Naxalism is the result of the failed policies of the Indian National Congress party which ruled India most of the time since independence in 1947. They introduced some laws and acts which were socialism inspired like Jamindari Act and Chakbandi Act which abolished Jamindari practice ( literal meaning land owners ). Jamindars were Upper Class Hindu and Muslim families generally related to the ruling Royal families of their respective states or are on good terms with British Raj holding most of the land in their villages. It was strictly implemented in most of the country but not in some remote tribal areas.

The result was that tribals were denied the land which constitutionally belonged to them and were oppressed by upper caste Hindus. Since, no other political party was capable of challenging Congress on national level, they ruled the way they wanted ignoring problems and further more by playing dirty vote bank politics. Communist leaders decided to oppose and they failed miserably when they contested for elections because of the lack of support from most of the tribals except in West Bengal which was a strong hold of Communism.

A movement which was started to provide justice to tribals lost it's genuineness as soon as CPI(Maoist) lost the elections fair and square and took the arms to "liberate" the tribals. So, even today you will find Naxalite propaganda machine telling the tribals all sorts of lies like Government is building roads so that can reach you to kill you, illegal mining and abducting teachers and other civil servants just to keep tribals the way they are i.e innocent and uneducated and if not then a bullet in the head.

They are losing this war and their popularity among the tribals since the government has started programs to get rid of headache and proper development of these areas is on it's way.

There is another misconception that a large number of districts in India is affected by Naxalism. A Naxalite arms factory was discovered at the heart of the city Bhopal barely 500 m from my home but it doesn't mean that the city is Naxalite infected as we never had any casualty in the last 40 years. Technically it is but practically not.

You can compare it with the Times Square incident, yes someone tried to detonate a bomb but it doesn't mean that NY is terrorism infected.