ABSTRACT
The national security concerns during the Cold War, with its focus on superpower competition and military power, gave way in the post-Cold War era to a new security context. In the context of a globalising world – growing interconnectedness in many realms – and the heightened concern about international terrorism, notions of human security were transformed. The Naxalite/Maoist insurgency in India, which re-emerged in the late 1990s, is presented as a case study of the risks posed to security such as human security, national and international security. The spread of Naxalism is analysed in terms of the social, economic and political structures that produce and perpetuate crushing poverty and exploitation. The Report of an Expert Group, commissioned by the Government of India, asserts a 'direct correlation' between 'extremism and poverty' and concludes that conditions – of acute poverty, deprivation, oppression – create a context for Maoists and other extremist groups.
