The ideological foundations of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala are deeply rooted in a historical imagination shaped by industrial labour, agrarian struggle, and collective class identity. This imagination once aligned closely with Kerala’s lived realities, which is why the Left was able to achieve structural reforms that permanently altered society. Over time, however, the social and economic conditions that sustained this framework have changed so substantially that the original working-class model now struggles to explain, organise, or mobilise the contemporary workforce.
In the decades immediately following Independence, Kerala’s economy was anchored in agriculture and small-scale industry. Large sections of the population worked as tenant farmers, agricultural labourers, coir workers, cashew workers, and plantation labour. These groups experienced clear power asymmetries, stable occupational identities, and geographically concentrated workplaces. This made collective organisation not only possible but natural. The land reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s dismantled feudal ownership structures and redistributed land to millions of households. Census and land records indicate that tenancy declined dramatically, and ownership became widely distributed, producing long-term gains in social mobility and political consciousness.
By the late 1980s, this material base had already begun to erode. Agriculture’s contribution to Kerala’s Gross State Domestic Product fell from over half in the 1960s to roughly one-fifth by the late 1980s, and today it is under 10 percent. Industrial employment did not rise to compensate for this decline. Unlike states such as Tamil Nadu or Gujarat, Kerala did not experience large-scale manufacturing expansion. Instead, the economy shifted towards services, public employment, construction, trade, healthcare, education, and overseas migration. This transition fundamentally altered the nature of work itself.
Migration became the single most defining economic force in Kerala. From the 1970s onward, Gulf migration expanded rapidly, and by the early 2000s, remittances accounted for nearly one-third of the state’s income. According to Kerala Migration Surveys, more than 2 million Keralites were working abroad by the 2010s. These workers were not part of a local working class in any classical sense. Their employment conditions were determined by foreign labour laws, private contracts, and individual negotiations. Their political identity was shaped by aspiration, exit options, and household mobility rather than collective struggle at the workplace.
Simultaneously, domestic employment fragmented. The rise of private healthcare, private education, tourism, retail, logistics, and IT services created millions of jobs that were informal, contractual, and spatially dispersed. Construction became one of the largest employment sectors, increasingly dominated by migrant workers from other Indian states. By the 2010s, migrant labourers numbered between 3 and 4 million, outnumbering many traditional Kerala working-class groups. These workers do not vote in Kerala, are not embedded in local political networks, and remain largely outside the ideological universe of class-based party politics.
The classical Marxist conception of a stable proletariat assumes long-term attachment to a workplace, shared conditions of exploitation, and the ability to organise collectively. Kerala’s current workforce violates all three assumptions. Employment is short-term, skill-based, and mobile. A nurse may work in Kochi today, in the UK tomorrow, and in the Middle East later. A software professional operates in global labour markets. A gig worker may simultaneously serve multiple platforms without a single identifiable employer. These realities produce an economic subject driven by risk management and individual strategy rather than collective ideology.
Trade unions, once the organisational backbone of Left politics, illustrate this shift sharply. Union density remains high in the public sector and legacy industries, but these sectors employ a shrinking share of the workforce. Younger workers increasingly perceive unions as barriers rather than safeguards, especially in private and service sectors where employment itself is precarious. Strikes and hartals that once demonstrated class power now often alienate informal workers and small entrepreneurs who lose daily income. This has transformed unions from instruments of solidarity into symbols of disruption for many sections of society.
Education further complicates the picture. Kerala has one of the highest literacy and higher education rates in India. This has produced a workforce that thinks in terms of credentials, certifications, visas, and global mobility. Class identity is increasingly replaced by professional identity. An engineer, a nurse, or a management graduate may share economic vulnerabilities, but they do not see themselves as part of a unified working class. Their aspirations are upward, transnational, and individualised, often oriented towards leaving the local economy altogether.
CPI(M)’s ideological language, however, still draws heavily from the vocabulary of industrial capitalism: labour versus capital, public versus private, collective struggle versus individual ambition. While these concepts retain analytical value, they no longer map cleanly onto Kerala’s lived economic experience. Capital today is diffuse, global, and embedded in remittances, small businesses, private services, and personal networks. Labour is fragmented, mobile, and heterogeneous. The absence of a clear antagonist weakens the emotional and political force of class-based mobilisation.
Governance practices have also shifted the party further away from its ideological roots. When in power, CPI(M)-led governments operate within fiscal constraints, global capital flows, and competitive federalism. Policy decisions increasingly resemble technocratic management rather than ideological transformation. Welfare delivery, infrastructure development, and administrative efficiency dominate governance narratives, blurring distinctions between Left and non-Left economic practice. This creates an ideological vacuum where the party governs pragmatically but speaks in a language shaped by an older world.
None of this negates the historical contribution of CPI(M) to Kerala’s social development. The party played a decisive role in building an egalitarian society, expanding education, improving health outcomes, and empowering marginalised communities. But ideological relevance depends on the ability to reinterpret reality, not just defend legacy. Kerala’s working population today is no longer a factory floor or a paddy field. It is an airport terminal, a hospital ward, a WhatsApp group coordinating overseas jobs, a construction site staffed by migrants, and a laptop connected to a foreign employer.
The central challenge, therefore, is not moral failure or political decline, but conceptual lag. An ideology forged in the age of stable labour struggles is being applied to a society defined by instability, mobility, and aspiration. Without a fundamental rethinking of what work, class, and exploitation mean in this new context, the ideological framework risks becoming symbolic rather than explanatory.
