India, April 23 -- Kerala's assembly elections of 1977 were groundbreaking in many ways. Held a week before the lifting of the Emergency, the elections, for the first time, brought an incumbent political front to power for a second consecutive term. The beneficiary was the Congress-led United Front, which included the Communist Party of India (CPI). Indira Gandhi's arch-loyalist, K Karunakaran, became the new chief minister after his dubious record as the state's repressive home minister during the Emergency. The election saw many stalwarts of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M), including KR Gouri Amma and VS Achuthanandan, biting the dust and even EMS Namboodiripad, managing only to scrape through. The result provoked eminent Malayalam litterateur Paul Zacharia, then living in Delhi, to deride Malayalis as frogs in the well, notwithstanding their tall claims about literacy and political wisdom, for failing to rise with the poor and illiterate of North India who ended Indira Gandhi's authoritarian rule....