Provides an understanding of the thought processes of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Some of the more important documents of the Maoists have been edited and compiled in this volume. These have been classified under various headings, such as Organisational Aspects; Interviews; Unity Congress; Central Committee/ Politburo Circulars/Statements; and Synchronised/Large Scale Attacks.

Winner of the 2020 Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize Shortlisted for the New India Foundation Book Prize Anthropologist Alpa Shah found herself in an active platoon of Naxalites—one of the longest-running guerrilla insurgencies in the world. The only woman, and the only person without a weapon, she walked alongside the militants for seven nights across 150 miles of dense, hilly forests in eastern India. Nightmarch is the riveting story of Shah's journey, grounded in her years of living with India’s tribal people, an eye-opening exploration of the movement’s history and future and a powerful contemplation of how disadvantaged people fight back against unjust systems in today’s world. The Naxalites have fought for a communist society for the past fifty years, caught in a conflict that has so far claimed at least forty thousand lives. Yet surprisingly little is known about these fighters in the West. Framed by the Indian state as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is actually made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants, all of whom seek to overthrow a system that has abused them for decades. In Nightmarch, Shah shares some of their gritty untold stories: here we meet a high-caste leader who spent almost thirty years underground, a young Adivasi foot soldier, and an Adivasi youth who defected. Speaking with them and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah has sought to understand why some of India’s poor have shunned the world’s largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society—and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims. By shining a light on this largely ignored corner of the world, Shah raises important questions about the uncaring advance of capitalism and offers a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India.

Maoism in india is an attempt to study and analyse the movement. already a number of left intellectuals and scholars have studied the movement and written about it. my attempt has been to find out the difference between the naxalite and cpi (maoist) movements. is there any difference as such? though the naxalite movement took birth in naxalbari in 1967; it is still striving to find a sustainable support base. the naxalite movement got its name from naxalbari village where the first major uprising took place. also; through the merger of the people’s war and the maoist communist centre (mcc); communist party of india (maoist) was formed in 2004 which aims to overthrow the government of india through people’s war. why an organization which was perceived as the forum of the “deprived and alienated sections of the population” was described as “the single biggest internal security challenge”. usually; people confuse themselves over maoists and naxalities and cannot exactly trace the difference between the two terminologies. media simply adds to the confusion. the communist party of india (maoist) aims to overthrow the government of india through people’s war. i also tried to find out the reasons which made the maoists in recent times to focus more on arms intervention than taking to organizing mass resistance movement.

Maoists in India, Writings & Interviews

Is the 21st century Che Guevara fighting in the forest belt of central India? In Tribals Under Siege, Nirmalangshu Mukherji delves into one of the most intractable but under-reported struggles in the global south – the battle between the Indian state and Maoist groups who control large swathes of the countryside. Mukherji explains the devastating impact on India's tribal population of both neo-liberalism and armed aggression by the State, and the armed struggle launched by the Maoists. Unlike many accounts he takes an honest and unflinching look at the Maoists' interventions, sometimes criticizing their actions as well as the contradictions and fallacies made by Maoist theoreticians. Tribals Under Siege goes beyond analyzing the Maoists purely in terms of security or military considerations. It focuses on the Maoists own political philosophy and looks critically at weather their political project can help to deliver real justice and liberation for India's rural poor.

The Indian Government has repeatedly described Maoist guerrillas as 'the biggest security threat to the countryÕ and Bastar as their headquarters. This book chronicles how the armed conflict between the government and the Maoists has devastated the lives of some of India's poorest citizens.

Why are Maoist, Naxalite and Left extremist movements taking root in the most backward and underdeveloped regions of South Asia? This book examines this multi-layered question in democracies such as India and Nepal through an analysis of these movements as well as their leaderships and ideologies. Through a series of detailed interviews and dialogues, it sheds fresh light into the minds and actions of people who have critically defined the nature of Maoism and related movements in the region. Weaving together diverse narratives, voices, and streams of dissent, this first-of-its-kind volume brings cohesion to the seemingly fragmented but formidable Maoist politics in South Asia. It also highlights how such ‘civil wars’ are embedded into the larger politics of the region. Perceptive and lucid, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, sociology, peace and conflict studies, and security studies, especially those concerned with Maoism and social movements. It will also be useful to government institutions and policy-makers.