Thirty-three districts spanning eight states of India are identified as the worst affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) or Maoist violence. The largest chunk belongs to Jharkhand (10), followed by Chhattisgarh (7), Bihar (6), Orissa (5), Maharashtra (2), Madhya Pradesh (1), Andhra Pradesh (1) and Uttar Pradesh (1). A territorial illustration of the ?Red Corridor? shows the LWE domain stretching from the upper Gangetic Plain bordering Nepal to across the Vindhyas touching the northern tip of Tamil Nadu in an almost linear trajectory parallel to India?s east coast. Incidentally, though the identified states do not include West Bengal, the latter has experienced an upsurge in LWE in recent years particularly in its western and southern districts of Purulia and Midnapore bordering Jharkhand and Orissa.

States affected by LWE have some common features. First, most of India?s South and West regions are still out of the LWE grip. Barring Khammam in Andhra Pradesh, Gadchiroli and Gondia in Maharashtra, and Sonbhadra in Uttar Pradesh, the LWE districts belong to India?s East and Central regions. Second, the LWE hotspots are home to India?s richest reservoirs of mineral and forest resources. Third, five of the eight states (six including West Bengal) figure among India?s top ten populous states. These are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Fourth, barring Maharashtra (and West Bengal again) all the states have adult literacy rates lower than the national average. Fifth, primary occupations pertaining to agriculture and farm-based activities are the main sources of livelihood in most of these states and affected districts. Industry and services are conspicuous in terms of their limited presence and contribution to economic activity.

The LWE has taken root and acquired alarming proportions in the poorest parts of India. All the LWE states ,with the exception of Maharashtra and Andhra, have per capita incomes lower than the national average. This fits in snugly with the geographical identity of the ?Red Corridor?. All states in India?s West and South (except Rajasthan) have per capita incomes higher than the national average, making them the better-off states in India. The East and Central are India?s lagging zones and the growth of LWE in these regions underlines the correlation between prevalence of low incomes and the growth of extremism. West Bengal?another eastern state suffering from LWE?also has a per capita income lower than the national average.

Going by district poverty levels, India?s poorest districts are in the six states of Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The Department for International Development (DFID)?s poorest areas civil society programme targets the 120 poorest districts in India, all of which are in these six states and West Bengal. Twenty- one of the thirty-three LWE districts are among the DFID?s identified poorest districts. Thus the ?Red Corridor? is not only a story of low income, it is an equally depressing tale of acute income poverty and heavy concentration of below the poverty line households.

If lower incomes and their concomitant pitfalls, such as inadequate purchasing power, limited access to basic facilities and inability to acquire competencies necessary for upgrading individual capacities in an increasingly market-driven economy, provide enabling conditions for LWE, the future outlook appears rather grim. Incomes in India are not rising in an egalitarian manner. Wide gaps are surfacing not only between regions and states, but also within states and districts. These gaps are accentuating existing in equalities and widening the chasm between endowments and abilities to access across populations and societies. The even more unfortunate part is in the lower-income groups witnessing prosperity in close proximity and yet being unable to be a part of such prosperities. The residents of Hazaribagh district in Jharkhand, for example, or Sambalpur in Orissa, are not oblivious of the higher living standards in Ranchi and Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) or Bhubaneshwar and Cuttack (Orissa), respectively. Nor is the average tiller from Purulia of West Bengal ignorant about the better life lived by his counterparts in Burdwan, barely a couple of hundred miles away!

An interesting statistical observation is yielded by the comparative rates of growth in per capita incomes of the nine LWE states (including West Bengal). Except for West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, per capita incomes in the other states have been growing at rates faster than those in national per capita income. Per capita incomes in Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa grew at averages of 17.5%, 13.2% and 13.3%, respectively, during 2003-04 to 2007-08, a period when national per capita income grew by 12.4%. Such fast growth in incomes should have dented poverty and challenged LWE in these states, which it clearly didn?t. This is probably because the beneficiaries from the higher growth in incomes have only been a limited few. Such a skewed pattern in percolation of incomes has further accentuated the income divide within the state. Persistence of such tendencies will hardly abate LWE.

The latest Budget announced that the Planning Commission will be preparing an integrated action plan for the thirty-three LWE districts. The districts are being regularly monitored in terms of their progress on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, as well as on improving road connectivity and health facilities. Coordinated efforts to improve public service capacities in these states are certainly welcome as are initiatives intending to improve the delivery mechanisms for public goods. The efforts will take time to deliver results in these chronically under-developed states. At the same time, however, it is important to ponder whether these attempts will be enough for making a difference to the appalling levels of income poverty in the targeted areas and thereby resisting the growth of LWE.

Several questions need to be addressed in this regard. How can people in the LWE districts expect to earn higher incomes from farm-based occupations that are suffering from diminishing productivity and inadequate markets? What livelihood options are available for the young in these areas in the absence of industries and services? When will private industrial investment take off in these areas that are seething with violence? Are there unambiguous property rights enabling fair transactions in land and resources? Do locals have access to skills for upgrading, and migrating elsewhere in the state, or outside, for better prospects?

These are only some of the questions begging urgent answers. Lack of responses will unfortunately perpetuate the gloomy present with little hopes for a brighter future.

The author is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies in the National University of Singapore. Views are personal