In the forest-fringed village of Galgam in Usoor tehsil of Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh, nights recently echoed with gunfire from the nearby Karreguttalu hills. But with the first light of dawn, a different rhythm ensued—school bells summoned children to classrooms, their cheerful chatter slicing through the trees that once concealed armed guerrillas. For decades, this region—an entry point into the red corridor stretching from the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border into Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha—remained under the shadow of the CPI(Maoist).
“There was a time when Maoists blew up hundreds of schools. Neither children nor teachers dared set foot here,” says Ravi Kishor Morla, a middle school teacher in Usoor. “This small village, surrounded by hilly terrain, has provided shelter to Maoist leaders for decades. Naxal agents and sympathisers have lived in this village, often drumming up local support to destroy schools to prevent security forces from using them as a base to launch operations in the hills.”
Young boys were once trained to plant explosives to blow up schools and turn their homes into bunkers. Not anymore. Ravi says his school remained functional even as the nearby camps of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and state police bustled with activity over the past month. Security personnel moved through Karreguttalu hills on a mission to neutralise Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, the CPI(Maoist)’s top military commander and general secretary.
“Basavaraju wasn’t on the front lines often, but he trained young tribal boys to use weapons and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). He liaised with the Sri Lankan terrorist outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for explosives training and gave Maoists technical superiority for years,” said a senior security officer involved in the operation. “With his death, the command [structure] has collapsed.”
Officials acknowledge that the Maoists will try to regroup and restructure under a new leadership. But they believe that such an exercise will take time, making the current vacuum a rare opportunity to finish off what remains of the insurgency in the jungles of Bastar, Bijapur and across the red corridor.
Like most insurgent movements, the Naxalite cause passed down its ideology and arsenal to the next generation. But the CPI(Maoist) is now weakened. Its politburo and central committee, once dominated by members from undivided Andhra Pradesh, are grappling with ageing leadership and infighting that has stymied succession. Their former commander, Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathi, who retired in 2018, is now nearly 80 and is hiding in Chhattisgarh. Once a schoolteacher, he represents the last of the 1970s cadre who quit civilian jobs to take up arms.
“The CPI(Maoist) might have strong military commanders like Hidma Markam today, but without ideological strength, it is tough to keep the movement together,” says K. Durga Prasad, former chief of Andhra Pradesh’s anti-Maoist commando unit Greyhounds.
After a failed assassination attempt on the then Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu in 2003, the state launched a multi-pronged operation against Maoists. The cadres retreated into newly formed Chhattisgarh, taking refuge in the jungles of Bastar that had thin security presence. The state machinery, which took time to focus on the tribal belt, faced initial setbacks in the fight against Maoists—such as the Dantewada massacre, orchestrated by Basavaraju, in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed.
Having moved base to Chhattisgarh, the Telugu-speaking Maoist leadership naturally shifted focus to attracting tribal cadres in Bastar. Hidma emerged as a leader during this time, having been groomed to lead the dreaded 1st Battalion of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, the CPI(Maoist)’s armed wing.
“In the early days of Naxalism in Chhattisgarh, large groups of Maoists used to operate, which required equally strong numbers of anti-Naxal forces,” recalls Prasad. “Over time, the Central police forces, led by the CRPF, started dominating large tracts where development activities could take place.”
Simultaneously, the state police forces augmented their capacity for anti-Naxal operations. “Today, small teams can operate for longer periods in jungles with refined skills and knowledge of the terrain, giving a tough time to the Naxals,” said a police officer.
The tactical advancements by security forces and the development initiatives of successive governments have led to a decline in the number of new Maoist recruits in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and even Chhattisgarh, where disgruntled, unemployed youth had turned the insurgency movement into an extortion network in the past two decades.
Lessons from earlier counter-insurgency campaigns are helping stop Maoist cadres from regrouping or fleeing Chhattisgarh and moving to other states to reestablish their base. Pankaj Shrivastava, special director general of police in Madhya Pradesh, says the Maoists are now pushing women cadres to the front lines to gain entry, and the police have responded by upping the ante. In the last three months, seven Maoists, including six women cadres, were killed in separate encounters.
“There has been a deliberate attempt to push women cadres to the front, leading to resentment in Maoist ranks. We have to remain vigilant,” Shrivastava said.
The police have tightened scrutiny in Singrauli and Sidhi districts, where Naxal activities had earlier been noticed. In Jharkhand, too, the police and the CRPF carried out a joint campaign in April to neutralise Prayag Majhi alias Vivek, a CPI(Maoist) central committee member who carried a reward of Rs1 crore on his head.
“The ‘transfer of power’ moment has arrived,” says Shubhranshu Choudhary, convenor of the NGO New Peace Process in Chhattisgarh. “Of the 39,000sqkm Bastar region, the Maoists controlled almost 20,000sqkm for decades. With vast tracts being liberated from their control, a development strategy needs to be drawn up at the earliest.”
The post-Karreguttalu campaign strategy will have to be multi-pronged—encouraging mass surrenders, rehabilitating displaced villagers and initiating development work that reflect local needs. Crucially, fear no longer shields the Maoists.
“Public anger against Maoists has been a key factor,” says Sarojini C.P., a grampanchayat member in Usoor. “They destroyed roads built with the help of the CRPF and held us hostage in our own land. They may still be holed up in the hills, but they no longer have sympathisers in our villages.”