India’s Backdoor War

India today is a media darling with a brisk economy to back it up. But rapid, urban-based development has passed by the rural poor, giving oxygen to a violent separatist movement that grows bolder by the year.

As Bollywood and the info-tech boom of the New India grab headlines, a low-intensity insurgency waged by Indian Maoist guerrillas – known as Naxalites – has gone virtually ignored for more than four decades. Their strength is largely due to the plight of “tribals” living deep in the central and northeast provinces, where state authority is weak at best and basic services are non-existent. Making matters worse is the state’s seizure of land for mining and forestry concessions.

Jason Motlagh

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