Indian Voters Defy Threats From Guerrillas and Go to the Polls

Journalists wearing black arm-bands hold placards and a photograph of journalist Achyuta Nanda Sahu, who was killed by a Maoist ambush while working, during a protest meeting to condemn the killing of Achyuta, in Mumbai on November 1, 2018. Sahu, a cameraman with Indian state run TV news channel Doordarshan was killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada district in central Indian state of Chhattisgarh during an ambush. Indranil Mukherjee / AFP

After a month of counting, regional election results in India are in, and in Chattisgarh state—where Maoist guerrillas had threatened to cut off the fingers of voters—the results are a good sign for Indian democracy.

Five states went to the polls in November and December, including the central Indian state of Chattisgarh, India’s hotbed of left-wing extremism, or what Indians called Naxalism (named for the region of a peasant revolt in 1967).