Decision in Kerala

During weeks of hot and heavy campaigning, all eyes in India were on Kerala, a hard-up state whose 16 million inhabitants make it as populous as Canada. The question was whether Kerala, which voted Communist in 1957 and endured 28 months of chaotic Red rule, would vote Communist again. After all, the Reds had not been thrown out at the polls but removed from office on orders from New Delhi. This time the non-Communists were taking no chances. They borrowed freely from successful Communist tricks ranging from parades of painted elephants to torchlight processions. In the most Christian (24%) of India's 14 states, priests warned of the dire consequences if the Reds returned to power with their plan to give half of the teaching posts in church schools to Communists. Both sides plastered mud walls with gory posters. Red posters showed rich Hindus sucking blood and money out of starving peasants. Their opponents splashed a gaudy re-creation of an incident last summer showing Communist cops shooting to death a pregnant fisherwoman.

On election day last week 8,200,000 Keralites went to the polls for a record turnout--85% of those eligible. Wives arose before dawn to line up at the polls ahead of later-stirring husbands and sons. Along the Malabar coast fishermen came in straight from a night on the sea. The non-Communist coalition had swept 94 out of 126 legislative seats. By combining to eliminate three-and four-cornered races, the Congress Party, Praja Socialists and Moslem League, usually at one another's throats, concentrated on the Reds instead. Swept out of office were seven out of eleven ministers of the Communist regime. Kerala's Red boss, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the former chief minister, survived only by switching to a safe constituency.

Surveying the picture, Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, the new national president of India's dominant Congress Party, crowed: "The people of Kerala have rejected Communism outright." But the local Congress Party leader, R. Sanker, saw no reason for anyone to be "unduly jubilant." Shut out as they were in assembly seats, the Reds actually increased their popular vote and their share (42%) of the total. In New Delhi, Prime Minister Nehru said that Kerala made him "very happy."

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