An analysis of Adivasi resistance and the Naxal movement through the 2012 Kandhamal hostage crisis.

‘Kishalay Bhattacharjee’s narrative provides anecessary hearing aid to a regime that fetishizes internal security. As anacute listener, he captures the tension between Adivasi resistance and theNaxal appropriation of the event; an intense story and an investigation of akidnapping and a revolt told with empathy and irony’ Shiv Visvanathan

On 14 March 2012, two Italian nationals, Paolo Bosusco and Claudio Colangelo, were taken hostage from the tribal-dominated Kandhamal area of Odisha, in eastern India. The kidnappers belonged to the extreme left-wing radical group known as the CPI (Maoists). They were led by Sabyasachi Panda who had been involved in several militant activities since 1999.

What followed was a dramatic month-long crisis in which a crew of television journalists engaged with the Maoist leader and facilitated the release of Claudio. 

An Unfinished Revolution: A Hostage Crisis, Adivasi Resistance and the Naxal Movement is a racy, first-hand account that tells the tale of the hostages, from abduction to release. It also chronicles the history of tribal resistance which was appropriated by the Maoists – a movement that has been one of India’s major internal security challenges since the late 1960s.