RAIPUR: No network, no roads but hope is being built, brick by brick, in a very remote part of Abujhmarh in Bastar. More used to the crack of gunshots, tribals in Rekavaya village now hear the hum of cement mixers where a school is coming up. The first since Independence.
Like Rekavaya, some 300km from Raipur, all of Bastar is seeing a resurgence. 2024 will go down as the year when the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ was no longer a cliche in this battleground.
And like Rekavaya, change is coming to Bastar at the cost of human lives. Eight Maoists were shot dead in Rekavaya earlier this year and security camps were set up in the vicinity. Only then could boats ply down River Indravati, carrying bricks and cement needed to build the school that once Maoists ran.
Where Mao’s Little Red Book was once part of syllabus, today children read the tables. And that’s much the same story in rest of Bastar.
At least 222 Maoists have been gunned down by security forces in Bastar since the Vishnu Deo Sai-led BJP govt took over – more than the previous five years combined. This aggressive campaign has pushed Maoists out of their erstwhile strongholds – including the once-impregnable Abujhmarh – and cleared a path for bijli, sadak and paani.
Nearly 50 schools that were closed down two decades ago due to Maoist violence have been reopened – some of them rebuilt by the very Maoists who had demolished them, now on this side of society, having ditched their guns in the jungle and seeking to pick up life afresh.
The force of the campaign this year can be gauged from the body count – 20 Maoists were eliminated in 2023, nearly 11 times as many have been neutralised this year, with 31 gunned down in Narayanpur in a single operation.
Chhattisgarh govt has been swift in following up security success with development projects. And Puwarti, the native village of dreaded Maoist commander Hidma, has come up as a symbol of Bastar’s resurrection. In Nov this year, a cluster of villages near Puwarti got electricity for first time since Independence. A road is being built.
A security camp, established earlier this year, proved to be a game-changer. Thanks to this camp, tricolour was raised for first time in decades in Puwarti this Republic Day.
It’s thus that Union home minister Amit Shah has promised that Maoists will be eradicated by March 2026.
Crucially, govt seems to be winning over hearts and minds not only among Bastar’s population, but also among Maoist cadres. This year has seen the highest number of surrenders in seven years – 802 cadres, carrying a combined bounty of over Rs 8.2 crore. The only time more Maoists surrendered was in 2016, when 1,210 cadres had given up arms.
Govt recently revamped its rehab policy, by approving 15,000 houses for surrendered cadres and victims of Naxal violence, and including a skill development stipend of Rs 10,000 per month.
“The year 2024 was significant for troops in Bastar range on all fronts. We made vital inroads even in those areas that were considered to be impenetrable Maoist strongholds. Unprecedented breakthroughs in Abujhmarh and south Bastar have not only boosted the morale of security forces but also given a hope to the native population that the Naxal menace would come to an end sooner than expected. It is not only the numerical counts of the Naxal dead bodies recovered, but also the grade of the cadres, like state committee-level cadres, who got removed from the Naxal ecosystem that has provided us the operational edge in this season,” Bastar Range IG P Sundarraj told TOI.
“Increasing our operational and development reach in otherwise deprived parts of south Bastar, west Bastar and Maad region have turned the tables. Providing basic amenities like PDS shops, anganwadi, centres and household electrification in villages has bridged the development deficit and increased the trust between the native population and govt. We are hopeful of much better outcomes in the forthcoming season,” he added.
The solution to Naxal insurgency is being executed from three directions – development, intensified operations and surrenders. The fourth dimension is missing this far – peace talks. CM Sai and state home minister Vijay Sharma had hinted at talks with Maoists earlier in the year, but there is no sign of it being formalised.
Some officials said with nearly 20 Maoists being eliminated on average every month, govt doesn’t need to get into peace talks, but there are already cries from Bastar that the sustained military campaign is leading to bloodshed of the innocent.
Maoists are venting out their fury at civilians, killing even teachers, women and children in ever-increasing savagery. Less than a fortnight ago, at least four children were injured in “crossfire” during an encounter in Abujhmarh. One of them, a 16-year-old, had a bullet lodged in her throat. Her father claims she was shot by police.
There have been repeated allegations that police ended up killing innocent villagers as Maoists. So far, Sai govt hasn’t faced the kind of protests that erupted from time to time during the tenures of BJP’s Raman Singh and Congress’s Bhupesh Baghel. Perhaps it helps that Sai is a tribal and understands Bastar better. Perhaps it’s fitting that Bastar’s new chapter will be written by a tribal.
