Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Indian Peasant Uprisings

1976; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14672715.1976.10404413

0007-4810

Kathleen Gough,

South Asian Studies and Conflicts

The past decade has seen an upsurge of peasant militancy in India, chiefly under the leadership of revolutionary communists who owe part of their inspiration to the Chinese revolution and especially to Mao Ze-dong. At the present time a historic trial is occurring in Parvathipuram in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The defendants—imprisoned without trial since 1970—are seventy-five leaders and peasant supporters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the Andhra Pradesh Revolutionary Communist Committee, India's two main Maoist movements. The charges against them include conspiracy to overthrow the government, collection of arms and ammunition, preaching of violence, waging war against the government, and committing murders and banditry. The trial, an attempt to represent large-scale revolutionary upsurges as a series of individual crimes listed in the Indian Penal Code, is probably the largest of its kind ever conducted in South Asia. Meanwhile, several tens of thousands of political prisoners, many of them peasants, are imprisoned in India in conditions of misery and, often, of torture.