Democracy In Kerala Essay

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Indian democracy has travelled a long way since it first came into existence in 1950. It’s even surprising and remarkable how democracy has held its ground in India and not succumbed to any pressure despite having a plethora of castes, region, religion and ethnicity which only makes matter worse with respect to the functioning of democracy. The story of Indian democracy is a remarkable one, and worth telling. It defied the world, the beliefs of people the world over, it proved everyone wrong and world’s most complicated democracy is still going strong. Kerala , a state located on the southernmost tip of India , its socio-political scene was rather unique .Kerala witnessed a renaissance of its own nature .One of the remarkable facts of this movement is that this renaissance was not limited to upper castes alone ,rather lower caste people too were actively involved in it. The rise of communism was attributed to the fact that they charted a different path under the aegis of national movement led by congress . One of the most important change brought about by Communists in Kerala was that it created a class consciousness among the workers and other oppressed classes , who were now not limited to act under the whip of landlords and elites.
The story of the first Kerala government is a rather an interesting one.After the first elections in Kerala a new state formed by the state reorganization act of 1956, The Communist Party of India came into power in Kerala in the April of 1957 , with a clear majority, enlisting support of five independent candidates, under the leadership of EMS Namboodiripad , a rather short man but full of energy and with ferocious intelligence. It was the world’s first democratically elected Communist go...

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... allegiance to their caste and community. the last part can be understood by taking the case of christians most of whom participated in the struggle because of the will of the church. Arguably this can also be attributed as the biggest drawback of democracy where certain progressive laws and reforms are ousted due to certain people with vested interests lobbying against it . This encourages corruption and rent seeking which has completely paralysed certain democracies in the past. If the involvement of vested interests is neglected and this event is viewed as a genuine case of people protesting against a law they dont support, then this event can very well be cited as an example to showcase the strength of democracy wherein the final authority lies with the people and ruling parties with proper majority can be uprooted if their rules do not connect with the people.

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