Present Is Dominated By The Future

May 7, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Strategize! Elections, India, Kerala, Left Politics

Kerala, a state in the Indian union with a population of 35 million, has re-elected the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to lead the government for another five years. Since 1980, the people of Kerala have voted out the incumbent, seeking to alternate between the Left and the Right. This year, the people decided to stay with the Left and give the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, Pinarayi Vijayan, a second term in office as the Chief Minister. Health Minister K. K. Shailaja, popularly known as Shailaja Teacher, won her re-election with a record-breaking tally of over 60,000 votes, far exceeding her closest contender. It is clear that the people voted the Left government back in for three reasons...

There Are So Many Lessons To Learn From Kerala

March 30, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Create! Food and Agriculture, Kerala, Left Politics, Women

Indian farmers and agricultural workers have crossed the hundred-day mark of their protest against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They will not withdraw until the government repeals laws that deliver the advantages of agriculture to large corporate houses. This, the farmers and agricultural workers say, is an existential struggle. Surrender is equivalent to death: even before these laws were passed, more than 315,000 Indian farmers had committed suicide since 1995 because of the debt burden placed on them. Over the next one and a half months, assembly elections will take place in four Indian states (Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal) and in one union territory (Puducherry).

CoronaShock And Socialism

July 14, 2020 Vijay Prashad, TriContinental: Institute for Social Research. Create! COVID-19, Cuba, Kerala, Pandemic, Socialism, Venezuela, Vietnam

CoronaShock is a term that refers to how a virus struck the world with such gripping force; it refers to how the social order in the bourgeois state crumbled, while the social order in the socialist parts of the world appeared more resilient. This is the third in a multiple-part series of studies on CoronaShock. It is based on research by Ana Maldonado (Frente Francisco de Miranda, Venezuela), Manolo de los Santos (researcher with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research), Subin Dennis (researcher with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research), and Vijay Prashad (director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research). Friedrich Engels once said: ‘Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism’. What does ‘regression into barbarism’ mean to our lofty European civilisation? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness.

Sorry For The Inconvenience, This Is A Revolution

January 5, 2019 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Resist! Cuba, Kerala, Women's Rights, Zapatistas

On 1 January, 5.5 million women formed a 620-kilometre wall across the length of the Indian state of Kerala (population 35 million). This was not like Donald Trump’s wall across the US-Mexico border, a wall of inhumanity and toxicity. The wall of these women was a wall for freedom, a wall against traditions whose purpose is to humiliate. The immediate reason for the women’s wall was a fight over entry for women into the Sabrimala temple in southern Kerala. On 28 September 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled that women must be allowed to enter the temple since the selective ban on women was not an ‘essential part’ of Hinduism but instead was a form of ‘religious patriarchy’.

A World So Changed

August 26, 2018 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Floods, Kerala, Türkiye

Over the past month, the Indian state of Kerala has struggled with the worst floods since 1924. Over three hundred people have been killed and millions of people have been affected in this state of about 35 million people. There are many theories as to why these floods have been so severe, climate change amongst them. But, what is certainly very clear is that in the face of this devastation, Kerala’s society came together to ensure the rescue and relief for those who had seen their worlds be torn asunder, and life ‘rush into the past’.

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