The ‘Red Surge’: Media framing of Maoist struggles in India

Abstract

Maoist struggles in Eastern and Central India against the Indian State have been under-reported in International Media. These struggles by mainly indigenous communities against the corporate-state mining nexus have become a national crisis and literally hundreds of Indian paramilitary forces, Maoists and indigenous people have died as a result of these conflicts. Local media have typically reported Maoism in terms of a law and order and security issue. This article highlights some of the ‘frames’ used by the media within a critical political economy inspired reading of the conflict that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as India's number one security issue. It deals with uneven globalisation, the under-reporting of lives lived by India’s most deprived communities and the other side of India’s tryst of globalisation that has led to many indigenous communities living lives on the edge.