Waking up to Naxalism.

The killing of 74 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers on the wee hours of April 6, 2010 at Chintalnar near Dantewara in the Bastar area of Chattisgarh state seems to have finally woken up the Indian establishment to the fact that while they have been obsessing with economic growth and India's place in the world, the country's hinterland is witnessing an awakening of another kind. A raging insurgency, with its epicenter in the Adivasi homelands of central India, is threatening to engulf at least a quarter of India's 590 districts. It would not be very far off the mark to state that over 200 million people now live in areas where insurgents of some kind or the other are in armed conflict with the Indian State. It's not by coincidence that in much of this area, there is a sizable tribal population. Much of the insurgency can now be attributed to Naxalism, probably making it the last communist ideology inspired insurgency in the world. But now the geographical scale dwarfs every such conflict the world has known save the Chinese civil war that finally ended with Mao Zedong's victory. China has moved on a long way since then, and almost certainly China's present Chairman no longer inspires the Naxalites, as the first Chairman did.