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NEW DELHI: With a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, hero of India's independence movement, in the backdrop, Hindu nationalists launched a campaign on Wednesday to drive foreign consumer goods out of the country.

About 100 protesters gathered in a monsoon drizzle in the capital New Delhi, smashing bottles of the U.S. soft drink Pepsi and shouting slogans denouncing the policies of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who opened up the Indian market in 1991.

"Foreigners go home," shouted activists led by the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), or Forum for National Awakening.

Organisers passed out pamphlets headed "Declaration of War" and stating, "Pepsi leave India."

They demonstrated beside a towering statue of Mahatma Gandhi, the nation's spiritual father who 53 years ago to the day launched the Quit India movement which culminated with India's independence from Britain in 1947.

The grey memorial depicts Gandhi leading protesters on the famous Salt March. The 1930 protest against a British tax on salt is considered one of the most successful and potent examples of Gandhi's non-violent movement.

"Today is symbolic," Murli Manohar Joshi, former president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), told Reuters. "It is symbolic of the dangers to India and the need to protect India's political and economic independence."

The SJM has links with the BJP, India's main Hindu opposition party.

The Hindu nationalists say their longstanding campaign against foreign consumer goods was boosted by the cancellation last week of a big U.S. power project led by multinational Enron Corp in the western state of Maharashtra.

The BJP and its radical rightwing governing partner in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena party, said the $2.8 billion plant -- India's biggest foreign investment -- was too costly and was clinched behind closed doors without competitive tender.

"Enron was a step in the right direction," Joshi said.

BJP president L.K. Advani said last weekend his party opposed foreign consumer goods but welcomed investments in areas needing sophisticated technology, including power.

The BJP plans to make the issue of foreign goods a major plank in its drive to capture power in general polls due by early 1996.

G.S. Sharma, an SJM member and organiser of the protest, said he was disappointed by the small turnout. "It rained the whole night," he said by way of explanation.

Joining the protesters was George Fernandes, a fiery socialist from the Samta Party who played a crucial role in forcing Coca-Cola to leave India in 1977 when the U.S. firm refused to divulge the recipe for its flagship soft drink.

Coke returned in 1993, while Pepsi first entered India in 1990 to challenge the country's own soft drinks makers.

Protesters emptied bottles of Pepsi and burned a poster showing a Pepsi bottle topped by a hat bearing a U.S. flag.

"We are targeting Pepsi first," SJM activist Anook Agarwal said. "But other products will follow like Coke, Colgate, Palmolive, Procter & Gamble."

Coke and other multinationals contend they have helped the Indian economy by employing thousands of workers, helping exports and bringing in technology and management expertise.

Protesters disagreed. "We can make these drinks ourselves, and make them better," said protester Mukesh Kapoor.-Reuter