Twists And Turns In Naxalite Movement In Last Six Decades After 1967 Uprising

By Arun Srivastava

The Naxalite movement, originating from a 1967 peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal, has witnessed numerous “twists and turns,” evolving from a localized armed insurrection into a fragmented insurgency and, in recent years, a shrinking threat experiencing mass surrenders and gruesome killings of cadres by the security forces. But one evolution is quite significant. Notwithstanding large scale killings of the Naxalites, the spirit of the movement remains among the tribals of the earlier Maoist dominated areas.

Home Minister Amit Shah has announced March 31, 2026 as the deadline for the abolition of Naxalism from the country. Shah has used strong arms tactics of the security forces to finish the remaining Maoists who have been fighting the state machinery in their designated regions. There have been series of surrender by the armed rebels in the last few months. By the end of this month, Home Minister may be happy in finding that most of the Naxal leaderships have been eliminated but his boast of eliminating Naxalism is misplaced. Naxalite parties and their leaders may be crushed, but Shah will not be able to crush the ideology.

The first organized party of the Naxalites was founded on May 1, 1969 at a huge mass rally at Sahid Minar, the then Calcutta. Charu Majumdar, a rebel from the CPI(M), which initially after formation in 1964 followed the Chinese line and Mao, was elected as the Chairman of the new party. Following the death of founder Charu Majumdar in police custody in 1972, the movement split into over 40 separate groups, often engaging in sectarian conflicts rather than unified revolutionary action. The conflicts had strong ideological contour. A new resurging ideology of armed struggle obviously had some basic confusions and contradictions leading to group fighting and giving advantage to the state machinery to arrest and kill the activists.

Two ideological issues; annihilation of class enemy and the slogan, China’s Chairman is our Chairman, had harmed the movement. These two issues, instead of being evaluated in proper perspective, were sidelined. Different factions sent differing directives. There was total chaos in West Bengal, Bihar and some parts of Odisha and Chhattisgarh along with Andhra Pradesh. In West Bengal, during the rule of the chief minister S S Ray, the government actions led to near crash of the active Naxalite groups while many leaders were in jails. After the Left Front came to power in 1977, the LF government released the Naxalites from prison. Many of them started to review the new situation in Bengal, but in other states, the older groups remained active.

The Maoists did not modify their strategy in 1980s as also in 1990s following the beginning of the process of liberalization in the Indian economy, the new Chinese line for market socialism under Deng Xiao Ping and later the fall of the socialist system in East Europe including the Soviet Union. The limited number of Maoist groups were still continuing their fight in the old form giving big scope to the state machinery to isolate them from the aspirational youth even in the tribal areas.

Maoists operating in South India, primarily in the Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB) region, Telangana, and the tri-junction area of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, continue to engage in violent clashes with police due to a combination of ideological commitment to armed struggle, the need to protect their remaining rural strongholds, and retaliation against intensifying state pressure. Indeed a dichotomy, despite decline in the movement, violent incidents persist. The CPI (Maoist) maintains its core ideology of capturing state power through “protracted people’s war,” rejecting the democratic process. They view the state as feudal and imperialist, and violent conflict is seen as the only method to achieve their goals. Maoists retaliate against these losses, targeting security personnel to project strength and deter further surrenders. Their number is dwindling, but there are still a few determined Maoists. They are expected to hit at the security forces even after March 31 , 2026 deadline.

Land acquisition by large corporate for industrial, mining, and infrastructure projects in South India—and across the “Red Corridor”—has been a significant factor contributing to the persistence of Maoist armed resistance. Notwithstanding Shah’s claim that the movement has been on decline the fact remains the cadres are “hardcore” and concentrated in the Dandakaranya region (Chhattisgarh-Odisha border).

If one looks at the history of the Naxalite movement in India, it is seen that. By the middle of 1972, the Party had suffered almost total paralysis. The entire central leadership was virtually decimated. The remaining Party forces were all lying scattered and fragmented. And on the question of the Party’s line, there was confusion all around. Then, the Party in its July 1990 Special Conference in Delhi decided to resume open functioning after nearly twenty years. That was how the CPI(ML)-L was born and started taking up the mantle of original CPI(ML) of 1969 taking into account the new realities of the Indian situation.

The Party continues to pay the highest attention to building revolutionary peasant struggles and organising armed resistance against the attacks by private armies of the landlords and junkers as well as the state. CPI(ML)-Liberation has been the true inheritor of India’s Revolutionary Communist Legacy. While other communist revolutionary groups have faced existential crisis and even some got dissipated during the last 60 years, the CPI(ML) Liberation has not only survived but maintained its continuity and unity since its reorganisation in 1974. Besides having a strong national network, it has been regularly holding its Congresses and Conferences up to regional and district levels.

Vinod Mishra rectified the CPI(ML) by shifting it from dogmatic, isolated armed struggle to a mass-based, democratic oriented and finally merging revolutionary politics with legal struggles. Initiated in the late 1970s, his rectification campaign abandoned the strict underground-only policy to build open organizations like the Indian People’s Front (IPF) and liberation.org.in in 1982. He broke with the early CPI(ML)’s dogma while maintaining its revolutionary legacy, analyzing the Indian situation to adapt communist strategy. He oversaw the party’s entry into the electoral process as a tactic to engage with the broader public and gain legal standing, often focusing on campaigns in Bihar. He worked to build a strong, disciplined party organization that could operate amidst both intense repression and democratic, open spaces.

The decline of the Naxalite movement in India is a complex, multi-factorial process rather than the result of a single cause. Internal rivalry, ideological fractures, and leadership crises have been major contributing factors. Vinod Mishra and Tarimela Nagi Reddy were both prominent leaders in the Indian communist movement, specifically within the revolutionary, anti-revisionist streams that branched off from the main communist parties. However, they operated in different eras, led different factions, and held differing views on tactics, particularly regarding armed struggle versus mass organization. Vinod Mishra was a key leader in the CPI(ML)-Liberation group, which began in the Naxalite tradition and later underwent significant reorientation under his leadership. T. Nagi Reddy was a veteran communist leader from Andhra Pradesh who formed his own revolutionary stream in opposition to both the CPM and the mainstream Naxalite (CPI-ML) leadership.

The journey of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation—often referred to as CPI(ML) Liberation or the “Liberation” group—is a transition from an underground armed struggle movement to a significant electoral and mass-based political force in India under the leadership of its new General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya..

Abhijit Mazumdar, son of Charu Majumdar who is also the West Bengal state secretary of the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (Liberation) holds: “… Yes, we are now focussing on protecting constitutional democracy first as we feel that is more important today in the fight against fascism, nexus between remnant feudal and big business as also combat misrule by different shades of governments” CPI(ML) Liberation is fighting in West Bengal assembly elections in ten seats as a partner of the Left Front. In Bihar and Jharkhand also, the CPI(ML)-L is acting as a force in the state legislature focusing on the plight of the rural poor. It is to be seen whether the CPI(ML)-L can bring the other Maoist groups, now disgruntled within its ideological and organizational fold. (IPA Service)

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