Naxalbari and After—Unfinished History

Bernard D’Mello writes:

Soon after the transfer of power in 1947, the new regime in India showed its true colours when it sent its army into Telangana in 1948. Among other things, it aimed to liquidate peasant rebels under communist leadership bent on completing the democratic revolution against “semi-feudalism” over there. In fact, the Indian Army actively promoted semi-feudal restoration in the Telangana countryside. Since then, hundreds of millions of people in India have been the victims of Indian capitalism’s irrationality, brutality, and inhumanity. No wonder then that the one persistent message of the Naxalites (Indian Maoists) over the last 50 years is that India’s deeply oppressive and exploitative social order is crying out for revolutionary change.