Popular protests and the garb of Anti-Naxalite operations
At a time when violence linked to the Maoist movement is in rapid decline across the country, under mounting security forces’ pressure, there has been an abrupt and dramatic escalation in Chhattisgarh. Significantly, of the 99 Left Wing Extremism-linked fatalities recorded by the South Asia Terrorism Portal across India in 2024 (till April 7), Chhattisgarh alone accounts for 78. There were 88 fatalities in Chhattisgarh through 2023, and 72 in 2022. It is evident, moreover, that the escalation has substantially been initiated by the security forces—53 Maoists have already been killed in the state, more than double the total of 23 killed in 2023.
On April 2, in one of the bloodiest incidents in recent years, 13 Maoists were killed in an encounter in a forest near Lendra village under the Gangaloor police station area in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. There were no security force casualties.
The Maoists, of course, have not been quiescent. Eleven security force personnel and 14 civilians have lost their lives to Maoist violence in the current year (till April 7). The trajectory of security force fatalities has been varied, and often troubling in recent years. Twenty-six troopers were killed in 2023, 10 in 2022, and 45 in 2021. Civilian fatalities, however, have been slowly creeping upwards: 28 killed in 2020; 29 in 2021; 30 in 2022; and 37 in 2023. As pressure builds on the Maoists, they increasingly target civilians perceived as ‘informers’ or ‘collaborators’.
It is important to recognise that the Bastar division is the final bastion of the Maoist resistance, even as its erstwhile areas of dominance in other states have crumbled, leaving behind marginal residual disturbances, but no overwhelming security challenge, as was the case through the first over a decade of the current millennium. After a peak of 1,180 fatalities across India in 2010, however, the Maoist have steadily lost ground, with the movement facing near eclipse in most of the afflicted states.
Successive governments, both at the Centre and in the states, have gradually pushed the Maoists into a corner, and it was, indeed, under the preceding Congress government that total fatalities in Chhattisgarh were brought below a hundred in a year in 2022, for the first since 2005. The present BJP government appeared initially to recognise that the situation lent itself to the possibility of a negotiated settlement. Thus, on January 11, the Chhattisgarh government invited the Maoists to join unconditional talks, suggesting “video calls if they are reluctant to come for physical meetings.” However, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who holds the home portfolio, warned at the same time, “If they fail to grasp the importance of dialogue, they will have to pay for the pain they have inflicted on our people.”
Despite talking about talks, the BJP government has evidently adopted a hard line against the Maoists. Just days after taking over, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai declared, on December 28, 2023, “as we are in power again and have our government in the Centre also, we will strongly fight the Maoists, and definitive steps will be taken to end Maoism in the state.” On January 21, moreover, Union Home Minister Amit Shah asserted that coordinated action by the security forces would eliminate the Naxalites from the country ‘within the next three years’.
There is evident bad blood between the Maoists and the BJP. At least 10 BJP workers have been killed in the state between 2023 and the first three months of 2024. Indeed, in the run-up to the Assembly elections, CPI-Maoist ‘spokesperson’ for the ‘south sub-zonal bureau’, Samta, exhorted people to “chase away” BJP candidates (as well as those of the Congress), accusing the party of “giving in to corporate houses”, “fomenting communal and religious hatred”, and exploiting tribals.
In the year of General Elections, the BJP is naturally expected to adopt a ‘muscular policy’, to woo its core vote bank. Consequently, there has been an intensification of the previous government’s strategy of establishing security camps in the remote Maoist ‘heartland’ areas of Bastar, with 14 additional camps set up since the present government took over. Indeed, the role of these forward camps was crucial to the success of the April 2 operation.
Armed force will obviously play a critical role in containing the remaining capacities of the Maoists in Bastar, but it is useful to recall that some of the popular grievances the rebels opportunistically articulate are very real, and that state agencies have often suppressed popular protests on these issues under the garb of ‘anti-Naxalite operations’. Translating anti-Maoist successes into a policy of handing over natural resources to corporate rapacity will eventually deepen the existing pool of grievances. Even a comprehensive Maoist defeat would not be proof against the rising ire of progressively marginalised populations, deprived of traditional and environmental resources.
Ajai Sahni
Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management, South Asia Terrorism Portal
ajaisahni@gmail.com