Monday March 10th, 2014, 4:21 pm (EDT)  Bernard D’Mello  Spring
Thunder Anew    What is Maoism?  Anuradha Ghandy (Anu as we knew
her) was a member of the central committee of the Communist
Party of India (Maoist) [CPI (Maoist)]. Early on, she developed
a sense of obligation to the poor; she joined them in their
struggle for bread and roses, the fight for a richer and a
fuller life for all. Tragically, cerebral malaria took her away
in April last year. What is this spirit that made her selflessly
adopt the cause of the damned of the Indian earth—the exploited,
the oppressed, and the dominated—as her own? The risks of
joining the Maoist long march seem far too dangerous to most
people, but not for her—bold, courageous and decisive, yet kind,
gentle and considerate. Perhaps her days were numbered, marked
as she was on the dossiers of the Indian state’s repressive
apparatus as one of the most wanted “left-wing extremists”. That
oppressive, brutal structure has been executing a barbaric
counter-insurgency strategy