The Naxalites argue that they have brought order if not law to the area - banishing corrupt officials, expelling landlords and raising prices at gunpoint for harvests of tendu leaves, used to wrap bidi cigarettes. 'The path ahead will become more difficult for us but we know history is with us,' said Commander Markam.

The cadre fervently believes that India's feudal traditions, ingrained caste hierarchy and skewed land ownership provide fertile ground for rebellion.

Their political wing, the Communist party of India (Maoist), operates underground and has an armed presence in almost half of India's 28 states. The guerrillas' aim is violent revolution. They have set up 'people's courts' to punish, and in some cases execute, those deemed to be capitalist collaborators. In recent months they have attacked mines, blown up electricity pylons and torched cars used by contractors. Police estimate there are 4,500 armed leftwing guerrillas in Chhattisgarh. 'The government is bent upon taking out all the resources from this area and leaving the people nothing.' He says the 'exploitation' needs to be stopped. Watching his 'troops' conduct military exercises is Gopanna Markam, company commander in the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, whose rank is denoted by the AK-47 in his hands. The Naxalites have begun a campaign against such industrialisation, which the state sees as necessary to create jobs and provide the raw materials for economic growth. Last year the Chhattisgarh government signed deals worth 130bn Indian rupees (£1.6bn) with industrial companies for steel mills and power stations. India's biggest companies have moved stealthily into the forest areas, buying up land and acquiring the rights to extract the buried wealth. Above live some of India's most impoverished people: semi-literate tribes who exist in near destitution. The civil conflict has left more than 50,000 people camping under tarpaulin sheets without work or food along the roadsides of southern Chhattisgarh.Ĭampaigners say that the reason why the government has opened a new front in this battle lies beneath Chhattisgarh's fertile soil, which contains some of the country's richest reserves of iron ore, coal, limestone and bauxite. In Chhattisgarh a battalion of Indian paramilitary forces has backed this militia, known as Salva Judum (Peace March), against the Naxalites, turning the forest into a battlefield.Įntire villages have been emptied as tribal communities flee from the burnings, lootings and killings. Child soldiers are often ranged against opponents of similar age. In the past year the state has armed thousands of villagers with guns, spears and bows and arrows. Nowhere is this conflict more acute than in the dense forests of southern Chhattisgarh state, the scene of violent land disputes and social clashes. Last month the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, described the rebels as 'the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country'. Across a wide swath of India, from Andhra Pradesh in the south to the Nepalese border, there are daily reports of underground armies hijacking trains, mounting audacious jailbreaks and murdering local politicians. Unlike their ideological cousins in Nepal, the guerrillas are not prepared to consider exchanging the bullet for the ballot box. The Naxalites are heirs of the revolutionary ideology of Mao Zedong.

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