CHANNAI, India — The recent massacre of 80-odd para-military soldiers by the Indian rebel group the Maoists was terrorism in its bloodiest form.
The mayhem occurred in the central state of Chhattisgarh. It is here that the Maoist rebellion is most intense, and India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, was bang on when he equated this revolt with terror some months ago.
Maoists are also known as Naxalites, after the district of Naxalbari in the eastern state of West Bengal, where they first staged an armed uprising in 1967. The two most important Naxalite leaders, Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal, were brilliantly intellectual, but extremely frustrated with the corrupt state machinery that ignored and humiliated poverty-stricken villagers, especially landless laborers. Mazumdar and Sanyal also attracted young students, disillusioned with the system. Many of them fancied themselves as budding scholars and thinkers, and were inspired by former Chinese leader Mao Zedong's teachings. In fact, the Naxalite movement was applauded by China's People's Daily at the height of the Cultural Revolution as "as a peal of spring thunder."