Abstract: Calls for the Lal Salaam, or “Red Salute,” have echoed across low-development regions of East India for nearly six decades now. The Naxalite-Maoist insurgency has involved sustained and violent conflict by both state and insurgent actors over this entire length of time. This article explores the dynamics behind the longevity and violent nature of the Naxalite-Maoist movement in India by examining it through three primary frames: its global ideological context, its internal perceptions, and the narrative of the state itself. It explores how the varied employment of these three frames by the involved actors has enabled the extension of this insurgency over numerous decades and allowed the legitimization of the use of violence by both the insurgents and the state.
Keywords: India, China, Maoism, insurgency, Naxalite, communism, state violence.
On the 1st of May 2019, Naxalite-Maoist rebels carried out an attack in Gadchiroli, near the Maoist stronghold of Chhattisgarh. They targeted two vehicles that were taking security personnel to another jurisdiction to respond to an arson attack. Reportedly, the rebels had also perpetrated the arson itself.[1] They used an improvised explosive device (IED), killing all 16 men in the vehicle, including a civilian driver. This incident occurred during a week-long protest by the Naxalites in remembrance of 40 comrades killed by security forces in Gadchiroli nearly a year ago.[2] It was an act of vengeance.
Such cyclical violence, and the rebels that enacted it, are the most recent manifestations of the longstanding revolutionary Maoist movement of India. Its earliest forms can be traced to the pre-independence era[3] through to the May 1967 “local peasant uprising” in the village of Naxalbari, and eventually to its current status as an insurgent movement and a labelled security threat to the Indian state.[4]
The vast length of these rebellions can be divided into three distinct waves. The first, from the time of independence, around 1946 to 1951; the second, from 1967’s Naxalbari uprising to approximately 1971; and the third, from 1980 to present day.[5] The present stage of this insurgency, primarily represented by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) [CPI Maoist], is most prevalent in the central and eastern regions of the country – areas where “human development levels rank among the lowest in the world.”[6]
The insurgency represents a longstanding conflict, marked by constant cycles of violence that have been perpetrated and inflamed by both state actors and the insurgents themselves over nearly seven decades. Ideologically driven and historically evolving, this extended conflict – particularly over the second and third waves – has been shaped by various sweeping narratives which can be studied within three distinct yet overlapping frames. These are: the global and ideological context, the internal perceptions, and the state narrative. Studying these various perspectives of the Maoist insurgency helps us understand how differently the involved parties have deployed them, enabling both the legitimisation of the use of violence and the remarkable sustenance of this extended conflict over multiple decades.
Maoist Insurgency: The Global-Ideological Context
The first of these narratives is the global and ideological phenomenon of Maoism. This can be defined as “a brand of radical ideology drawing on the political ideas of Mao” and on reinvented orthodox Marxism.[7]
Maoism is characterised most significantly by its commitment to political violence, particularly in the form of guerilla warfare, and by its claim to represent the peasantry and the marginalised within any state.[8] The very fact that the insurgents identify themselves and their struggle as ‘Maoist’ reveals the immense prevalence of this global ideological framework in any analysis of the insurgency. This ideology has been appropriated by Naxalite leaders, used in official discourse in both second and third waves of the movement, propagated by Chinese leadership in this form, and has provided the capacity to link revolutionary groups across national borders. Used in this manner, ‘Maoism’ provides a formidable basis for the use of political violence by the rebels and provides a fortification and continuity that has allowed the insurgency to extend over a vast period of time.
Sreemati Chakrabarti, a Delhi-based sinologist, uses the phrase “an overdose of China” to describe the Naxal movement over the time period defined as the second wave of the insurgency i.e. from 1967 and the uprising in Naxalbari to approximately 1971.[9] This phrase refers to the role of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, its leader, Mao Zedong, and the intensity with which his rhetoric and ideology penetrated and moulded the Naxalite movement in India.
The early stages of this adherence to Chinese political narratives can be traced to the Indo-China War in 1962, and to the subsequent fracturing of the Communist Party of India [CPI] due to the emergence of pro-China factions in 1964 and again in 1969. This led to the formation of the CPI (Marxist) faction, and subsequently the pro-China CPI (Marxist-Leninist) [CPI (ML)] faction, which became “the precursor to all the Indian Maoist subgroups” that would follow.[10]
The leader of the CPI (Marxist) and CPI (ML) parties during the second wave, Charu Mazumdar, was particularly exemplary in his deployment of ideological Maoist narratives in the formulation of the Indian Naxalite movement. Mazumdar’s discourse as “the ideal receptor for the anti-establishment chutzpah of the Cultural Revolution’s high Maoism,” was heavily laden with direct references to Mao’s own statements, frequent repetition of phrases such as “Chairman Mao has said,” and most significantly, repeated assertion of Mao’s belief that “freedom comes out only from the barrel of a gun.”[11] He unwaveringly emphasised the need for guerilla warfare led by the peasantry, an idea characteristic of Maoist ideology.[12] This eventually lit the flame that led to the 1967 Naxalbari uprising, which comprised of impoverished farmers, armed with bows and arrows, rising against their landowners. This event is often noted as the initiation of the Maoist insurgency in its most violent form. It was certainly critical in fanning the flames of armed resistance that Mazumdar continued to spread after Naxalbari, through Mao-adhering slogans such as “China’s Chairman is Our Chairman, China’s Path is Our Path” that were found plastered across every wall in the region.[13]
Some in the Chinese leadership certainly disapproved of the specific use of slogans that implied that the indigenous movement was subordinate to an external power or, in some form, was directed by China.[14] However, Beijing also encouraged the adoption of this increasingly globally relevant Maoist ideology by Mazumdar and the Naxalites. Political propaganda and pamphlets were dispatched in various local languages, correspondence was exchanged, successes were mutually celebrated and four key leaders of the Indian Naxalite movement even made a “pilgrimage to China,” to receive training for three months and to experience an audience with Mao himself. [15] This support by the Chinese leadership lent immense legitimacy and encouragement to the fledgling local movement. [16] It further legitimised the insurgency’s Maoism-based political violence and supported its sustenance through the second wave.
Around the year 1971, however, this intense reverence of China and Mao contributed to a decline in support for the movement, marking an end to the second wave. Blind adherence to Maoist ideas of guerrilla warfare, along with “terroristic conspiracy,” had led to an absence of clear and independent party structures, breeding chaos.[17] Additionally, the CPI (ML) chose to side with Pakistan during the Bangladeshi War of 1971because “geopolitical self-interest led China to support Pakistan’s invasion and oppose the Indian Army’s assistance to the Bangladeshi independence movement.”[18] This alignment with China, seemingly against Indian interests, resulted in a massive blow to the credibility of the party and was integral to the decline of the movement at the end of the second wave.
Despite this, the persistent use of Mao’s rhetoric to afford structure, stability, legitimacy and a violent mandate to the insurgency in the third and current wave of the Naxalite movement (1980-present) is exemplified in the 2004 Party Constitution of the CPI (Maoist) faction. This constitution states explicitly that the party’s goals would be accomplished through “armed agrarian revolutionary war i.e Protracted People’s War.” The language demonstrates an overt echoing of Mao’s own views – consistently repeated in his speeches – that claim that resistance should take the form of a protracted war.[19] The Constitution even explicitly states that the GPCR, or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, “led by Mao Tse-tung was a great political revolution” and establishes it as the ideal that the Naxalite movement of India must strive towards.[20] It is important to note that, in a contrast from the unstructured blind adherence of the second wave, this constitution has an improved organisational structure and clearly defined, independent goals, representing a shift in the manner of employing ideological Maoist narratives to fortify the insurgent movement. Furthermore, this appeal for a people’s war and adherence to global ‘Maoism’ enabled the contemporary Naxalite movement in India to partake in the formation of the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) in 2000, alongside similar movements in Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, allowing for a degree of regional cooperation and mutual support for the revolutionary groups.[21]
Therefore, Mao’s rhetoric, and its global narrative, form an evolving but sustaining link throughout the length of the Naxalite movement, ranging from Mazumdar’s rhetoric in 1967 to the party’s constitution in 2004 and beyond. It plays a critical role in affording ideological basis, global legitimacy, structure and consequently sustainability to the Naxalite movement, even enabling the construction of a transnational network of support. Furthermore, in establishing an association with the Cultural Revolution’s own extensive violence and employing Mao’s propagation of armed resistance in both waves, this employment of Maoist ideology provides a precedent and a legitimisation for the emulation of such violence by the Naxalite insurgency in India.
Maoist Insurgency: The Internal Perception
Alpa Shah, a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in her account Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerillas, explores the question of “why, behind the mask of a shining ‘new’ India, some of the country’s poor shunned the world’s largest democracy and united with revolutionary ideologues to take up arms against rising inequality.”[22] The second frame of narratives is an exploration of this question, and is defined by internal perceptions or, in other words, the narratives of the Naxalite insurgents themselves. The movement’s longstanding sustenance and prevalence can be attributed, to a significant degree, to its presentation as a viable alternative to fill the vacuum of authority and power in regions with low-development and absence of state support. It can also be attributed to its specific appeal to groups that have been historically marginalised, and also to the subsequent establishment of an emotional affiliation with the people it seeks to represent, particularly during the second and third wave. Concurrently, the characterisation of its violent activities as simply a response to the structural and increasingly targeted violence perpetrated by the state, allows for the justification and continuation of this violence in the eyes of those that support and participate in it.
“Jungle Raj” (‘the forest kingdom’), regions where “human development levels rank among the lowest in the world,” or “no-go zones” plagued by terrorist activity, are some of the many ways in which the regions where Maoism has gained a stronghold over the second and third waves of the insurgency are described.[23] Shivaji Mukherjee, professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, argues that these are regions that historically experienced “colonial indirect rule,” forming “structural authority-vacuums” that enabled the Maoist rebels to create zones of rebel control in India.[24] Indeed, the state as an authoritative body meant to provide support, recognition and representation has been either “invisible” or simply a “mute observer” to the suffering and marginalisation of tribal communities, the lower castes and the extremely poor in the areas that have now become India’s ‘Red Corridor.’[25] These conditions have enabled the Maoist insurgency to cast itself into the narrative of being an alternative embodiment of state support and capacity. The Naxalites claim that, unlike the Indian state, they are “focused on the significance of extensive poverty, low literacy rates, limited employment opportunities, social oppression and human rights violations,” thus addressing the grievances of marginalised people and offering them a path towards change: namely, insurgency.[26] Through activities such as intervening to ensure payment of minimum wage, mobilising to prevent the exploitation of victims of land acquisition, and providing food, shelter and opportunities to its soldiers, the Naxalites are able to reinforce this narrative of being a reliable and valid alternative to state-neglect and exploitation.[27]
Shah’s account includes the story of Gyanji, a professional revolutionary with an upper-caste background, secondary education, and polished English, who had left local civil liberties organisations to join the Naxalites. This change had been inspired by an absolute “[loss] of faith in the Indian parliamentary process” and in democracy, over the course of his work for the state.[28] Gyanji’s perception of the Naxalites as the best alternative to this system embodies the Naxalites powerful ability to offer a substitute avenue for the exercise of agency and governance – a narrative that is integral to the movement gaining traction, increased recruitment and consequently extended sustenance.
Being viewed as an alternative to the absent state, the Maoist insurgency has also been consistently adjusted to specifically represent those who are the most marginalised and victimised in that particular context. Bidyut Chakrabarty, an Indian political scientist, describes this as a “context-driven articulation of Maoism,” citing how “in Andhra Pradesh, Maoism draws…on anti-feudal sentiments” while in the tribal areas of Orissa and Chhattisgarh, it relies on political discourse around “rights over forest produce.”. He states that this adaptive nature of the political discourse of Maoist insurgency is critical to its development as the “most effective ideological voice of the downtrodden.”[29]
This targeted appeal to the downtrodden was also prevalent within the cultural packaging of the Naxalites’ message, particularly during the 1980s, when Telugu songs were rewritten with Maoist messaging with the specific intention of “adapting and communicating the message of Maoism to India’s caste-riven society” and appealing to those most victimised by the Indian mainstream media – the Dalits and women.[30] This also enabled the developing idea of an “emotional chord with the hapless tribes” and the Maoist insurgents, with the two being “bound together in a symbiotic relationship.” [31] This relationship is attributed to the fact that the Maoists have engaged with these groups in their daily struggles and therefore justifiably hold the capacity to act for them. [32] This perception of an emotional bond and apparent representation serves as a particularly effective tool in garnering support and fortification amongst these marginalised groups.
Concurrent to the narrative of filling in a vacuum left by the state, the insurgency’s commitment to violence is partly justified by casting it as a valid response to the structural and targeted violence perpetrated by the state against the communities that the insurgency seeks to represent. Gyanji, the Naxalite leader documented by Alpa Shah, describes the treatment of tribal communities as “everyday violence inflicted on the people here by the ruling elites,” marked by conditions such as “no sanitation, no electricity, no running water” and the prevention of people from fulfilling their basic human needs.[33] He argues that Naxalite violence is simply a response to this structural violence and only seeks to protect the oppressed from the oppressor. In doing so, he is offering a degree of legitimacy to the employment of violent means within the movement, an explanation that is attractive to those most victimised by state neglect and oppression.[34]
Strengthening this appeal, the third wave of the insurgency has seen the employment and arming of military counterinsurgency groups such as Salwa Judum by state governments, particularly in Chhattisgarh. Salwa Judum has wreaked immense violence, rape, attacks on civilians and the scorching of entire villages in areas with Maoist presence.[35] This state-sponsored violence has added to the narrative that the insurgency’s own violence is both justified and legitimised. This perception is exemplified in Naxalite attacks such as the previously referenced Gadchiroli attacks in May 2019, which were conducted in remembrance of the killing of 40 Maoist fighters by security forces a year ago.[36] The armed resistance is internally seen as justified vengeance. Therefore, the internal perceptions of the Maoist movement as providing a viable alternative to the absent state, representing those that have been the most socially marginalised groups, embodying an emotional attachment with these communities, and providing an avenue of justified resistance, leads to the fortification of the insurgency and its capacity to survive over time withstanding various tribulations.
Maoist Insurgency: The State Narrative
The final frame of narratives around the Maoist insurgency is that of the state, the second most significant actor in this conflict. For the sustenance of the movement over multiple decades, and for the persistently violent nature of the conflict, the role of the state is a critical one. Consequently, so are the narratives that shape its view of and responses to the Naxalite movement. Most significantly, the dominant perception of the Naxalites as terrorists posing a security challenge has informed the armed nature of the state’s own response, further exacerbating the violence of the conflict. Additionally, by excluding or limiting alternative narratives such as the perception of the Naxalite problem as a political one, this view also results in the lack of consideration of response mechanisms that may have successfully de-escalated the conflict and prevented its extension over decades.
Shah claims that, to the Indian government, the Naxalites are “simply terrorists, a dangerous cancer that must be eradicated.”[37] Indeed, the movement has been referred to as the “single biggest internal-security challenge” in India by government officials.[38] This simplified perception of the insurgency as simply being a violent security threat, without consideration of the numerous developmental and ideological considerations involved, is also propagated within the Indian mainstream media and society, in part through an agenda set by the government and the army.[39] The most prominent frames within mainstream English-language media in India suggest the presence of “links between insurgents in the North East…Islamic terrorists and Maoists,” and demonise the Naxalites through suggestions that they use “women and children as human shields” and conduct beheadings.[40] This rhetoric – situated within the frames of, propagated by and employed by the Indian state – reflects the predominance of this singular narrative of the Naxalites simply being a terroristic security threat that must be eradicated.
As argued by Samir Puri, an expert in conflict and security studies, since “violence always carries its own logic, in which the reciprocity of action and counter-action between security forces and insurgents takes over,” this limited perception of a ‘threatening’ Naxalite movement leads to the security-based armed responses becoming the “first instinctive response of the authorities.”[41] It has led to the formation of policy based on the principle of aggression,[42] which in turn frequently causes cases of excessive and unjustified force and incidences such as the “gang rape committed by the security forces in Sukma and Bastar,” inevitably inflaming the continued prevalence of violence between the state and the Naxalites.[43]
Moreover, these narratives enable the state to legitimise the employment of military counterinsurgency groups, such as Salwa Judum, by the Chhattisgarh state government. Salwa Judum or ‘the purification hunt’ has led immensely destructive campaigns of indiscriminate attacks, rape and scorching, under the guise of being a response that is necessary in the face of the terrorism of the Naxalite insurgency.[44] Further employing this singular narrative of the Naxalites, “Salwa Judum recruits victims of Naxal violence” and paints the insurgents as a menace that must be cleansed, simply exacerbating the longstanding cycles of violence that are characteristic to this movement.[45]
However, it is important to note that, particularly in the third wave of the insurgency, the state has begun to allow for the perception that the Naxalite insurgency also represents a developmental challenge and that the appropriate response requires addressing local grievances as well.[46] Yet, as is exemplified above, the perception of the insurgency as a violent security threat has established dominance and armed responses continue to be the most frequently employed strategy of the state.[47] Critically, this narrative has contributed to the absence of any significant attempts at exploring more peaceful and political responses, based on negotiations or compromises between the state and the Naxalites.[48] The ‘terroristic security threat’ narrative has led to the formulation of opinions such as that of G.K. Pillai, former Union Home Secretary, claiming that any “offers to negotiate made by the CPI-Maoist should be considered a ruse, and pressuring the groups should remain India’s default approach.”[49] This has led directly to the elimination of potential peaceful responses that may have contributed to the gradual de-escalation of the conflict. Additionally, such singular narrative dominance has encouraged the state to respond to the insurgency with aggressive security policies and even excessively violent counterinsurgency groups, further inflaming the conflict’s violent nature.
Conclusion
The Naxalite-Maoist insurgency of India is characterised by its extended longevity and capacity to gain sustained support across from 1967 to the present day. Another critical aspect of this conflict is its reliance on political violence, a phenomenon that has been engaged with by both the state and the insurgents, across the entirety of this massive time period. Both of these defining characteristics can be explained, to a large degree, by the varying manners in which the narratives around the conflict – situated within the frames of the insurgency’s global-ideological context, its internal perceptions, and the narratives of the Indian state – have been employed by the participating actors. Therefore, the main contributing factors to the remarkable longevity of this insurgency and its immensely violent nature are: the appropriation of Maoist ideology; the casting of the insurgency as a valid alternative to the state, and of its violence as a justified response to the state; and the simplified viewing of the Naxalite movement as only a security threat. As a result, the grievances of those that are suffering most, or seeking peaceful resolution to the cyclical violence, have been consistently sidelined for nearly seven decades.
Bibliography
Chakrabarti, Sreemati. China and the Naxalites. London: Sangam, 1990.
Chakrabarty, Bidyut and Rajat Kumar Kujur. Maoism in India; Reincarnation of Ultra-Left Wing Extremism in the 21st Century. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2010.
Chakrabarty, Bidyut. Communism in India: Events, Processes and Ideologies. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Chandra, Uday. “The Maoist Movement in Contemporary India.” Social Movement Series 13, no. 3 (2014): 414-419.
Kennedy, Jonathan and Sunil Purushotham.”Beyond Naxalbari: A Comparative Analysis of Maoist Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Independent India.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, no. 4 (2012): 832-862.
Lovell, Julia. Maoism: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Miklian, Jason. “The Purification Hunt: The Salwa Judum Counterinsurgency in Chhattisgarh, India.” Dialectical Anthropology 33, no. 3/4 (2009): 441-59.
Mukherjee, Shivaji. “Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Historical Institutions and Civil War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 10 (November 2018): 2232–74.
“Party Constitution Central Committee (P) CPI (Maoist)..” South Asia Terrorism Portal. Accessed November 15, 2019. https://www.satp..org/document/paper-acts-and-oridinances/party-constitution-central-committee-p-cpi-maoist.
Puri, Samir. “India’s two-track response to the Naxalite movement: Security and development, but no political process.” In Countering Insurgencies and Violent Extremism in South and South East Asia. Edited by Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, 153-167. London: Routledge, 2019.
Putul, Alok. “Maoist rebels kill Indian policemen in Maharashtra state.” Aljazeera News. May 1, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/maoist-rebels-kill-indian-policemen-maharashtra-state-190501092921368.html.
Rajput, Rashmi. “Naxal attack in Gadchiroli leaves 15 security personnel dead.” The Economic Times. May 2, 2019. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/possible-naxal-attack-in-gadchiroli-leaves-several-security-personnel-injured/articleshow/69127641.cms.
Shah, Alpa. Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas. London: Hurst & Company, 2018.
Thomas, Pradip Ninan. “The ‘Red Surge’: Media Framing of Maoist Struggles in India.” International Communication Gazette 76, no. 6 (October 2014): 485–504.
Zedong, Mao. On the protracted war. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1954.
[1] Sharon Omondi, “Countries With the Longest Land Borders,” August 1, 2019. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-longest-land-borders.html.
[1] This paper uses the terms Maoist and Naxalite interchangeably. Although the terms have distinct origins, they are increasingly used synonymously in popular discourse.
[2] Alok Putul, “Maoist rebels kill Indian policemen in Maharashtra state,” AlJazeera News, May 1, 2019, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/maoist-rebels-kill-indian-policemen-maharashtra-state-190501092921368.html.; Rashmi Rajput, “Naxal attack in Gadchiroli leaves 15 security personnel dead,” The Economic Times, May 2, 2019, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/possible-naxal-attack-in-gadchiroli-leaves-several-security-personnel-injured/articleshow/69127641.cms.
[3] Jonathan Kennedy and Sunil Purushotham,”Beyond Naxalbari: A Comparative Analysis of Maoist Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Independent India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 54, no. 4 (2012): 832-862.
[4] Uday Chandra, “The Maoist Movement in Contemporary India,” Social Movement Series 13, no. 3 (2014): 415.
[5] Kennedy and Purushottam, 833.
[6] Chandra, 414.
[7] Bidyut Chakrabarty and Rajat Kumar Kujur, Maoism in India; Reincarnation of Ultra-Left Wing Extremism in the 21st Century, (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2010), 9.; Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019), 26, 32.
[8] Bidyut Chakrabarty and Rajat Kumar Kujur9.; Julia Lovell, Maoism: A Global History, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019), 26, 32.
[9] Sreemati Chakrabarti, China and the Naxalites, (London: Sangam, 1990), 366.
[10] Bidyut Chakrabarty, Communism in India: Events, Processes and Ideologies, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014), 128; Lovell, 352.
[11] Lovell, 354.
[12] Chakrabarty, 130.
[13] Lovell, 356.
[14] Chakrabarty, 132.
[15] Lovell, 359-362.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid., 365.
[18] Ibid.
[19] “Party Constitution Central Committee (P) CPI (Maoist),” South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed November 15, 2019, https://www.satp.org/document/paper-acts-and-oridinances/party-constitution-central-committee-p-cpi-maoist.; Mao Zedong, On the protracted war, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1954).
[20] “Party Constitution Central Committee (P) CPI (Maoist).”
[21] Chakrabarty, 198.
[22] Alpa Shah, Nightmarch: Among India’s Revolutionary Guerrillas, (London: Hurst & Company, 2018), xx.
[23] Shah, 29, xvi.; Chandra, 414.
[24] Shivaji Mukherjee, “Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India: Historical Institutions and Civil War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 10 (November 2018): 2265.
[25] Chakrabarty, 173.
[26] Shah, 136.
[27] Chakrabarty, 163.
[28] Shah, 83-84.
[29] Chakrabarty, 4.
[30] Lovell, 370.
[31] Chakrabarty, 163-164.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Shah, 97-98.
[34] Ibid, 98-99.
[35] Jason Miklian, “The Purification Hunt: The Salwa Judum Counterinsurgency in Chhattisgarh, India,” Dialectical Anthropology 33, no. 3/4 (2009): 441-59.
[36] Putul; Rajput.
[37] Shah, xv.
[38] Chandra, 414.
[39] Pradip Ninan Thomas, “The ‘Red Surge’: Media Framing of Maoist Struggles in India,” International Communication Gazette 76, no. 6 (October 2014): 499.
[40] Thomas, 495-96
[41] Samir Puri, “India’s two-track response to the Naxalite movement: Security and development, but no political process,” In Countering Insurgencies and Violent Extremism in South and South East Asia, ed. Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, (London: Routledge, 2019), 153-167.
[42] Shah, xviii.
[43] Puri, 159.
[44] Miklian, 446-47.
[45] Ibid., 447-48.
[46] Puri, 158.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid, 161.
[49] Ibid.
Leave a Reply