ABSTRACT
The first of these occurred in India between 1965 and 1975 and is known as the Naxalite movement, named after Naxalbari, the locale in which the Maoistinspired tribal/peasant revolts first erupted in the State of West Bengal. At its peak, the first wave of Naxalite insurgency engulfed sizeable portions of three states in India’s north and indirectly impacted half a dozen others. A number of factors jointly contributed to ending this first wave of South Asian Maoist “People’s War” as quickly as it had started. These included: inherent weaknesses of the West Bengal Maoist party; the response and adjustments made by the major political parties to the Maoist challenge; successful counter-mobilization by various layers of the Indian State and state institutions; and finally, historical contingencies like the Bangladesh war of Independence and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Emergency Rule.
