India, March 31 -- Over the course of his four decades on earth, Sodi Naresh followed a rigid routine. He rarely stepped outside his village of Tekalguriam, only travelling two to three times a month to the nearest town of Jagargunda to buy essential kitchen supplies such as rice, salt, onions and oil. Deep inside Sukma in southern Chhattisgarh, the 46-year-old spent his days in the fields and forests near his house, trying to keep his head down and his family of six inconspicuous in an area that sat directly in the crosshairs of an armed conflict between the Maoists and the government.

Caught in the bloody war between the writ of the "Jantana Sarkar" - the Maoists' parallel governance system - and the Indian state, entire generations he...