Women generally cook, collect wood and act as soldiers. Some have been known to abandon their children on state highways in order to better serve the cause, said Kathihar Ras, a worker in a local orphanage.
Men’s tasks include patrolling, organizing propaganda exercises and collecting protection money from wealthy business leaders to guarantee their safety.
The Maoist propaganda machine — an essential part of the movement that the government is countering with its own communications efforts — uses printing presses, hired translators and professional writers.
“India is nothing but a semi-colonial and semi-feudal state under neo-colonial form of indirect rule, exploitation and control,” is one idea in a strategy manual.
Podiyani remembers some of the songs used during the regular workshops in which fellow fighters were taught about strategy and tactics for a revolution to topple the democratic government by 2060.
This target date is mentioned in training manuals seized by the police over the last seven years.
One song, he recalls, went as follows:
“These villages and land are ours. Why are the rich here? Let us all kill them, stab them and burn them.”
RSS