M A Baby

Mariam Alexander Baby was born in 1954 in Prakkulam, Kerala, to PM Alexander and Lilly Alexander. He is a self-proclaimed atheist and the only Christian member in the CPI(M)’s Polit Bureau. Over the years, he has come to be known as the party’s cultural ambassador. He played a key role in setting up the Kochi Biennale and the Swaralaya cultural group in Delhi.



Baby began his political journey with the Kerala Students Federation, which later became the Students’ Federation of India (SFI). He rose through the ranks to become the national president of both SFI and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the CPI(M)'s youth wing. During the Emergency, he was one of the student leaders who mobilised protests and was jailed for his activities.



In 1986, at the age of 32, he became one of the youngest members of the Rajya Sabha and remained there until 1998. He was seen as a promising leader and joined the CPI(M) central committee in 1999. However, internal changes in the Kerala unit of the party saw other leaders rise to prominence, slowing his progress within the organisation.



Baby contested his first Assembly election in 2006 from the Kundara seat and won. He served as Kerala’s Education Minister from 2006 to 2011 in the V S Achuthanandan Cabinet. His time as minister was marked by several reforms, some of which led to controversy. He was accused of promoting atheism in school textbooks and had to withdraw some of them.



In 2011, Baby was re-elected from Kundara. A year later, in 2012, he was inducted into the Polit Bureau at the CPI(M)’s party congress in Kozhikode. But in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he lost from Kollam to N K Premachandran of the RSP, who was backed by the Congress.



Outside politics, Baby has a deep interest in music, cinema, and literature and is widely regarded as the cultural face of the party in Kerala.



His wife, Betty Louis, was a state committee member of the SFI. She also worked with Asianet TV as a programme coordinator and later became the promotion director at CPI(M)-backed Kairali TV. The couple has a son, Ashok Nelson, who plays guitar for the music band Thaikkudam Bridge.