India is witnessing Maoism Mark V
tral and principal task, encircling the cities from the countryside and thereby finally cap turing them ... while urban work will be com plementary to it.”
That phase peaked in 2010 with spectacular strikes and great gain in operational geogra phy — at one time affecting a third of India’s districts in forms from acute to mild — before massive counter-reaction by police and para militaries began to box in Maoists. They are now under severe pressure and largely con tained in a few forested or rural parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jhark hand, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar. Encircling cities, as Mao did in the 1930s and 1940s, to ulti mately take over Beijing in 1949, is a fantasy
Let me qualify the statement. The rebels will continue to fight even if their operational geography reduces. Even accounting for the guerrilla doctrine of attacking in strength and retreating when weak, Maoists will occasion ally mount a spectacular attack just to remind the establishment—and prospective recruits—about the sting in their tail.
Besides the May anniversary, July 28, 1972 is the day Charu Mazumdar, co-founder of the ‘Naxalbari’ movement died in police custody in Kolkata. Maoists take Mazumdar’s declara tion in a 1971 issue of his party’s journal, Lib eration — “Naxalbari has not died and wil never die”—in letter and spirit.
It will likely be a time of activity in Maoist zones, certainly in the “liberated area” in southern Chhattisgarh. It’s a matter of great shame for India, a continuing reflection of its failings, that they have any at all.