Kallen Pokkudan
environmentalist

Kallen Pokkudan (1937-2015), also known as Kandal Pokkudan, was an Indian environmental activist and writer from Kerala. He was known for his efforts for the protection and proliferation of the mangrove forests in Kerala, since 1989.
Biography
Pokkudan was born in 1937 at Iddukkil Thara, a hamlet in the remote village of Ezhom Moola, near Pazhayangadi, in Kannur district in the south Indian state of Kerala in a tribal family to Aringelayan Govindan Parotti and Kallen Vellachi. He had minimal education which extended only up to 2nd standard and he took to communism at the age of 18. He was more aligned to the radical group in the Communist Party of India, was involved in many people's movement and was arrested on many occasions. He was an accused in many cases related to farmers' unrests including a murder case and was incarcerated several times. When the party split in 1964, he took sides with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) but de-aligned from party ranks in the 1980s when he became disenchanted with them.
After his split with the party, Pokkudan spent his time in environmental protection activities, focusing on the protection of the mangrove forests of Kerala. He embarked on a mission to plant mangroves across the coastal waters of Kerala and is reported to have planted over one lakh (100,000) mangrove plants in the state. He founded the Mangrove School and conducted over 500 classes in various parts of the state in an attempt to educate the masses about the ecological importance of mangroves.
“Kallen Pokkudan” enters the record as environmentalist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kallen, Pokkudan and environmentalist can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6353740. VIAF identifies the subject as 43972014. The Library of Congress control number is no2002082237. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2015, 1989 and 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kallen Pokkudan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.