Quote Originally Posted by blueblood View Post
This is where you are wrong. The current government has consistently bent over backwards for minority, tribal and lower caste votes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India

If you are a tribal, you can study in the best educational institutions for almost free (last I remember, it was nearly $50 for the tribal and lower castes for two semesters in the state eng. colleges). In urban India, things like caste do not exist and this is the thing Naxals fear the most.
Missing the point, I think. Once tribal people are educated, to they become more receptive to externally imposed "development" - meaning dams, mines, logging, etc - or less?

I ask because I live in one of the best educated truly "tribal" areas in the world... and people here go crazy militant at the first mention of a dam or a mine. I suspect that while education might weaken a movement like the Naxalites, it's likely to dramatically strengthen the kind of protest that Medha Patkar is known for.