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January 27, 2006
Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: Naxalite
naxalite. /NACK·suhl·ite/. Despite sounding like the name of a mineral, a naxalite is someone with communist sympathies who believes in and strives for the violent overthrow of parliamentary government (not all Indian communists subscribe to this philosophy; India fosters an enigmatic polity where communist governments have been chosen multiple times in free elections). The word naxalite comes from Naxalbari, a town in West Bengal, where a 1967 meeting marked the birth of this violent movement. Today, naxalites have spread well beyond the borders of West Bengal and have been encountered in a belt stretching across central-southeast India. Many of today's active naxalites are affiliated with the People's War Group (PWG), an organization of guerrilla fighters formed in1980 in Andhra Pradesh to achieve an organized peasant insurrection against elected government.
Posted by Vishy at January 27, 2006 08:25 PM