No, this is not about Russia again, but the longest running conflict in the world. The Indian home secretary claims that Naxalites want to establish a Marxist state, but what I didn’t realize before is that some of the territories they are most active in are already run at the state-level by the communist party. I say “the communist party” though there are who knows how many of them in India. The rebellion began with the faction now known as the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), named as such so as not to distinguish it from the (marxist-leninist) Communist Party of India (Marxist) (“the communist party” above), in turn named as such so as not to distinguish it from the now smaller (marxist) Communist Party of India.
As long as we’re talking India, a while back I linked to a free feature-length cartoon by Nina Paley called Sita Sings the Blues. It interleaves some autobiography with the Ramayana. Her version of the tale is revisionist in a feminist way by focusing on the ill-treatment of Sita by the great and noble ideal protagonist Rama. According to Wikipedia, there are also revisionists about the demonic antagonist king Ravana. Very devout man, er, thing, and anyway he was provoked when Rama cut off his sister’s nose. Didn’t hear about that bit from Rama-apologist Nina Paley. Or maybe I did and just forgot.
Entitled to an Opinion 
March 11, 2011 at 12:36 am
This is not an idle threat — similar Maoists took over Nepal. There are a lot of issues behind this (I discuss a few here: http://www.gnxp.com/wp/2011/02/01/land-tenure-and-inequality/). Regarding the Communist government in West Bengal — they made the mistake of trying to reform Chinese-style. ie, taking land from peasants (land they had given decades ago during land reform) and assigning that to industry. That sparked further conflict. Now, the political party tipped to take over in W Bengal (Trinamool Congress) has various links with the Maoist/Naxal movement.
China, too, would be filled with such groups if not for authoritarian control.
The treatment of Ravana — ie, revered in some places — reminds me of how the Avestan and Vedic literatures reverse the roles of asuras and devas.
March 11, 2011 at 1:19 am
I wanted to link to a post/comment Razib made where he found Hindus referring to deities with a word he had been brought up to associate with demons. But I can’t find it.
I should mention I just heard about the Ravana revisionism from a page on Dravidian nationalism. It also mentioned the worship of Shiva as a pre-Aryan tradition. I don’t know the history of that, but I do remember hearing that some Indian deities (or recognizable analogues) were mentioned in ancient Syria.
March 11, 2011 at 11:47 am
The Mitanni state in Syria is the first historical record of Indo-Aryans. Their treaties do refer to Vedic gods like Mitra, Varuna, and Indra; linguistic analysis of chariot texts is even enough to know that they differed from Indo-Iranians (presumably, they were driven west by them?). There’s even some speculation that some aspects of their religion (ie, sun worship) made their way to Akhenaten (his father in law may have been a Mitanni king).
Siva is something of a composite figure, incorporating aspects from several parallel traditions. There may be aspects of iconography that date back to the Indus Valley; there is a Vedic counterpart, etc.
The athiratharam (http://varnam.nationalinterest.in/2009/02/how-old-are-our-mantras/) dates back at least 3000 years and may be non-Vedic in origin.
March 12, 2011 at 10:51 am
The video there was removed. I didn’t see any reference to 3000 years, they claimed it pre-dated human language! They also claimed that all non-Africans descend from India, which I believe is not at all the scientific consensus.