Opinion Maoist insurgency will be defeated but Naxal ideology will persist
The Naxalite philosophy, stripped of its potential for violence but retaining its moral critique of inequality and exploitation, may well endure and erupt again — maybe in a different form, maybe under a different label in the future.
The CPI (Maoist) is in meltdown, with mass surrenders and a decimated politburo The Maoist insurgency, which was at one time described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as “the gravest internal security threat” to the country, is undergoing a complete meltdown. There are serious differences within the party on the feasibility of continuing the armed struggle; there are mass surrenders in different theatres that were affected; the politburo and the central committee of the CPI(Maoist) have been almost decimated, while its People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army is on its last legs.
According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, 333 Maoists have been killed and 398 arrested by the security forces in Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) related incidents across the country during the current year till October 29. Mass surrenders have been dramatic. On October 2, 103 Maoists laid down arms before senior police officers in Bijapur district. On October 15, Mallojula Venugopal Rao, a politburo, central committee and central military commission member, along with 60 other cadres including zonal and divisional committee members, surrendered before the Chief Minister of Maharashtra in Gadchiroli district. On October 17, about 210 Maoist cadres including 110 women laid down arms at the reserve police lines in Jagdalpur in the Bastar district. They also deposited 153 weapons including 19 AK-47 rifles, 23 INSAS assault rifles, 17 SLRs, 11 grenade launchers and 36 .303 rifles. In all, according to SATP, a total of 1,787 Maoists have surrendered this year as of October 29.
The total number of districts affected by LWE, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs, has shrunk to 11, with only 3 districts (Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur) in the most affected category. It may be recalled that 15 years ago, 223 districts were affected in varying degrees by LWE violence.
This is a huge achievement and the result of the central political leadership successfully pursuing an integrated and holistic approach to deal with the problem of LWE insurgency. It also shows the tremendous potential of our police and central armed police forces to subdue and defeat an insurgency.
Persisting inequality, deprivation
The Maoist movement, in retrospect, was bound to fail in the country. In the initial stages, when Charu Mazumdar, the chief ideologue of the party, gave the slogans “China’s Chairman is our Chairman” and “China’s path is our path”, several party leaders expressed their reservations. Any revolutionary movement, to be successful, must have its roots in the soil and draw inspiration from local heroes and local literature. Marxism-Leninism was, for the party cadres, an abracadabra they never understood. They were drawn to the movement because it took up the cause of the landless, the deprived, the marginalised, the displaced and the exploited. The question today is, have their grievances been addressed?
The ideological undercurrent that inspired the Naxalite movement — a deep sense of injustice arising from social inequality, economic deprivation, and political marginalisation — unfortunately continues to persist. The physical defeat of insurgency does not necessarily signify the extinction of its ideological roots. The Naxalite philosophy, stripped of its potential for violence but retaining its moral critique of inequality and exploitation, may well endure and erupt again — maybe in a different form, maybe under a different label in the future.
India’s progress in recent years has been phenomenal, but uneven and exclusionary. Large sections of the rural poor, especially in tribal and forested areas, continue to live in poverty with limited access to land, education, healthcare, and livelihood opportunities. As analysed by economists, India still ranks lowest among the G20 countries in both per capita GDP ($2,878) and PPP ($12,131.8) terms and, closer to home, it trails behind even Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Development has often been top-down, designed in distant capitals, with little sensitivity to local realities. The Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has shown only “modest shifts” during the past two decades. The number of billionaires (wealth exceeding $1 billion or Rs 8,800 crore) in the country has gone up to 1,687, an increase of 148 from last year.
Economic growth without equitable distribution creates a fertile ground for protest. In most LWE-affected districts, human-development indicators lag far behind the national averages. The Human Development Index (HDI) for Malkangiri district (Odisha) — a LWE stronghold — is only 0.37, compared to the state’s average of 0.579. This demonstrates severe shortfalls in life expectancy, healthcare access, and nutrition. In Gadchiroli district (Maharashtra), the NFHS-5-based District Nutrition Profile (2022) shows that around one-third of children under five are stunted or wasted, and more than 60 per cent of women of reproductive age are anaemic. These and other available data show that while roads have come up, mobile towers have been erected, post offices and banks have been opened, Industrial Training Institutes and Eklavya Model Schools have been set up, the basic metrics of human well-being — education, health and nutrition — remain poor in areas where Maoists once found fertile ground.
Tribal communities concentrated in mineral-rich areas of central India have, in fact, borne the brunt of “development”. Large-scale mining, dam, and industrial projects have displaced thousands, often without adequate rehabilitation or compensation. On the other hand, the implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 has been tardy. Nearly 15 per cent of all forest and community land claims under the FRA are pending. What is worse, over 78,000 hectares of forest land was approved for diversion across India for non-forest usage during the last four years.
The Government of India is well on its way to defeating the Maoist insurrection. It is a matter of pride and great satisfaction. However, the ideological spark that ignited Naxalbari will perhaps not be extinguished so easily and will continue to flicker beneath the surface unless we bridge the chasm between glittering growth and the grim realities of inequality and deprivation.
Singh, a retired police chief, is author of The Naxalite Movement in India
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