Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

478 • NAXALITESCalcutta in April 1978; it then diminished during the 1980s, beingrestricted mainly to West Bengal and other rural regions of India,until a revival in the late 1990s.The People’s War Group, which grew out of the Communist Partyof India-Marxist Leninist, was established in Andhra Pradesh on 22April 1980 by Kondapally Sitaramah and sought to create a “liberatedzone” within Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, and Bihar states. On 31January 1997 the Home Minister for Andhra Pradesh state, MadhavaReddy, set forth a seven-point peace proposal for the Naxalites todisarm, allowing them to continue as a political party. Following anattempted shooting of a Naxalite leader in April 1997, the Naxalitesrallied themselves and vowed to continue their armed struggle. DuringJuly 1997 the Naxalites began a campaign of threats against localelected officials in Karimnagar and neighboring districts, calling onthem to resign from their offices. On 9 October 1998 land minesplanted by the Naxalites killed 16 policemen and injured another 15in the Bastar region of Madhya Pradesh.After a clash with Indian police on 2 December 1999 that led tothe deaths of three members of the People’s War Group, the centralpolitical organization of the Naxalites created the People’s GuerrillaArmy, which sought to coordinate the various Naxalite factions andcells. On 21 September 2004 the People’s War Group merged withthe Maoist Communist Center to form the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) with a combined strength of 6,500 to 7,000cadres spread throughout Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkand,Chattisgarh, and West Bengal. While the Indian government initiatedpeace talks with the CPI-Maoist group, it refused any territorial concessions.In June 2005 the CPI-Maoists conducted a joint operationwith Nepalese Maoists in Bihar state, killing 21 people. Altogetherthe various Naxalite groups have been responsible for 221 incidentscosting more than 1,100 lives in the period 1968–2007. The currentCPI-Maoist group remains the most dangerous left-wing extremistgroup in India.While the Naxalite movement has often been compared with anarchisticleftist terrorist groups that appeared in the same period, suchas the Red Army Faction or Direct Action, unlike those groups,the Naxalites did succeed in mobilizing a class-based constituencyof oppressed rural peasants and in instigating an insurgency thatwent beyond the actions of a mere vanguardist group. In this respect,