INDIA'S MAOIST BLOWBACK

The Indians just went to the moon, but they can't clean up their own backyard. If they don't get a handle on an extreme threat to their very existence, and soon, the India that we know and love today will soon turn into a hellish whirlwind of bloody anarchy. The threat comes from ultra-leftists known as Maoists, also known as the Communist Party of India. A report from AFP today: NEW DELHI (AFP) – Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday said India was failing in its efforts to crush a Maoist rebellion plaguing vast swathes of the country. Addressing a conference of senior police and security officials in New Delhi, Singh once again described the ultra-leftist insurgency as "the most serious internal security threat" India was facing. Full Article... Just who are the Maoists in India? Jane's notes that "[t]he proscribed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) was founded on 21 September 2004, following the merging of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War, also known as the People's War Group, and the Maoist Communist Centre of India - two of India's most prominent insurgent groups." In short, they're communists. It should be noted that communists come in a variety of flavors, and Maoism is one of them. There are even variations with the global Maoist movement, and the Indian Maoists are particular nasty. Again, from Jane's: "The CPI-Maoist is the largest group of a wider communist insurgent movement, known as Naxalites after the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, the site of a revolutionary rural uprising in 1967. The CPI-Maoist has a presence in 185 districts in 17 out of India's 28 states, exerting varying degrees of influence in these areas. Chhattisgarh is currently the state worst affected by the insurgency, particularly its southern Bastar region, which was referred to as a "war zone" in July 2007 by state police chief Vishwaranjan. Other states affected by Maoist violence are Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Andhra Pradesh - where the insurgents are currently on the retreat - has been affected for the longest period of time - since 1964, when radical elements of the political Communist Party of India (Marxist) waged a rebellion called the Srikakulam armed struggle." More at Jane's Intelligence... The irony in all of this is that India's problem with Maoists is, at least in part, blowback from previous intelligence wars of its own. In the past, India has made use of the Maoists as allies in its arguments with Nepal (see India Using Maoists Against Nepal). RELATED: Maoist rebels spread across rural India csmonitor.com YouTube - India's Maoist Revolution - India Subscribe to The Bench by E-mail. It's free!