ABSTRACT
Maoism in India has thrived on the objective conditions of poverty that has various ramifications. Undoubtedly, high economic and income disparity and exploitation of the impoverished, especially ‘the wretched of the earth’, contribute to revolutionary and radical politics. India’s development strategy since independence was hardly adequate to eradicate the sources of discontent. The situation seems to have been worse with the onset of globalization that has created ‘islands of deprivation’ all over the country. As the state is being dragged into the new development packages, which are neither adequate nor appropriate for the ‘peripherals’, Maoism seems to have provided a powerful alternative. The argument, drawn on poverty, is strengthened by linking the past deficits with the disadvantages inherent and perceived in the present initiatives for globalization. The Orissa case (and also Chhattisgarh) is an eye-opener because Maoism has gained enormously due to the ‘displacement’ of the indigenous population in areas where both state-sponsored industrial magnates and other international business tycoons have taken over land for agro-industries. Here is a difference between the present Maoism and the Naxalbari movement. In case of the latter, it was an organized peasant attack against peculiar ‘feudal’ land relations, particularly in West Bengal, whereas the Maoists in Orissa and Chhattisgarh draw on ‘displacement’ of the local people – due to the over-enthusiastic state bringing about rapid development through quick industrialization, irrespective of its social consequences for those who are purportedly the beneficiaries. So, issues that are critical to the Maoist organization vary from one context to another. The aim of this chapter is therefore to focus on major contextual issues and their articulation by the Maoists in specific socio-economic milieu in which they appear to have become politically purposeful and ideologically significant agents of socio-economic changes. This will be done in two ways: first, rather than dwelling on context-specific issues, the chapter deals with those critical issues in which the Maoist movement is being articulated in different parts of India; and second, the chapter also seeks to draw out the impact of ultra-left wing extremism on government policy, both in terms of its response to the Maoist movement and also its preparedness to address the socio-economic issues that the movement has raised.
