After nearly 60 years of violence, the jungle-based struggle for communist rule in India could finally be coming to an end. Operation Kagar, a military offensive launched by Indian security forces in April, has apparently decimated the once-powerful Naxalite insurgency group. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi's crackdown on the guerrilla movement "comes at a bloody price" and, critics say, may be motivated by something other than a "wish for peace," said The Guardian.
The Naxalite insurgency began in 1967 with a peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal. Inspired by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong and Marxist-Leninist ideology, the rebels advocate for class struggle and agrarian revolution through armed resistance. They aim to overthrow the government and establish a communist state.
The strength of the insurgency has "surged" at various points over the past five decades, said The Guardian. During its "peak" in the early 2000s, the Naxalites controlled "large swathes of the country, known as the 'red corridor,'" and had more than 30,000 foot soldiers. But now there are thought to be only about 500 active fighters operating in "limited districts."
Last month, India's most-wanted Naxalite, Nambala Keshava Rao, was cornered and killed, along with 26 others, in a large military operation. Modi's government has vowed that the Maoist insurgency will be "completely eradicated" by next March, so this "battle-hardened rebellion stands at a crossroads," said the BBC. It remains to be seen if this is "truly the end" of the story or "just another pause in its long, bloody arc." | 
