Cross Currents in Kerala

Cross Currents in Kerala FOR KERALA a non-Congress democratic Government is no novelty. What is new is the comparative stability inside the State compared to the time of troubles in 1957-59. At that time the Communists and their close sympathisers formed the Government on the basis of a minority vote and in conditions of tense polarisation. In India as a whole it was alone, and the Congress had Nehru as its talisman and superb tactician. And the incomplete political articulation of the social thrust that had brought the Ministry into being gave the central Congress leadership just the opportunity for intervention that they wanted. Indeed, for those who were involved in the events of those days, the atmosphere being worked up in West Bengal today is familiar enough. The whole idea was to give the new Ministry no respite, to unite all the fears, prejudices and vested interests available, to use every false step or adventuristic action of the Ministry and the ruling party, to compel it to face the dilemma of either shooting down a comparatively large number of the common people or witnessing the breakdown of administration and, finally, to push and cajole the administrative apparatus to a state of rebellion.