Dr. J. Prabhash The 1957 EMS Ministry of Kerala - commonly known as the First Communist Ministry - is a milestone in the history of modern Parliamentary Democracy. The importance of this experiment lay not merely in the fact that it was the first instance of a Communist Party assuming power in the world through universal adult franchise, after the famous Sanmarino experiment of Italy. Significant this was, but historic was the initiative it had undertaken in redefining social relations and democ [...]

Prof. B. Vivekanandan When I look back to 1957, the assumption to power of a popularly elected communist government in Kerala that year was a landmark. Embedded in that development was that, in ideological terms, the Indian Communist Party had accepted the perception, which Karl marx propounded after the violent end of the rise of Paris Commune in 1871, that in pluralist democracies socialism can be ushered in through peaceful democratic means ,without a violent revolution. It also showed the co [...]

NK Jayakumar The Kerala Legislative Assembly completes 50 years of its existence on the first day of April, 2007,exactly five months after the State celebrates its 50th birthday. But the legislative history of Kerala begins much earlier, in 1888, with the establishment of Legislative Council in Travancore. The evolutionary process of the legislature and the legal system during a period spanning more than 100 years reveals the decisive influence of socio-economic and political factors. Administra [...]

Dr. P.K. Michael Tharakan Original Text in Malayalam It seems, if there is one other legislation which was so intensly debated in Kerala above the Education Bill of 1957, it was the Agrarian Relations bill which was presented by the first elected Communist Government which came to power under the leadership of EMS Namboothiripad. The resistance and the modes of protest adopted by it and the after effects have formed the important components of Kerala history itself. Eventhough our focus of discu [...]

P.Govindan Pillai The Success and the experience of the first communist ministry in Kerala has thus national and international relevance as comrade Jyothi Basu who headed the West Bengal left front ministry for two and a half decades was eminently correct when he said that the first kerala ministry blazed a new trail for India as a whole and Bengal and Tripura in particular. April 5 of 1957 was a red letter day not only in the history of the state of Kerala but also in the Indian union as a whol [...]

In Malayalam The year 1957 is a watershed in the socio-political life of the State of Kerala, as well as India. Eventhough Communists, who represent ideologies which run totally counter to the interests of the ruling class, assuming power through the parliamentary democracy mode, was shocking and surprising to many, it was not acccidental and was part of a historical process. At the international level it was a process spanning over almost two centuries. At the national level it was the end resu [...]