Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
reformers such as Sri Naryana Guru created associations and schools for
lower-caste Hindus, so that they could collectively learn about and or-
ganize against Kerala's caste system. In 1936, this lower-caste movement
culminated with the announcement of the Temple Entry Proclamation
by the maharaja of Travancore. The proclamation abolished the ban on
lower caste people entering Hindu temples in the south.19
Upon statehood, Kerala's branch of the Communist Party of India
(CPI) utilized the momentum from the movements in Malabar and Tra-
vancore to bring further societal reforms to the entirety of the new state.20
Specifically, the CPI mobilized and created alliances between poor tenants
and landless laborers and took up the cause of anti-
casteism to change
the feudal social and economic structures. In 1957, E. M. S. Namboodiri-
pad of the CPI became the first democratically elected Chief Minister of
Kerala. Subsequently, let-leaning coalitions introduced several reform
bills into the Assembly, including the famous and highly scrutinized Land
Reform Act of 1963. The eventual enactment of this bill abolished Kerala's
contentious land relations of the past by creating a cap on landholdings
and redistributing excess land to tenants. As the political economist Ron-
ald Herring observes: “The Kerala reforms emerged from the organized
demands and decades of agitation of the peasantry, articulated through
electoral victories of the Communist Party (later parties) in the state.”21
Kerala's Left, therefore, successfully united Kerala's civil society across
caste, class, and religious lines, to prioritize education, welfare, and land
reforms in legislation at the state level.
Such alliance building was not without extended struggle and dissent
from various groups, though. The early years of Kerala's state history
were tumultuous. For example, many of the Syrian Christian commu-
nities opposed the Communist reforms within the state. They protested
vigorously against efforts that allowed the state to appoint teachers at pri-
vate Catholic schools and that imposed a ceiling on family landholdings
after the land reforms (originally five acres for unmarried individuals cul-
tivating certain crops).22 Many Syrian Christians refused membership in
Kerala's Communist parties and instead joined the other dominant party
in the state: Congress, which has tended to be more economically con-
servative. Due to the resulting political agitation between Syrian Chris-
