Nightmarch

Among India's Revolutionary Guerrillas

Shah Alpa

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In one of the world's most intractable and under-reported rebellions, the Naxalites have been engaged in a decades-long battle with the Indian state. Presented in the media as a deadly terrorist group, the movement is made up of Marxist ideologues and lower-caste and tribal combatants who seek to overthrow a system that has abused them.

In 2010, anthropologist Alpa Shah embarked on a seven-night trek with some of these communist guerrillas, walking 250 kilometres through the dense, hilly forests of eastern India. Speaking to leaders and living for years with villagers in guerrilla strongholds, Shah seeks to understand why some of India's poor have shunned the world's largest democracy and taken up arms to fight for a fairer society – and asks whether they might be undermining their own aims.

"Nightmarch" is a compelling reflection on dispossession and conflict at the heart of contemporary India.

About the Author

Alpa Shah was raised in Nairobi, studied at Cambridge and completed her PhD at the LSE, where she now teaches anthropology. She is the author of "In the Shadows of the State" and a co-author of "Ground Down by Growth". She presented the radio documentary "India's Red Belt" for BBC Radio 4's "Crossing Continents".

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