Nightmarch
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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 how and 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.
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING, 2019
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE NEW INDIA FOUNDATION BOOK PRIZE, 2019
WINNER OF THE 2020 ASSOCIATION FOR POLITICAL AND LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY BOOK PRIZE
A 2018 New Statesman Book of the Year
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'.