A left-wing insurgency that began in 1967 in a corner of the country (Naxalbari, West Bengal), and which effectively ceased to be a force to reckon with by the mid 1970s, has gathered momentum since the late 80s, and continued to fester for well over two decades. Of the 641 districts of the country as many as 83 are affected with left-wing extremism (LWE). It should be a matter of great concern to all citizens of India that an insurgency that started in a small village in the corner of the country, and which had all but died a few years later, not only gathered momentum but continued to grow in scale and the number of districts that are affected by it. The state (as represented by the central and state governments), and its central paramilitary forces and the state police on the one hand, and the left-wing extremists on the other are locked into a bitter, long-drawn out violent military engagement, with the former determined to crush the insurgency, and the latter aiming to capture state power.

Central to arriving at an understanding of the problem of LWE-affected districts is the following set of facts. First, although the problem is confined to only nine of the 28 states of India, the fact is that these nine states constitute two-thirds of what are called the major states (which amount to 15). It is also noticeable that of the 106 districts that are recognised by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, as LWE-affected, the majority are in five states: 16 are in Andhra Pradesh, 22 in Bihar, 16 in Chhattisgarh, 21 in Jharkhand and 19 in Odisha. In other words, these five states account for 90 per cent of the total number of affected districts. The remaining states only have about 12 districts between them, which are LWE affected (Madhya Pradesh 1, Maharashtra 4, Uttar Pradesh 3 and West Bengal 4 districts). The important point about this geographic concentration is that the five high concentration states form a contiguous territory in an arc running from the India border near Nepal in north Bihar to the far south of Andhra Pradesh.