ABSTRACT
The Naxalite vision of the overthrow of the state was far removed from the everyday life of those it sought to mobilize. The Naxalites claimed to be Maoists, and they did indeed look to an agrarian-based revolution to establish a communist regime. When the Naxalites engaged in violence, government was able to move against them with full force, even with force that may have been in excess of the law, and pay no political price for doing so. Government's rehabilitative efforts in the aftermath of Naxalite violence may be seen as an attempt to insure that the Naxalites remained isolated. The movements have a legitimacy that the Naxalites lacked; government therefore cannot suppress them without considerable political cost. The Naxalite experience demonstrated government's culpability for allowing exploitation and violence to develop to a point at which the seeds of revolution planted by outside leaders could land on fertile soil.
