Dismissal of the First Communist Ministry in Kerala and the USA

In the first general election held to the Kerala State Legislative Assembly in February to March 1957, the Communists won sixty seats out of 126. With the support of five independents, the Communists formed government under the leadership of E. M. S. Namboodiripad on 5 April 1957. But the first Communist ministry in Kerala was short-lived. It was dismissed on 31 July 1959 by the president of India under Article 356 of the Constitution of India. The previous studies show that the dismissal of the Communist ministry was due to the liberation struggle sponsored by the community organizations and the opposition parties because the educational and agrarian reforms put the former at a disadvantaged position while the latter was lusted for power. No earlier study has analysed the intervention of the United States of America in the dismissal of the ministry. Hence the present study attempts to define the anti-Communist operations of the Government of the United States of America to topple the first Communist ministry in Kerala through the analysis of the recently declassified documents from United States Department of State, Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, Central Intelligence Agency and Centre for Oral History of Columbia University, all in the United States of America.