New Delhi: Former Niti Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar was attracted to the Naxal ideology during his student days in the 1970s, hung posters of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh in his hostel room and even stayed at a remote village in Bihar to experience the harsh realities of rural India and to prepare villagers "annihilation of predatory jotedar and zamindar", a new book says.
According to the excerpts of the book, "Rebel Bastar: History, Maoism and the Search for Answers in India's Heartland", written by senior journalist and historian Shantanu Nandan Sharma, Kumar got attracted to the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Marxist-Leninist) when he was a student of Delhi's prestigious St. Stephen's College but now considers present day Naxalism as the "most pernicious and dishonest impact" on Indian youths which has perhaps "set back India's political and economic development by years".
