The struggle in India is quite complex, and is being fought on many fronts. The indigenous people, popularly known as Adivasi ( 'original people' in Sanskrit ), are rebelling against the government's efforts to relocate them and give their ancestral lands over to oil, timber, and mining companies.
The history of the left in India is a study in itself. The original fault line, much like everywhere else in the socialist world, derived from the epic Stalin-Trotsky conflict. Thereafter divergent allegiances resulted in the creation of three different parties all calling themselves communist: the Communist Party of India ( Marxist ), the Communist Party of India ( Leninist ), and the Communist Party of India ( Maoist ), with the latter being commonly referred to as Naxalite after the town, Naxalbari. where they launched their first insurrection.
To make matters worse, these parties experienced further internal fragmentation with some members believing that a legal path to power was possible, with others denouncing them as mere "reformers" and warning against ideological drift. Their differing orientations clashed most irreconcilably on the issue of firearms, with the former believing they are unnecessary and counterproductive, and the latter insisting on their indispensability. As a consequence, these parties split into legal parties working within the system, and illegal parties with armed militias.
The membership of these parties rose and fell with events. When one was experiencing success, people from other parties would overcome their doctrinal reluctance and defect. If that particular party's influence waned, it would then experience a decline in membership with its defectors coalescing around another issue or figure or party.
It should come as no surprise that in largely agrarian India, the Naxalites have the largest following. With their success in the armed conflict with the Indian government over Adivasi land, their numbers have swollen tremendously. They are doing so well, and are enjoying so much popular support from Indians who believe in the Adivasi cause, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referred to the Naxalites as "the single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country." [1] Currently, they have 42 percent of that nation under their control, an area now being called the Red Corridor.
Recently, there have been a rash of strikes and suicides in Tirupur, state of Tamil Nadu. It is the center of the textile industry in India and workers have not shared in the recent boom. The strikers are calling for wage increases, shorter hours, and decent plumbing and sanitation in company-provided housing, where conditions are deplorable. Yet if one reads the mainstream media in India, one gets a distinctly different impression of the conflict.
From business magazine Tehelka:
"Alcoholism, family disputes, failure in love and extra-marital affairs are cited by experts as the main reasons for the spike in suicides." [2]
Here's The Times of India:
Maoist website http://indianmaoist.blogspot.com/
[1] Please note that I offer this link to provide a source for the Singh quote. I do not endorse the article which is full of disinformation. It depicts the Maoists as gangsters, however you may feel about them, they are certainly not profiteers.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1810169-1,00.html
[2] http://www.tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=Cr301010Tirupur.asp
[3] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/405-deaths-in-8-months-Tirupur-turning-suicide-capital-of-TN/articleshow/6604039.cms
[4] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/99897/sudden-suicides-tear-tirupur-textile.html
[5] http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/article553656.ece
