Your coverage of Maoism (#7) misses some crucial points. Oppressed and neglected people everywhere, if they are oppressed and neglected enough will rise up. They do not need an ideology. Mao is a convenient label. If it weren't
Mao it would be some other prophet promising salvation.

Don't you get it? For those in the movement, it does not matter if the target is a school teacher, or school buses. It does not matter who the victims are: the end justifies the means. What you call the Maoist movement is here to stay, it has actually never really disappeared from any country where it has been "suppressed" (Sri Lanka, Peru, Philippines). And of course they are following Mao by the book, what else would they do? The leaders may disappear because they are from the middle class and the temptation for them to be reintegrated is high if the rewards of power are attractive enough.

Like Che Guevara or Regis Debray, the leaders will either be killed or join the mainstream. But what about the peasants? As in Bolivia or Peru, they will continue with the struggle, because they have nothing to lose and they are angry enough tokeep on fighting. The leaders will put any colour on a revolution: today it is red, tomorrow it may be saffron or green or anything as long as the "iskra" (spark) is there.

Tarun Ghosh
Calcutta