Toppling the First Ministry

Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice

T. M. Thomas Isaac, Richard W. Franke

• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781685901073
• eBook ISBN:
  9781685901097
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Toppling the First Ministry, by T. M. Thomas Isaac and Richard W. Franke, tells the story of the CIA's covert operations against India's first Communist ministry. When Kerala, the south-west Indian coastal province, established its first Communist ministry in 1957, it immediately drew up a development schema rooted in plans to redistribute land and provide public education and healthcare to all. But as quickly as it began executing its vision, Kerala's efforts were disrupted by anti-communist agitation that succeeded in toppling the ministry with the help of the CIA. To this day, the CIA has not claimed any direct role in toppling Kerala's government


Kerala is not alone. From Guatemala to Iran to the Congo to Brazil, to Indonesia and beyond, the CIA put up the financing to generate street mobs, groomed thuggish political bosses to do the CIA's bidding, organized private armies that answered to the CIA, bought and controlled media and individuals, assassinated popular leaders, and toppled elected ministries in an effort to maintain or establish U.S. control of the political and economic systems. One could see the story of Kerala as just one more tragic example of the CIA's successful efforts to manipulate the course of history and disrupt everyday life in countless emerging post-colonial nations following WWII. And yet, Kerala stands apart as an exceptional case, remarkable for what it managed to achieve: a redistributive strategy of development and consequent high quality of life for its ordinary citizens, initially at a relatively low level of economic growth. Since then, bolstered by subsequent intermittent left-led governments, Kerala`s democratic development alternative has continued to flourish.


Drawing upon the recent revelation of thousands of pages of documents via the Freedom of Information Act, Isaac and Franke offer a detailed examination of the internal workings of the CIA and its local Kerala allies in subverting and ultimately overthrowing the newly elected ministry. They also show how, against all odds, Kerala continues to be a stronghold of the left in India and even across the globe.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction: A Lingering Mystery
• Chapter 2. Policing the Empire: The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
• Chapter 3. How the Communists Came to Power in Kerala in 1957
• Chapter 4. Reform within the Constitution: The Communist Ministry in Kerala, 1957–1959
• Chapter 5. Ousting the Communist Government: A Fruitless Two Years and a New, More Violent Strategy for the Anticommunist Opposition
• Chapter 6. The Fateful Months of June and July 1959: The Anticommunist “Liberation Struggle” and Dismissal of the Government
• Chapter 7. Creating Anticommunist Hysteria: The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade and Moral Re-Armament
• Chapter 8. Through CIA Eyes: Information and Instructions for Toppling the Ministry
• Chapter 9. The Aftermath of the Dismissal of the EMS Ministry
• Chapter 10. Conclusions of the Study
• Glossary and Acronyms
• Notes
• Index