After suffering major casualties in ambushes in 2021 and 2023, paramilitary and state police forces have coordinated better, introducing a firm military approach in tackling the militants. Representational image: X/@sjmorg_official
Decimation of Left-Wing Extremism is also due to weakening support base of insurgents; govt success has, however, come with a price – human rights excesses
Is the extremist Left movement, and its several variants, which once fired the imagination of the urban youth – earning the epithet of 'Urban Naxal' – and comprising a vast section of dispossessed tribals, nearing its end?
If Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) chief Gyanendra Pratap Singh is to be believed, the anti-Naxal Operation Black Forest, launched in the heart of the Maoist belt in East and Central India, is the beginning of the end of Left-Wing Extremism (LWE).
'Historic' anti-Naxal operation
The 21-day operation in Karregattalu Hills on the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border has been dubbed as the country’s largest-ever anti-Naxal operation.
The meticulously planned three-week campaign by the CRPF and Chhattisgarh police successfully dismantled the strongest Maoist fortress located in the Karregattalu Hills along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border.
The killing of 31 Maoists there last week led to the recovery of 450 IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and 40 weapons, and has been hailed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah as an "historic" achievement.
A source told this writer a large quantity of ammunition, detonators, and explosive devices, besides 12,000 kg of other materials, such as medicine and electric equipment, was also seized. In addition, four factories producing weapons, motors, and cutters were found.
Fall of left-wing extremism
With 159 Maoist cadres having been killed in anti-Naxalite operations in 2024, the past two years have seen major setbacks to the LWE movement in India.
Civil society organisations have complained that the attacks on the Maoists have coincided with repression against activists and tribals. The Chhattisgarh government and the Union Home Ministry must be mindful of these grievances.
After suffering major casualties in ambushes in 2021 and 2023, paramilitary and state police forces have coordinated better, introducing a firm military approach in tackling the militants. This has resulted in the Maoists experiencing serious setbacks in what is perhaps their only remaining bastion — south Chhattisgarh — even though they retain a presence in some forested districts in Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha and Maharashtra.
A Union government note issued last month says: "The number of Left-Wing Extremism-affected districts reduced from 126 to 90 in April 2018, 70 in July 2021 and further to 38 in April-2024. Out of total Naxalism-affected districts, the number of most affected districts has been reduced from 12 to 6, which include four districts of Chhattisgarh (Bijapur, Kanker, Narayanpur, and Sukma), one from Jharkhand (West Singhbhum), and one from Maharashtra (Gadchiroli)."
Multi-front offensive
Left-wing extremism – the Union government’s description of the Maoist insurgency, borrowing from the Congress-led UPA government’s playbook – is facing its worst existential crisis till date, after it made its first appearance in the late 1960s in Bengal.
Amit Shah has set March 31, 2026, as the deadline for eliminating Naxalism from the country.
The brute power of the state has compelled surrender. This year, until April, 718 Maoists have given up arms, joining the mainstream against a total of 928 radicals who did so in 2024. Security officials say that as the pressure from the government grows, more militants are likely to come out of the woodwork. The portent of meeting the March 2026 deadline appears clear, for the moment.
"Anti-Naxal operations are currently underway in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and Maharashtra as part of a multi-front offensive to wipe out the vestiges of Maoist setups there. Already, five-six appeals have been made by CPI (Maoist) (the most powerful of all Maoist groups) requesting a ceasefire and dialogue, indicating their desperation," an official told journalists last week.
Long history
While LWE may not have a bright future, it has a long history.
The violent Maoist current within the Communist mainstream has changed shape and course several times in the past few decades. Many groups, drawn from tribal sections and peasants, were united not by any coherent ideology but by their means – armed struggle – and their distantly and vaguely defined goals.
The success in taking on the Maoists is also a consequence of the weakening support base of the insurgents as intelligence is a vital component of the operations.
This should not come as a surprise. Notwithstanding grievances against the Indian state among tribals in one of India’s most forested and underdeveloped regions, there were always going to be fewer takers for the idea of a “protracted” war as espoused by the Maoists, particularly with the growth and spread of technology.
Insurgency and the counter-operations have taken a huge toll on the tribal population, bringing in more fatigue for them. That most of the dead among the Maoist cadres are tribal youth points to the tragedy that has befallen some of India’s poorest states.
Laying down arms
In 2014, TRT World, a Turkish public broadcaster, published this story about Shambala Ravinder, a top Maoist military commander, who surrendered before the government and returned to normal life as he grew disillusioned with the communist insurgency.
"He realised a Mao-style revolution is no longer possible in India and accepted a government-sponsored rehabilitation package for the senior Maoist leaders – not less than $30,000 – in 2014 and returned to Thamadapalle, Ippagudem (in Telangana). While giving me a tour of his three-acre cotton-producing farmland in 2016, Ravinder indicated that he is indebted to his family and the state for another opportunity to reboot life at 50,’’ wrote Suvojit Bagchi for TRT World.
All the success has, however, come with a price – human rights excesses.
Human rights violations
The no-holds-barred approach of what the Chhattisgarh government, to use one example, calls “Operation Prahar” might have succeeded in eliminating scores of Maoist cadres, effected surrenders and arrests, but it has also targeted peaceful activists fighting for tribal rights.
Far from reaching any of its lofty goals, the Indian Maoist movement has only brought misery for those whom the insurgents claim to fight for.
Accusations of human rights violations in India have been linked to government efforts to suppress LWE movements. These accusations include claims of extrajudicial killings, torture, and arbitrary arrests.
Civil society organisations have complained that the attacks on the Maoists have coincided with repression against activists and tribals. The Chhattisgarh government and the Union Home Ministry must be mindful of these grievances, as such actions could also increase disenchantment and play into the hands of the radicals.
What is, however, clear is that streams of the Maoist/Naxalite current have lasted for more than six decades, which reveals that left extremism is still resilient in regions where governance by the Indian state is either absent or seen as detrimental to the marginalised sections.
Message hits home
Yet, despite its resilience, the Maoist movement — as experiences of similar currents across the world show — remains anachronistic. Far from reaching any of its lofty goals, the Indian Maoist movement has only brought misery for those whom the insurgents claim to fight for.
Apart from its fast-disappearing cadres, the indifference of the urban middle class and the civil society, once its most ardent backers, has come as a body blow and a shocker.
The earlier the Maoists realise the futility of their ideology and work towards using spaces in the Indian democratic system to articulate concerns, the better it would be for the tribals who are caught in this never-ending crossfire between security forces and the Maoists.
The message seems to be going home.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)
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