…the battle must break out again and again in ever-growing dimensions, and there can be no doubt as to who will be the victor in the end – the appropriating few, or the immense working majority.
– Karl Marx in "The Civil War in France", 30 May 1871.
The 1990s have been a period of great euphoria among the ruling classes of India, for all the wondrous opportunities made available through ´liberalisation´ of the economy. While the steady economic and political surrender to the consumerist demands of the elite and to Western capital continues, the 400 million Indians who are trapped in poverty can only dream revolutionary dreams.
Amidst the sheer persistence of the country´s monumental social, economic and political ills, the Indian Left, and the Maoist movements in particular, have faced a daunting task in mobilising the resistance of the rural and urban working classes. And it is the state of Bihar, otherwise unceremoniously dismissed as "the diseased heart of India", which has defiantly kept India´s revolutionary hopes alive with over a quarter of a century of Maoist struggles.