Maoism may fade, but its roots still run deep: Prof Ajay Gudavarthy

The Federal spoke to Prof Ajay Gudavarthy, political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, on the Centre's claim that the Maoist movement will end by March 2026.

In this conversation, he argues that while the state may weaken Maoist cadres through repression, the underlying causes that fuelled the movement remain unresolved from landlessness and inequality to cultural alienation and democratic failure.

The Prime Minister has declared that Naxalism will be wiped out by 2026. Has the movement truly ended, or is it evolving?

Once we call it a movement, we must ask what constitutes it. Nobody knows the exact number of Maoists or squads active today but that is not the key question. The real issue is: how much social support does the movement still have?

The Right has mastered the art of translating material pain into cultural pride. The Left kept speaking the language of ideology, not everyday life. That’s why majoritarian politics could fill the emotional and cultural vacuum left by the Left.

Physically, the government may eliminate the leadership or cadres. But does that mean the mass consent and social imagination behind it have died? Even if it’s now limited to a few districts, as the Prime Minister claims, can we assume the grievances that fuelled it have disappeared? As long as issues like land rights and the marginalisation of tribals and landless labourers persist, the movement’s ideas will remain alive perhaps in new forms.

Why did the Maoist movement gain strength after the 1990s, and what sustained it for decades?

They presented an alternative model of politics and governance one that reached the most marginalised, whom no mainstream party cared to mobilise. Land redistribution, agrarian distress, and economic inequality were their core concerns.

Post-liberalisation, as private capital entered rural and tribal areas, the distress only deepened. Farmers’ suicides, displacement, and growing inequality all these expanded the social base of the movement. Maoist politics was proportional to the rise in economic distress. Even today, Oxfam and other studies show how inequality has exploded a sign that the movement’s agenda remains relevant, even if its form has changed.

But given India’s widening inequality today, why has the Maoist movement weakened instead of resurging?

That’s the paradox. While economic distress has grown, neoliberalism in India also brought an unprecedented expansion of welfarism. We didn’t go for a pure laissez-faire model we introduced MNREGA, Right to Food, Right to Education, Right to Health. This welfare net gave people hope, even amid distress, reducing the appeal of insurgent politics.

In Telangana, for instance, Maoist influence in the 1980s was immense among teachers, lawyers, journalists, and middle classes. That broad social and urban support base has now collapsed. Their ideological appeal has weakened, even without direct repression.

So what explains this paradox growing inequality but declining insurgency?

Several reasons. First, democracy itself has absorbed the marginalised. Even if it hasn’t fully delivered on Gandhian or Ambedkarite ideals, every social group feels invested in electoral politics. That’s a remarkable achievement of Indian democracy.

Second, independent Dalit and OBC politics grew, offering non-violent, constitutional routes for empowerment. Ambedkar’s vision that violence is not the path for Dalits and Bahujans became influential. Maoist ideology failed to adapt to this changing social reality.

Third, Maoists never modernised their thinking. They remained trapped in 1950s revolutionary strategies, obsessed with capturing state power rather than creating new social or cultural experiments.

And finally, they misunderstood culture. For the Left, culture meant conservatism, something to reform. But for ordinary people, culture, religion, and belonging are sources of identity. The Right understood this; the Left ignored it. Hindutva tapped into these cultural codes, while the Left looked detached and elitist. That disconnect proved fatal.

Does that mean Hindutva succeeded where the Left failed in connecting with people’s cultural life?

Yes. Hindutva politics gives a meaning to economic distress by wrapping it in cultural and civilisational language. Even suffering is framed as sacrifice for a greater cause. Demonetisation is a prime example of people accepting hardship as a patriotic duty.

The Right has mastered the art of translating material pain into cultural pride. The Left, meanwhile, kept speaking the language of ideology, not everyday life. That’s why majoritarian politics could fill the emotional and cultural vacuum left by the Left.

The Maoist movement is now being declared a “law and order problem”. How does this compare with the UPA era?

The core approach hasn’t changed much; both governments saw it primarily as a security issue. But the UPA was at least willing to listen. The 2006 Bandopadhyay Committee recognised deprivation, landlessness, and low wages as the roots of insurgency.

There were peace talks in Andhra Pradesh under YS Rajasekhara Reddy. Civil society voices were respected, and the idea of dialogue was not dismissed outright.

Today, however, anyone speaking of talks is branded “urban Naxal”. The focus is purely on elimination, aided by drones and surveillance. Setting a “deadline” like 2026 to end a movement rooted in decades of social inequality is absurd. History shows that insurgencies don’t die through violence; they fade only when their underlying causes are addressed.

Is the judiciary’s role also shrinking when it comes to state violence or counter-insurgency?

Yes. Take Justice Sudarshan Reddy, who delivered the Supreme Court judgment against Salwa Judum. Today, he is vilified as “urban Naxal” simply because he upheld constitutional principles. That shows how polarised the space has become there’s no neutral ground left.

The current climate divides everyone into binaries: either you’re with the state or against it. Even the idea of dialogue is mocked. This “with us or against us” mindset erodes the delicate balance democracy requires to handle internal conflicts.

So, the Maoist movement’s decline is not just due to security operations, but deeper political and cultural shifts?

Exactly. What we see now mass surrenders, counter-insurgency drives, media spectacle is only the last outcome of a crisis that has been brewing for long. The movement’s ideological stagnation, the Left’s cultural disconnect, and the rise of welfare politics all converged to erode its strength.

But that doesn’t mean the story is over. As long as India’s poor and tribal populations continue to live on the margins of development, the idea behind the Maoist movement will keep finding new forms of expression.

The content above has been transcribed from video using a fine-tuned AI model. To ensure accuracy, quality, and editorial integrity, we employ a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) process. While AI assists in creating the initial draft, our experienced editorial team carefully reviews, edits, and refines the content before publication. At The Federal, we combine the efficiency of AI with the expertise of human editors to deliver reliable and insightful journalism.