A ‘ruthless approach' is fine for terrorists. For Maoists, it must be tempered with empathy
It was a deadly blow. Basavaraju was an aggressive military commander who led some of the most audacious and daring campaigns. Earlier, in Operation Black Forest on the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border during April and May, 31 Maoists were liquidated. More recently, Gautam alias Sudhakar , a central committee member, was killed in Bijapur district on 5 June. The security forces are delivering one punch after another in quick succession. The knock-out should only be a question of time.
Last month, on 21 May, the CPI (Maoist) lost its top leader, Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju , in an encounter in the Abujhmad area of Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh. Basavaraju, who had succeeded Ganapathy as general secretary in 2018, was killed along with 26 other Maoists in the engagement.
The Maoist movement in India, which was at one stage described as the gravest threat to the country's internal security, is today gasping for breath. Home Minister Amit Shah plans to bury it by March 2026, and the security forces are going hammer and tongs to achieve the target.
However, though the Maoist movement may be vanquished, Naxalism may not be stamped out.
Also Read: Maoism became irrelevant to India's working class much before Basavaraju's death
No second chance
Incidents of violence by left-wing extremism have fallen sharply from 1,936 in 2010 to 374 in 2024, a dip of 81 per cent, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The total number of deaths, including civilians and security forces, has come down from 1,005 in 2010 to 150 in 2024—down by 85 per cent. The total number of districts affected by Maoist violence has shrunk from 223 in 2010 to just 38 presently.
The success of the security forces' operations is to be attributed to a combination of factors: aggressive campaigns that included establishing forward operating bases in areas so far dominated by the Maoists; development marked by constructing roads, erecting mobile towers, and opening post office and bank branches; choking the supply of funds to the Maoists; and tech-driven intelligence operations using drones and satellites. Other contributing factors include raising forces like the District Reserve Guard (DRG), comprising mostly surrendered Maoists, and the Bastar Fighters, which recruited villagers from remote areas; a generous surrender and rehabilitation policy; and better inter-state and Centre-state coordination.
Expectedly, certain sections are critical of the government's aggressive operations. The former chief minister of Telangana, K Chandrashekar Rao, has accused the Centre of 'massacring youth and tribals', and said that 'just because you have power, you cannot go on a killing spree'. Revanth Reddy, the present CM of the state, also purportedly said that Adivasis are being murdered. The leaders of five Left parties—the CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML)-Liberation, RSP and AIFB—recently wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, urging the government 'to put an immediate halt to the extra-judicial killings'.
The Maoists, meanwhile, have been sending desperate peace feelers. A politburo member, Abhay aka Venugopal Rao, in a letter released on 2 April, said that the Maoists would cease fire and come for peace talks if the security forces stopped setting up camps and ceased their operations. Another letter, released on 17 April in the name of Rupesh, a CPI (Maoist) spokesman in Chhattisgarh, announced that the Maoists were agreeable to ceasefire for at least a month. Yet another letter from Rupesh on 25 April appealed to the central government to stop the operations for a month, after which the Maoists would hold peace talks in a favourable environment. The Chhattisgarh government has rejected the calls for truce and dialogue.
At the Home Ministry level, the thinking appears to be that in the past, whenever peace talks were held, there was no productive outcome and the Maoists, in fact, utilised the peace period to augment their strength and propagate their ideology. It is not untrue.
However, one has to remember that when talks were held in Hyderabad in 2004, the extremists were negotiating from a position of strength. Today, they are in dire straits and are facing an existential crisis. The choice before them is between life and death.
That being so, it would have been magnanimous on the part of the government to declare a unilateral ceasefire, give one last chance to the Maoists to come overground, hold parleys with official representatives, and join the mainstream. Even if the gesture was only partially successful, it would still avoid a lot of bloodshed. The remnants could always be taken care of by the security forces. Such an approach would have been appreciated by the people in general, and not many tears would then be shed for the intransigent hard core.
A need for strategic empathy
A disturbing feature of government policy is its 'ruthless approach' to the Maoist insurgency. It is fine to talk of a ruthless approach when you are dealing with terrorists. However, when you are dealing with your own people, strictness must be tempered with empathy.
The majority of Maoist foot soldiers are simple tribals who joined the movement, rightly or wrongly, because they had a grievance—real or perceived. Maybe their land was taken away, maybe they were harassed by the forest officer, maybe the police were harsh with them. Marxism-Leninism meant nothing to them. Such persons deserve a chance, and it could have been given to them. Government thinking is rather simplistic: kill the Maoists and the Maoist problem will be solved.
Another disconcerting feature is the fixing of a target date to finish the Maoist movement. The objective is laudable, but its achievement could have serious implications. It is fine when you fix a target date for completing a development project like building a highway, raising a dam, or setting up a factory. However, when you are dealing with an insurgency, fixing a target date may lead to some kind of competition among the police forces as to who kills more insurgents and, in the process, some elements may employ extra-judicial methods. Fortunately, there has been no serious complaint so far except general allegations, but the possibility can never be ruled out. It would have been better if the forces were asked to go all out against the insurgents and then wait for the liquidation of the Maoist movement in the normal course.
There is yet another danger. The Maoists, just to demonstrate that they are still a force to reckon with, may, in sheer desperation, commit needless acts of violence. On 8 May, the Maoists killed three junior commandos of Greyhounds, an elite anti-Naxal force of Telangana, in a landmine explosion in Mulugu district near the Chhattisgarh border. In another incident, on 9 June, an Additional SP, Akash Rao, was killed and two others were injured in an IED blast in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh.
The government will nevertheless, in all likelihood, be able to defeat the Maoist insurgency. The strength of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army has reportedly been reduced to a meagre 300. Most of the politburo and central committee members have either been arrested or killed; the former has only four members left and the strength of the latter has shrunk to a mere 14. There was always a basic flaw in giving a Maoist orientation to the extremist movement, rather than drawing from the country's own civilisational ethos. A movement that declared, 'China's chairman is our chairman, China's path is our path', was doomed to fail in the long run.'
Also Read: Born out of 'desperation', DRG is first line against Maoists in Bastar. Tech is giving them an edge
Embers will remain
Will the government be able to write the obituary of left-wing extremism in the country?
Its record in reducing extreme poverty has been commendable. World Bank data shows it declined from 27.1 per cent in 2011-12 to 5.3 per cent in 2022-23, implying that the number of people living in extreme poverty fell from 344.47 million to 75.24 million. Unequal distribution of wealth, however, continues to be a problem. The World Inequality Database shows income inequality rising from a Gini coefficient of 52 in 2004 to 62 in 2023 (a higher Gini coefficient indicates greater inequality, while a lower value suggests a more equal distribution).
It is also significant that, as areas affected by Maoist violence are being cleared by the security forces, industries are moving in to exploit the virgin forests. In Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, for example, the government has given environmental clearance to Lloyds Metals and Energy Ltd. to more than double iron ore output at its Surjagarh mine. Deforestation, which results in the displacement of tribals and contributes to their alienation, continues unabated. India lost 17,700 hectares of primary forest in 2023 and another 18,200 hectares in 2024. There is a genuine apprehension that Mao-vadis may gradually be replaced by MOU-vadis.
It would seem that while the security forces are doing the job assigned to them, there is no corresponding attempt to address some of the pressing socio-economic issues that contributed to the emergence and countrywide spread of the Naxal problem. That being so, it seems that while the fire would be extinguished, the embers would remain.
The CPI (Maoist) politburo may be decimated, its central committee may be disintegrated, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army may be vanquished, the party cadres may all be killed, but the idea of Naxalbari would, in all probability, survive—to the extent it represented a protest of the poorer, deprived, and marginalised sections of society against political insensitivity, social discrimination, and economic exploitation.
The writer, a former Police Chief, is author of The Naxalite Movement in India. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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