66 SOCIAL SCIENTIST mid-1950s, there was nothing left of the bid Progressive Literary Movement. This was occasioned by a widespread expectation that state power in the hands of the Congress marked the beginning of social advance combined with the inability of the Communist Party to effectively prevent this complacency from taking root. By the mid-1960s, however, there was a wind of change. The overoptimism and euphoria in the wake of independence slowly faded away. Left democratic parties which arrayed the people against British rule now found it imperative to lead them against the Congress government. Within the Communist Party itself, the revolutionary sections which yearned to give new dimensions to this task came to the forefront. Its natural sequel wa^ ths rise of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). All these changes led to the end, in 1967^ of the Congress Party^s monopoly of power. Although Congress rulers won a respite from this crisis in a temporary upswing (the so-called 'Indira wave5) it was not long before they began to feel the backlash again. Against this political background, a new cultural advance began to materialize among the Writers and cultural workers of Kerala, upholding the exhahcd traditions of the pi-e-independence Progressive Literary Movement but correcting the distortions that weakened it. The Desabhimani Weekly made its appearance to give this cultural advance a definite shape and direction. The activities of the Study Circle which formed around the Weekly attracted attention and enlisted the unstinted co-^pieMtten Had support of tegc sections of people. To all friends who helped, the Stt^dy Circle is most grateful. Agreement and Divergence As in the old Progressive Literary Movement, the peshabhimani Study Circle of today has within its fold people of divergent attitudes. On many issues the differences remain. The Circle does not take upon itself the burden of sponsoring an exchange of views to bring about agreement where it does not exist. It is for those directly concerned to iron ^ out the differences and if it is not possible, to agree to disagree witfawt being disagreeable to each other. However, all are settled on this point: a well-organized cultural movement is built uf^n the issues on which a common ground can be reached, notwithstanding the discord on others^ This was true of the Progressive Litprary Movement in the past* It holds good today. All the hopes and dreams of our people during the freedom struggle were smashed to pieces in 27 years of Congress rule* Hundreds of thousands of people have come to the grim realization of what once they refused to believe—the forecast of the left movement, and of the Communist Party in particular, that (in Mahatma Gandbi's own words) independence is to be followed by nothing more than ^the black sahibs taking the seats of power vacated by the white sahibs". The initial expectation that in a free and democratic India the hungry and half-hungry millions would W