17-01-2022
M. K. Prasad (1932 – 17 January 2022) was an Indian environmentalist known for his grassroots level activism to protect tropical rainforests in the Indian state of Kerala. In the late 1970s, as a member of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad, he led the Save Silent Valley movement, to prevent development of a hydroelectric project in the Silent Valley National Park, a project that would have flooded the rainforest.
He was a principal of the Maharaja’s College Ernakulam, Kochi, and pro vice chancellor of Calicut University. Earlier, as a part of KSSP, he had contributed to the national literacy mission which had resulted in his native Ernakulam district being declared the first fully literate district in the country.
Prasad was born in an Ezhava family in Cherai on the island of Vypin in the coastal district of Ernakulam in present day Indian state of Kerala. He studied in the Rama Varuna Union High School, a school that was established by local Hindu and Christian community leaders. The headmaster of the school and Prasad's early mentor, K. C. Abraham, would later go on to serve as the governor of Gujarat. While his family was expecting him to follow in his uncle's footsteps to become an Ayurveda physician, he joined Maharaja's College in Kochi. He received an undergraduate degree in botany before going to Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani to graduate with a masters degree in botany. Prasad was married to Sherly Prasad, who retired as a professor from Maharaja's College, Ernakulam. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter. He was a native of Kochi. Prasad died at a private hospital in Kochi on 17 January 2022, while being treated for complications of COVID-19.
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