India's Naxalite movement – to which contemporary Indian Maoists directly trace their lineage – emerged as a wildfire insurrection in 1967 in the Naxalbari area of North Bengal. After a few years of dramatic violence, however, that movement was comprehensively suppressed by 1973, with the entire top leadership of what was then the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), either jailed or dead. What little remained of its splintered survivor organisations was destroyed during Indira Gandhi's Emergency of 1975. It was with the formation in 1980 of the People's War Group (PWG) – under the leadership of Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, an erstwhile Central Organising Committee member of the CPI (ML), in the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh – and the reorganisation of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Bihar in the mid-1980s, that the movement resurfaced in some strength.
Initial successes were, again, rapid, and by the mid-1980s, 31 districts in seven states were experiencing Naxalite violence. By the early 1990s, however, the problem had been eliminated from at least 16 of these districts, bringing the total number of affected districts to just 15 in four states. Thereafter, the reconstruction of the Naxalites was initially more systematic, with wider areas being targeted and consolidated. In recent years, however, the growth of the movement has been exponential. Thus, at the meeting of what is known as the Central Coordination Committee of states affected by the Naxalite movement, on 21 November 2003, then-Union Home Secretary N Gopalaswami disclosed that a total of 55 districts in nine states were affected by varying degrees of Naxalite violence. Just ten months later, on 21 September 2004, an official note circulated at the meeting of chief ministers of states experiencing Naxalite violence, indicating that this number had gone up to as many as 156 districts in 13 states. By August 2007, the official number had risen to 194 districts in 18 states.
Not all of these districts and states were, of course, seething with Maoist violence. Just 62 of these were categorised as 'highly affected', reflecting significant levels of violence. Another 53 districts were categorised as 'moderately affected', indicating high levels of political mobilisation and some violence. Meanwhile, 79 districts fell into the 'marginally affected' category, in which preliminary political mobilisation was detected. Sources indicate that intelligence estimates now put at least 220 districts in 22 states into the sphere of varying degrees of Maoist influence and activity.
It is important to recognise that the phase when there is violence, which is ordinarily the point at which the state takes cognisance of the problem, actually comes at the tail end of the process of mass mobilisation. This is the stage when neutralising the threat will require considerable, if not massive, use of force. From the all-important preventive perspective, then, it is useful to chart not merely the current expanse of visible Maoist mobilisation and militancy, but also to understand the extent of their current intentions, ambitions and agenda.