New Delhi: The Union government’s efforts at development initiatives have eroded support base for Maoists in rural and backward areas, and coupled with an uncompromising war on terror, there has been an increase in surrender by its cadres, including top leaders.
In a significant development, a senior Maoist figure, identified as Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Sonu, laid down arms along with 60 other cadres in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district late on Monday, October 13.
The event, though expected after letters from various Maoist factions offering diverse options – including holding talks with the government to conditional surrender – has still come as a major blow to the movement.
Earlier this month, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while addressing a public meeting in Jagdalpur, the headquarters of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district, had ruled out talks with such elements till they laid down weapons, and abided by the government’s surrender and rehabilitation policy. Incidentally, Bastar used to be a hotbed of insurgent activities.
Among the Home Ministry’s list of organisations designated as ‘terrorist organisations’ are the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) – Peoples War, and all its formations and frontal organisations. Also included in the list are the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the Communist Party of India (Maoist), all their fronts.
However, it needs to be mentioned that the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation is not part of such underground outfits. It is a political party actively participating in the country’s democratic process.
Meanwhile, the insurgents were increasingly getting disillusioned with the dictum of “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” from Mao Zedong that the cadres were forced to follow.
Following this doctrine has led to the death of scores of its cadres. Those injured were not able to get treatment from trained medical professionals due to a life in hiding. Maoist retaliation during this period included ambushes against police convoys and targeted killings of informers, most of whom were poor rural folk, upset with the unorthodox but lethal methods followed by the Maoists.
One of such processes was punishment – usually with death – in kangaroo courts. The sharp decline in public support and the heavy loss of cadres in the past decade forced a rethink among the ranks, who tried to influence the leaders to shift towards peace, entering into a dialogue with the authorities.
Venugopal, a member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) topmost committee – the politburo – and a key strategist, was also said to have raised similar opinions in meetings which were apparently shot down. This violent Left Wing Extremism (LWE) can be traced to the 1960s in Naxalbari of West Bengal, but the modern-day Maoist movement finds its roots in Andhra Pradesh.
It later spread to the North of the country up to the Nepal border, where the almost-free border provided a perfect gateway to countries further upwards and the East in search of support, and for arms and ammunition.
The path along India’s hinterlands, mainly the forests in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Bihar, provided adequate cover, thus evolving into what is referred to as the “Red Corridor”.
A history of brutality, torture, and bloodshed started unfolding along and around this path. But subsequent security operations and local surrenders began to intensify across the Red Corridor, driven by coordinated state-led offensives and strengthened paramilitary presence. Several mid level cadre groups surrendered in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and even West Bengal.
Since 2017, counter insurgency pressure, improved intelligence sharing, and expanded state development projects have reduced Maoist access to safe havens and, subsequently, blunted their operations. Several area commanders were either killed in encounters or surrendered to authorities.
The Maoists mounted episodic retaliatory strikes in forested districts, but these were increasingly smaller in scale and concentrated in traditional strongholds.
By 2020, the movement started showing signs of organisational strain, and the Union and state governments intensified surrender-and-rehabilitation programmes. Several Maoists surrendered in coordinated events backed by local administrations and security agencies’ outreach.
Beginning in 2023, attrition of senior cadres accelerated; police and paramilitary units reported successful operations that removed or captured a number of mid and senior level leaders, producing a sharp decline in operational tempo and marked reduction in violent incidents in many previously contested districts.
Though Maoist retaliation persisted through this time, but in isolated, sometimes high profile incidents, but these proved insufficient to restore their regional supremacy.
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