Maoists are gone. India should still be wary of a new red insurgency

But 20 years after then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh warned that Maoists were India’s greatest internal security threat, the macabre cult of blood, which claimed over 12,000 lives since 2000 has finally disintegrated. The last known member of the 24-member Communist Party of India-Maoist’s politburo and central committee, Misir Besra, was finally arrested on 29 July. Telangana declared it was free of Maoists in April, and Maharashtra in May. Suresh Koda, the last surviving Maoist in Bihar, surrendered to authorities in February. Even though the last Maoists are either dead or in prison, there are three reasons to worry that…