The minimum age for joining the CPI (Maoist) is 16 years. [[Bourgeoisie|Capitalists]] cannot join the party unless they hand over their property and integrate with the masses.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=[[Muppala Lakshmana Rao]]|year=2004|title=Party Constitution|chapter=|pdf=https://bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/Founding/Constitution.doc}}</ref>
The minimum age for joining the CPI (Maoist) is 16 years. [[Bourgeoisie|Capitalists]] cannot join the party unless they hand over their property and integrate with the masses.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author=[[Muppala Lakshmana Rao]]|year=2004|title=Party Constitution|chapter=|pdf=https://bannedthought.net/India/CPI-Maoist-Docs/Founding/Constitution.doc}}</ref>
The Naxalite movement operates heavily in the Adivasi (scheduled tribe) belts of Central and Eastern India. However, the dominant CPI (Maoist) line historically subsumes Adivasi land and forest rights under the broader rubric of "agrarian class struggle." The CPI (Maoist) condemns the People's Republic of China and Vietnam as "social-imperialist" and "revisionist." Despite calling themselves Maoist, they diverge sharply with many of Mao's and Lenin's theories, and believe in the supremacy of armed struggle (with contempt for other forms of struggle).<ref name=":3">{{Citation|author=Prasenjit Bose, Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); P.M.S. Grewal, Secretary of the Delhi State Committee, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Nilotpal Basu, member of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Vijay Prashad, the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA|year=2010|title=Maoism: A Critique from the Left|chapter=Indian Maoists: Flawed Strategy and Perverted Praxis|city=New Delhi, India|publisher=LeftWord Books; www.leftword.com|isbn=978-81-87496-61-8}}</ref> By cutting themselves off from existing socialist and anti-imperialist states, the Naxalite factions limit their ability to challenge the global, transnational structure of settler extraction. Furthermore, their obsession with "annihilation of class enemies" has at times alienated the very Adivasi communities whose ancestral lands they claim to defend, due to their inability to center tribal self-governance (''jal, jungle, zameen'' – water, forest, land) as the primary political horizon.<ref name=":02">{{Citation|author=Shah, A.|year=2018|title=Nightmarch: A journey into India's Naxal heartlands|publisher=University of Chicago Press / Verso}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=Sundar, N.|year=2016|title=The burning forest: India's war in Bastar|publisher=Juggernaut Books}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|year=2018|title=The Naxalite movement, the oppressive state, and the revolutionary struggle in India|title-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-92354-3_10|publisher=Springer Academic Chapter}}</ref>
The Naxalite movement operates heavily in the Adivasi (scheduled tribe) belts of Central and Eastern India. However, the dominant CPI (Maoist) line historically subsumes Adivasi land and forest rights under the broader rubric of "agrarian class struggle." The CPI (Maoist) condemns the People's Republic of China and Vietnam as "social-imperialist" and "revisionist."<ref name=":3">{{Citation|author=Prasenjit Bose, Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); P.M.S. Grewal, Secretary of the Delhi State Committee, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Nilotpal Basu, member of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Vijay Prashad, the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA|year=2010|title=Maoism: A Critique from the Left|chapter=Indian Maoists: Flawed Strategy and Perverted Praxis|city=New Delhi, India|publisher=LeftWord Books; www.leftword.com|isbn=978-81-87496-61-8}}</ref> By cutting themselves off from existing socialist and anti-imperialist states, the Naxalite factions limit their ability to challenge the global, transnational structure of settler extraction.
== Social chauvinism ==
The Naxalite movement presents itself as a revolutionary struggle for Adivasi liberation, yet its fundamental flaws reveal a movement that parasitizes rather than serves Indigenous communities.
The movement is led by upper-caste, educated, non-Adivasi Hindus, while the fighting force is drawn overwhelmingly from young Adivasi populations who formed emotional bonds with the recruiters.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=Bhattacharjee, K.|year=2017|title=An unfinished revolution: A hostage crisis, Adivasi resistance and the Naxal movement|publisher=Pan Macmillan}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Citation|author=Kennedy, J., & King, L.|year=2013|title=Adivasis, Maoists and insurgency in the central Indian tribal belt|page=1–32|publisher=European Journal of Sociology|series=54|volume=1}}</ref><ref name=":02" /> Unlike Che Guevara, an outsider who came to serve local revolutions on their own terms, the Naxalite leadership comes to command, demanding Adivasi subordination to the Party's central command rather than supporting Adivasi self-determination.
The Maoist party's ultimate objective is the "seizure of political power through protracted people's war", replacing the Hindutva state with a Maoist state. The Adivasi struggle for jal, jungle, zameen is not merely local or defensive. It is a revolutionary challenge to the foundational property relations of the bourgeois state and a refusal of the Indian state's governance. It is in the Adivasi interest that the state is captured, but not by the Naxalites, who offer a change of management, not a change to the system. The slogan "jal, jungle, zameen" is raised by Adivasi-Maoists, yet the party's practices do not align with Adivasi sovereignty. Lenin was emphatic that the right to self-determination for oppressed nations is a precondition for socialist revolution,<ref>{{Citation|last=Lenin|first=Vladimir|author=Vladimir Lenin|year=1914|title=The Right of Nations to Self‑Determination|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Lenin|first=Vladimir|author=Vladimir Lenin|year=1916|title=The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self‑Determination (Theses)|mia=https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jan/x01.htm}}</ref> yet the Naxalites, like [[Communist Party of Peru – Shining Path|Sendero Luminoso]] and the [[Communist Party of the Philippines|CPP-NPA]], refuse to recognize their rights, and that refusal is the root of their betrayal. The Naxalites reduce everything to class struggle and ignore national oppression. Their dogmatic adherence to a "semi-feudal" analysis disables them from recognizing the relatively egalitarian economic systems already existing among Adivasi communities; they dismiss Adivasi spiritual beliefs, kinship systems, gender equality, and communal governance as "feudal" or "superstitious" obstacles to revolution.<ref name=":02" />
Maoist activity is greatest where Adivasis retain land control, revealing that the movement depends on Adivasi territorial sovereignty as a base for operations, rather than fighting to establish it.<ref name=":2" /> The movement uses Adivasi communities as fuel for a political project designed and led by others. CPI(Maoist) commander Sabyasachi Panda admitted the leaders have "moved away from ideology to make money" and confessed the party system "has degenerated into a feudal democracy."<ref name=":1" />
The conflict has claimed at least 40,000 lives, with Adivasi communities caught between Naxals and police. Civil society reports document extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, forced relocation, and mass displacement. The state has sponsored militias like Salwa Judum, in which Adivasi youth were deliberately drawn to conduct violence on their own communities. Yet the Naxalites themselves have also killed Adivasi civilians.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Citation|author=InSAF India et al|year=2025|title=Denial of constitutional, legal and fundamental human rights and justice to families of Adivasi Indigenous victims of extrajudicial killings in Bastar Division, Chhattisgarh, India [Submission to the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances]|pdf=https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/executions/cfis/2025-rights-families/subm-families-victims-extrajudicial-cso-9-interna-insaf-india-rance.pdf|publisher=OHCHR}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|author=InSAF India et al|year=2025|title=Submission to the UN Human Rights Council, 60th session [Civil society submission]|pdf=https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/report-60th-session/subm-60th-session-aca-2-insaf-india.pdf|publisher=OHCHR}}</ref><ref name=":02" />
The Hindutva state and the Naxalites both treat Adivasi communities as objects to be extracted, managed, or sacrificed for their own homogenizing project. Neither treats them as subjects of their own history.
== Assassination of CPI(Marxist) members ==
They also, in collaboration with the Trinamul Congress, assassinate CPI(Marxist) members "on a frequent base" who are "specifically targeted", many of whom are from the most oppressed sections of society. No political party anywhere in India has lost as many activists and supporters to Maoist terror, as has the CPI(Marxist) in West Bengal since 2008. Of the over 190 members and supporters of the CPI(Marxist) killed, more than half were murdered by the Naxalites.<ref name=":3" />
== Structure ==
== Structure ==
Revision as of 04:37, 15 July 2026
Communist Party of India (Maoist)
भारतीय कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी (माओवादी) ভারতের কমিউনিস্ট পার্টি (মাওবাদী)
The minimum age for joining the CPI (Maoist) is 16 years. Capitalists cannot join the party unless they hand over their property and integrate with the masses.[2]
The Naxalite movement operates heavily in the Adivasi (scheduled tribe) belts of Central and Eastern India. However, the dominant CPI (Maoist) line historically subsumes Adivasi land and forest rights under the broader rubric of "agrarian class struggle." The CPI (Maoist) condemns the People's Republic of China and Vietnam as "social-imperialist" and "revisionist."[3] By cutting themselves off from existing socialist and anti-imperialist states, the Naxalite factions limit their ability to challenge the global, transnational structure of settler extraction.
Structure
The highest body of the CPI (Maoist) is the All-India Party Congress, which is held once every five years. The party congress elects a presidium, which elects the Central Committee. When the party congress is not in session, the Central Committee is the highest organ of the party. The Central Committee elects the Politburo and its leader, the general secretary.
Below the national level, the CPI (Maoist) has state, divisional, sub-divisional, committees that meet once every three years and are composed of professional revolutionaries. Area conferences are held once every two years. The lowest committees are village, factory, and college committees.
Local day-to-day activities are organized by party cells with three to five members or two to three villages combined.[2]
↑Prasenjit Bose, Convenor of the Research Unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); P.M.S. Grewal, Secretary of the Delhi State Committee, and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Nilotpal Basu, member of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Vijay Prashad, the George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, USA (2010). Maoism: A Critique from the Left: 'Indian Maoists: Flawed Strategy and Perverted Praxis'. New Delhi, India: LeftWord Books; www.leftword.com. ISBN 978-81-87496-61-8
