Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad is a People’s Science Movement of Kerala, India. Founded in 1962. It started it’s works at the science society interface with about 40 members as an organisation of science writers in Malayalam. Over the past five decades it has grown into a mass movement with a membership over 50000, distributed in more than one thousand two hundred units spread all over Kerala.
Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) literally means The Kerala Forum for Science Literature. In fact it was founded in 1962 as a forum of science writers with the limited objective of publishing science literature in Malayalam, the local language, and popularizing science. However it was soon realized that mere publication of literature or taking science classes was not enough, if the blessings of science were to reach the common people. KSSP became convinced that at present a privileged minority was monopolizing the benefits of science and technology, and it results in their enrichment, at the expense of the majority. KSSP chose as its mission, the challenge of arming the people with the tools of science and technology so that they can reverse this process. Thus in 1972, KSSP decided to become a People’s Science Movement and adopted “Science for Social Revolution” as its motto.
Over the past five decades it has grown into a massive people’s science movement, with a membership of about 50,000 drawn from all walks of life and distributed in about 1200 units within the state of Kerala. Over these years, it has also expanded its fields of interests and activities to almost all fields of human endeavor. The KSSP is involved, broadly in three types of activities: educative, agitate and constructive, in areas like environment, health, education, energy, literacy, micro planning and development in general.
KSSP strives to:
Popularize science and scientific outlook among the people.
Develop a sense of optimism in them, instill in them a sense of self -confidence that they can change the world and can build a better tomorrow.
Expose and oppose the abuse of scientific knowledge detrimental to the interests of the majority.
Expose and oppose the abuse of environment.
Propose and help implement ,alternative modes for development, with emphasis on equity and sustainability.
Carry out R&D work to transform lab technologies in to mass technologies.
Focus: Science for Social Revolution
The KSSP views Indian society as one; divided into two groups: a minority, which is continuously getting richer and a majority which is continuously getting impoverished or is facing the threat of impoverishment. It understands that today science and technology serve as efficient tools in the hands of the minority, the haves, in exploiting the majority, the have-nots. We take, on every issue, a stand partisan to this majority consequently against the minority. We strive to arm the majority with the weapon of science and technology in their fight against impoverishment, against the exploiters. Educating people is enhancing their power to understand and analyze social issues in a scientific way and help them to play a more active role in transforming the society. If science and technology become a tool in the hands of this majority, it will bring about a radical change in the society. Hence the KSSP slogan Science for Social Revolution.