Naxalism of the 1960s has been qualified as the most serious internal security threat to the Republic of India. Rooted in far-left Maoist ideology, the movement used armed insurgency to hinder vital infrastructure and socio-economic development in remote, tribal-dominated regions. Today, the word Naxal is used casually by politicians and businessmen to demonize anyone protesting against exploitation as anti-national. This does not bode well for a country where a large proportion of the youth are unemployed and risk a bleak future with the rise of AI.
Stripped of its dark and terrifying anti-national political ideology, Naxalism was, in essence, the rage of the dispossessed peasant-labourer. This rage began producing resistance from the moment the East India Company turned land into revenue. Forest fighters of Chotanagpur, Santhals of Bengal's frontier, Bhils of the Western Ghats and Polygars of Tamil country existed long before Marx appeared on the scene. Their struggles revealed the grammar of class conflict: dispossession, debt, loss of forest rights, coercive taxation and rebellion against a distant authority that functioned like a corporation.
