Some of Kerala’s most celebrated cultural voices – K. Satchidanandan, Sara Joseph and M.N. Karassery – have stepped onto the political stage to declare that two terms of Left governance in the state are enough and that people must turn the page. These are voices that have influenced the literary conscience of the society, names that carry the weight of Sahitya Akademi awards, decades of public engagement and the moral aura of cultural leadership. When such figures speak, their words travel through newsrooms, studio debates and social media timelines, acquiring the cultural power of political direction. However, this call for change arrives at a moment when the country itself is passing through a dangerous combination of neoliberal economics and new-right majoritarianism. The question, therefore, cannot be reduced to merely about alternation of governments. Rather, it must address the direction in which such authoritative voices may be steering public imagination.The Left in Kerala is not beyond criticism. No government is, and none should be. There are genuine debates about administrative style, about the pace of welfare delivery, about the need for deeper ecological and social sensitivity. But these are correctable flaws within a largely secular and welfare-oriented framework. They are different from the ideological project now advancing across the country, a project that seeks to replace citizenship with faith, diversity with uniformity, and public reason with televised rage. To blur this distinction in the name of ‘change’ is to mistake the leaking roof for the approaching storm.Intellectuals occupy a delicate location in times of crisis. Their task is not to provide embellished impartiality but to read the direction of power. When the public sphere is flooded with hate campaigns, when minorities are reduced to permanent defendants, when universities and cultural institutions are pressured into silence, the responsibility of writers and cultural figures becomes stronger. Society looks to them for moral bearings, for resistance to the normalisation of prejudice, for reminders that democracy is more than an arithmetic of seats.Unfortunately, the mainstream media has converted politics into an endless show. For hours, for days, for weeks, discussions circle around controversies while the real questions of everyday life disappear from view. Declining parliamentary practices, rising prices, shrinking jobs, agrarian distress, ecological vulnerability, the crisis of public health and education – these matters receive passing mention before the screen returns to its favourite menu of religious polarisation. The result is a manufactured public agenda in which policy critique is slowly suffocated and electoral passions are inflated beyond proportion.In such an atmosphere, a casual call for dislodging the Left is certainly raw material for this very right-wing spectacle. The debate then moves from livelihoods to loyalties, from inequality to identity. The beneficiaries are predictable – forces that have mastered the art of turning cultural difference into political fuel. Intellectual interventions, however well-meaning, may end up reinforcing a narrative already scripted by prime-time studios and social-media factories.Kerala’s relative social peace has not been an accident. It has grown from long traditions of reform movements, public education, and a political culture where the Left played a central role. This heritage deserves thoughtful criticism. To suggest that any alternative is automatically healthier ignores the national experience where ‘change’ has often meant undermining of civil liberties and the shrinking of welfare. The issue before us is plainly the direction of the republic.The neoliberal–neoconservative march thrives on fragmentation. It pushes citizens to see one another as rivals in faith and culture while economic power concentrates silently above them. The duty of public thinkers is to reconnect these broken threads – to remind society that unemployment is not caused by neighbours of another religion, that the farmer’s distress has little to do with the language spoken at home, that the real contest is between democratic welfare and corporate–communal alliance. When respected writers speak mainly of changing a government rather than confronting this larger design, the focus moves away from the battle.None of this denies the freedom of intellectuals to hold any opinion. Freedom includes the right to err. But it also carries the obligation to weigh consequences. In moments when hatred is organised and amplified, neutrality itself becomes a participant. The question is not whether the Left is flawless – it is whether weakening it now strengthens the social defences against majoritarian politics.Public debate in Kerala deserves more than reiterating the talking points of television studios. It requires a language that returns attention to the human life-world – work, dignity, equality, ecological survival. Writers who have influenced our cultural imagination are uniquely placed to nurture such a conversation. The time calls less for sermons on regime change and more for a bold defence of secular democracy. Intellectuals can illuminate that path, or, unintentionally, help to dim it.K.M. Seethi is director, Inter University Centre for Social Science Research and Extension and academic advisor to the International Centre for Polar Studies at the Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU) in Kerala. He also served as ICSSR senior fellow, senior professor of international relations and dean of social sciences at MGU.