Law Kumar Mishra
Union Home Minister Amit Shah had once declared that Maoist extremism in Bastar would be wiped out by March 2026.
Nearly twenty-four years earlier, then Director General of Police R.L.S. Yadav had proclaimed, “Communism has ended in Russia; now Maoism will also end in Chhattisgarh.”
But the deadline arrived ahead of schedule — Naxalism has been eradicated from both Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.
In his address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that within just two days, 303 hardcore Naxalites surrendered — among them, 210 Maoist leaders laid down arms before Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnudev Sai, and 98 before Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The most striking surrender came from Bhupati, a top commander carrying a bounty of ₹1 crore, who gave himself up unconditionally.
The surrendered group included 110 women and a cache of 153 sophisticated weapons, including AK-47s and INSAS rifles. What made this moment historic was that it marked the world’s first instance of an armed insurgency ending without armed resistance, through a large-scale voluntary surrender.
This breakthrough followed sustained security operations over the past two years, during which 477 Maoists were neutralized in encounters and their forest hideouts dismantled.
The once-infamous Maoist corridor stretching from Pashupati (Nepal) to Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) has now been completely dismantled. None of the Naxalite demands were conceded, yet mass surrenders took place in Gadchiroli and Jagdalpur.
Those who once rejected the Indian Constitution laid down their arms holding a copy of it — and a rose. The Government of India’s 2025 “Rehabilitation to Rebirth” (Punarmargemam) surrender policy played a key role in motivating this shift.
When I was transferred from Jammu and Kashmir — a region long scarred by militancy — to Maoist-affected Chhattisgarh, the contrast was stark. Bastar then was a land under siege; today, it’s almost unrecognizable. The once-sprawling Bastar district has since been divided into several smaller ones — former blocks turned into districts.
Two decades ago, more than 32,000 officers and personnel from the state police, Border Security Force, CRPF, and Punjab Police were stationed across Bastar. After sunset, neither civilians nor policemen dared to step outside. Markets opened only by day. In elections, voter turnout barely touched 8 percent.
I often traveled through Konta, Sukma, and Bijapur — then perilous territories. Only vehicles marked “PRESS” could move safely.
Once, during a trip to Bijapur, where a block officer had recently been killed, two young men on a motorcycle stopped me by a stream. They said, “Our ‘Dada’ in Jagdalpur already knows you’ve come. You should turn back.” They were Maoist messengers. “We get every magazine and newspaper from Delhi and Mumbai,” they added. “We note what you write.”
In the forests, Maoists even ran their own printing presses, issuing press releases from deep jungle bases.
We followed their “advice” and returned to Dantewada. The next morning, I bathed in the Sabari River, which marks the Odisha–Chhattisgarh border near Malkangiri. Back when Biju Patnaik was Odisha’s Chief Minister, he had carved out Malkangiri district from Koraput and appointed young IAS officer Gagan Kumar Dhal (1986 batch) as its first collector. When the opposition accused Dhal in the Assembly of being sympathetic to Maoists, Patnaik replied simply: “Yes, he reflects my will.”
From Kondagaon to Konta, I saw no police jeeps. In Dantewada, Mohammad Wazir Ansari, the 1984-batch Inspector General, would travel in an unmarked Tata Sumo — no uniform, no beacon, no siren, no flag — only a red-yellow scarf of the local goddess Danteshwari tied to the bonnet. Officers wrapped shawls instead of wearing coats.
Police stations were built like fortresses, guarded by armed men on watchtowers and surrounded by barbed wire strung with colorful liquor bottles — a crude but effective alarm system.
Ansari once told me, “We were taking heavy hits. Patrols were being ambushed, so even wearing uniforms became risky. For tactical reasons, we banned them. Patrols shifted from jeeps to motorcycles, and then to foot.”
The fortified Geedam police station, sitting on the highway between Bastar and Dantewada, was once looted in broad daylight by Maoists, who killed the station officer and fled with the weapons. Rajnandgaon SP Mr. Chaubey and 19 others were killed in a similar ambush — all in uniform.
Now, those very police stations have been reinforced. Security has been ramped up from Narayanpur to Antagarh, and even Abhujhmad, once declared a “liberated zone” by Maoists, is under police control.
The red terror in India has met its encounter.
(The author is a senior journalist and worked as Times of India Correspondent in Chhattisgarh)
