DECENTRALISATION POLITICS IN KERALA 61 expected to happen when a coalition of conflicting interests is decentralised. What the paper seeks to underline is the primacy of knowledge-based critical consciousness in the minds of the general public for the development of people's politics. THE CONTEXT It needs no substantiation to define the governance of India as a capitalist democracy with middle class actors both as politicians and bureaucrats. A nation of unevenly developed peoples of different ethnic, caste, religious, and regional identities and of glaring economic inequalities with a lion share of the population lying below the poverty line, India's democratic party system and government represent a coalition of conflicting interests. Kerala is a microcosm of it, despite a few distinctive features like high literacy, extensive health care facilities, better transport and communication infrastructure and so on. In matters of political and social development the achievements of the state are unmatched by those of any other state. As a part of the colonial modernisation the region had undergone a series of social and community reform movements directed against the caste system, untouchability and other superstitious practices. With such cultural preparations of modernity, the region had ushered in several socio-political insurrections, peasant uprisings and finally the Communist movement that led to the making of an elected Communist Ministry1. The region remedied the institutional contradictions in its agrarian sector through land reforms, albeit without the persistence of tenurial problems 2. In short, Kerala was all set for a meaningful decentralisation of Government for democratisation at the grassroots. It is a notable significance that Kerala had made many a major achievement like land reforms long before, which the states like West Bengal secured only through decentralisation3. So normally, decentralisation was expected to trigger certain major structural changes in the local society of Kerala. But contrary to the dynamics of the region's historical trajectory, it has so far succeeded mainly in accentuating the dominant paradigm of development, and reinforcing the status quo rather than forging ahead in the path of mass empowerment and sustainable development. SOCIO-ECONOMIC SCENARIO The current socio-economic situation of Kerala in a quick characterisation equates to what can be called a competitive coexistence of diverse groups, mainly of the middle class with a relatively