Name: India ramps up 50-year campaign to crush Maoist insurgency | DW News
Uploaded: 2025-07-22T16:54:19.000Z
Duration: 18 min 31 s
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To India now, where the government is intensifying its decades-long campaign against left-wing Maoist insurgents.

Security forces are ramping up operations in the central state.

Basic passive voice

In a recent offensive, 27 suspected rebels were killed, bringing the insurgent death toll to over 200 this year alone.

Now, DW's Adil Bhatt traveled to the Bastar Forest in that region, where this war is reshaping the lives of India's most marginalized tribal communities.

This special police unit is patrolling in the heart of Chhattisgarh state in central India.

Its mission is to track down Maoist insurgents locally known as the Naxals.

Regular operations are now routine, aimed at crushing the decades-old insurgency.

Today, commando officer Sanjay Paul is leading the operation.

He says the dense forest of Bastar district in Chhattisgarh are a perfect hiding place for Naxal fighters and their ambushes.

We have received a tip-off about Naxal movement in the area.

Depending on the situation, we will search the entire area.

We will return after taking the appropriate action.

There is news of the presence of 20 to 30 Naxals in this area.

The Maoist movement in India started in 1967, when the villages of Naxalbari in the state of West Bengal rebelled against landowners.

Since then, the Maoists have waged a shadow war with the Indian state.

They claim to be fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous groups.

These Naxals were once farmers, fishermen and workers.

The tribal community of India is the poorest.

They say their resources, water, forests and land are under threat by the state.

In early February, the Indian government promised to eliminate the Maoists by next year.

For Sanjay, the fighters remain a persistent threat to national security.

Since this is a Naxal-dominated area, there is always a danger of ambush.

We have to tread carefully, as there are landmines and bombs planted in the region.

We return to our base only after completing the military operation.

These operations have left a heavy toll on local indigenous communities.

The Adivasis, as they are called in India, live amid constant fear.

We travel deep into the forest of Bodga village.

After walking for hours through the jungle, we reach the village to meet families in mourning.

Sukhli Ohm, mother of Ramesh, is remembering her son, who was killed by a bullet in a crossfire between security forces and Naxal insurgents last year.

On that day, Ramesh, a farmer, was on his way to bathe in the river when the bullet hit him.

After my son's killing, we fear leaving our homes and my life has changed.

Now, whenever the police enter our area, villagers like me hide inside their houses.

During these encounters, our life comes to a halt.

Thousands of families bear the scars of this decades-long insurgency.

She takes us to her neighbour, Raji Ayan, who was shot in the back inside her house during the hunt for Maoists.

Raji tells us that commandos barge into her house, suspecting Naxals were inside and opened fire while she was feeding her child.

After the injuries, my body isn't working.

I'm not able to farm or go to the jungle for work.

My body has been almost paralysed by the injury and I'm barely able to walk.

Whenever I go to the forest and see soldiers, I fear they might kill me.

Locals say the line between insurgents and civilians has blurred and many accuse military and police units of failing to distinguish between the two.

In the last 11 years, out of 11 states infested by Naxalism, now it is only left in three districts.

Just mark my words that by March 31st next year, this country will be free from Naxalism.

This hardline approach has triggered a wave of surrenders.

Today at this police station in Bastar district, a dozen Naxals have turned themselves in.

Some disillusioned, others exhausted and many drawn by promise of rehabilitation.

Currently the government is having a new Naxal rehabilitation policy where they'll be given proper training and with regard to any of the trades that they would choose like driving or masonry or plumbing, electrician work or anything that they are interested in, stitching or anything.

So it's a three-month program where their skills would be developed and they'll be given a monthly stipend.

Since 2020, more than 1,000 Maoists, including those with a bounty on their heads, have surrendered in this region alone.

Among them is Amit Barsa, a former Maoist insurgent who spent 12 years on the frontlines.

He says the movement is weakening, crippled by a lack of funds and weapons.

Disillusioned by the hardships, he finally gave up the gun.

I surrendered at a time when the situation is very critical.

The police are deployed deep inside the forest and you cannot survive in such an environment.

I joined the Naxal movement because I was influenced by Maoist ideology.

I received an education in Maoist Leninist philosophy and that made me aware of the state and class differences between the rich and the poor.

The number of fighters hiding in these jungles is now dwindling.

Yet the government's campaign to eradicate the Naxalite movement is seen as controversial.

And the security forces are often accused of human rights abuses and arbitrary arrests.

Lawyer Bela Bhatia represents the region's indigenous Adivasi people.

In their claims of human rights violations by the state.

And so it's now, you know, nearly two decades of very intense kind of a warfare where the Adivasis here have seen the worst kind of human rights violations, you know, that have taken place here.

They have seen the deaths at close quarters.

They have seen sexual assault, you know, rape.

Houses being burnt, not in one or two villages, but hundreds of villages.

Back in the village, Sukhli Oyem carries her grief in silence.

Her son is gone and so is her trust in both sides of this long brutal conflict.

We are joined by DWU reporter Adia Bhat, who is back in Delhi and speaking with us now.

You've talked to other indigenous people whose rights the rebels claim to be defending.

Do the majority of them want the conflict to end?

You know, everyone we met on the ground, you know, we were talking about, you know, wants an end to this long and brutal conflict.

Even for the last six decades, people have suffered in this ongoing insurgency.

And almost like we have 12,000 civilians, security personnel and Naxal fighters have been killed.

So, Sarah, what's happening in recent years is that regular military operations have a huge human cost.

And we visited a village in Basta region and then also to the Sarami forest to meet the locals to understand the consequences of these ongoing military operations that they have to pay.

And when we went there and we met those villagers, what we saw was that there are hundreds of families who lost their loved ones mostly in crossfires.

We also met locals who alleged that they have lost their family members in fake encounters.

And on the ground, we got a sense there's a lot of resentment among the people.

And many told us they have never received any compensation for their loss of human or material loss.

Apart from these families that we have that you already saw in the report, there were many others who narrated their experience in the conflict.

I remember, you know, one grieving father who traveled six hours just on foot to meet us.

And he told us that I just want to know the world story of my son.

And he said to us, like, whenever you go back to Delhi, please take our story and people should know.

And he said that security forces have killed his son, who had nothing to do with Naxalism, when he was working on his farm.

So these are stories that we witnessed on the field.

And they have sparked a lot of concerns, usually among civilian society members.

And we spoke with one lawyer and human rights activist there.

She told us that these relentless state-backed counterinsurgency operations have turned busted forests into war zones, where villagers continue to face brutal state violence and the people live in constant fear.

So she also said one important thing that I still remember.

She said that this conflict has turned buster into a graveyard.

I kind of got a sense that people are really miserable out there.

And they told us that they don't even have a way out of the situation, how to come out of the situation.