n the past decade, it is in tribal districts that the Maoists have made the greatest gains, in good part because of the State’s own short-sighted and exploitative policies. The IRMA researchers are no sympathizers of the methods of the Naxalites. They see them (in my view, rightly) as a threat not just to Indian democracy, but to democratic values in general. They quote an activist who notes that while the Maoists might have, in the beginning, fought for greater economic and social rights for tribals, over the years they have “become corrupt, power hungry and intolerant of any difference[s]†. The insurgents are also deeply hypocritical; thus “while denouncing the ‘loot of adivasi resources’, the Party takes money from the mining industry to fund its operations†.