Opinion In battle with Maoists, a political-ideological win

The surrender of Mallojula Venugopal Rao (alias Sonu), along with 60 other Maoist cadres, in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, is a significant moment in the decline of Left Wing Extremism in the country. It is, on the one hand, the result of a multi-pronged strategy to tackle what former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called “the greatest internal security threat” to India. The crackdown by security forces — both central and in states affected by LWE violence — has kept Naxals on the back foot. Over the last decade and more, LWE violence has been declining: According to the Home Ministry’s 2024 report, there was a 48 per cent drop in incidents of Maoist-related violence between 2013 and 2023 and a 65 per cent decline in related deaths, from 397 to 138. The killing of CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Nambala Keshava Rao, alias Basavaraju, in Chhattisgarh in May dealt a severe blow to the organisation. The success of that operation indicated that the state had breached — and had the support and intelligence network to do so — the heart of the “red belt”. If Basavaraju’s killing signalled a strategic and tactical success, Rao’s surrender shows gains on the political-ideological front.

Rao, a CPI (Maoist) Politburo member, was a part of the party’s senior leadership and one of its primary ideologues. In the days before his surrender, letters between him and other leaders underlined the deepening rifts on ideological and, flowing from these, tactical questions. Rao, and reportedly a significant number who sympathise with his view in the Maoist ranks, want to discard violence as a political tool. The call for the “cessation of armed struggle” marks a major shift. The disillusionment with violence as a means to ensure social justice must be welcomed and built upon. The Centre’s surrender policy, and trust in that process, have also played their part in this. From 2024 to October this year, 1,850 Maoists laid down arms — the figure was around 800 in 2022 and 2023.

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The Centre has set March 2026 as the deadline to “eradicate Naxalism”. Part of that mission has been the security forces’ push deeper into Maoist strongholds. On the political front, victory may well be declared when erstwhile votaries of violence and armed struggle against the state “fight shoulder to shoulder with all political parties and struggling organisations as far as possible on public issues”, without resorting to violence, as Rao suggested. But this is also a time for vigilance. There are prominent leaders in the CPI (Maoist), still, who continue to advocate violence. In the long run, the only way to defang Left Wing Extremism is an approach that balances the security imperative with a development policy that involves the people.