In a revival of the techniques of Gandhi that won India its independence, thousands of demonstrators last week began a nonviolent mass defiance campaign designed to oust the floundering Red government of Kerala (pop. 13.5 million), India's only Communist-ruled state. Shops and factories closed and the docks of Cochin port were idle. In the streets of Trivandrum, Kerala's capital, a 1½-mile-long procession waved black banners and chanted, "Red rule is killer's rule!"
Behind the campaign was India's powerful Congress Party, joined by local Socialists and Moslem groups, all sharing a long list of grievances against the two-year-old Communist regime, including...