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Contemporary insiders put the number of core Naxal's in the college at the height of militancy at no more than 30 - not a big figure, but by most accounts, the single largest Maoist presence in all DU institutions. In 1968, history student Arvind Narain Das had run for president of the college student's body elections on an openly Naxal platform. He won. "We were ready to storm heaven," Dilip Simeon, a leading member of the group, was to write later. Times have moved since. Awadhesh Sinha is additional chief secretary in the Maharashtra government. Das, Ray and Simeon went on to do their PhDs. Das, a journalist and sociologist, died in 2000. He was 52. Ray teaches at Delhi School of Economics. Simeon joined Ramjas College as a teacher in 1974. In the '80s, he was attacked brutally while leading an agitation. He is now a senior research fellow at Nehru Library. Rajiv Kumar did his DPhil from Oxford and is director of ICRIER a leading government supported rightwing economics thinktank.

from The Heart of our Darkness
by Mohan Guruswamy

Naxalbari is the name of a village and a region in northern part of the state of West Bengal. Naxalbari comes under the jurisdiction of Darjeeling district with its sub divisional headquarter at Siliguri. The stretch of land, where Naxalbari is situated, lies on the Terai region at the base of the Himalayas. To the west of Naxalbari, across the border river Mechi lies Nepal. The entire stretch of the land surrounding Naxalbari is covered by farmlands, tea estates and forests and small villages, consists of an area of 121 sq. km. The large villages in the region are Buraganj, Hatighisha, Phansidawa and Naxalbari.

from The Heart of our Darkness
by Mohan Guruswamy