Raipur: More than four decades after the first “dalams” crossed into the forests of Dandakaranya, present-day Bastar, the sun has set on the armed Maoist rebellion in Chhattisgarh, as the region was on Tuesday declared free of Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) on the deadline set by the Centre.
In the 1980s, Maoists entered Bastar, intending to use it as a backyard or hideout amid intensified pressure from the police in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
What began as a small, ideologically driven movement more than 40 years ago metamorphosed into an armed rebellion, before entering a phase of sustained decline that has reshaped Chhattisgarh’s security and governance landscape.
Experts say the trajectory of Naxalism in the region can be summarised in three phases: its gradual entry and expansion from the 1980s, the peak of insurgency between 2004 and 2014 following the formation of CPI (Maoist), and the sustained decline witnessed over the past decade.
Speaking to the news agency, Sundarraj Pattlingam, Inspector General (Bastar Range), noted that Maoists initially took advantage of geographical isolation, limited governance reach, and socio-economic vulnerabilities to establish networks in remote forest areas of Chhattisgarh.
The 2003-batch IPS officer has been leading the anti-Maoist operations in the Bastar range for the last nine years.
“Over the last decade, a sustained and coordinated strategy — combining focused security operations, strengthened intelligence, expansion of security camps, improved connectivity, and effective surrender-cum-rehabilitation policies — has significantly weakened the Maoist ecosystem,” he said.
Girishkant Pandey, a security analyst and principal of a government college at Nawagarh in Bemetara district, said the Naxal movement in Bastar traces its origins to 1980.
The Bastar division, which now comprises seven districts, was a single district then, spanning approximately 40,000 sq km, larger than Kerala.
On April 22, 1980, Kondapalli Sitaramaiah, a government school teacher from undivided Andhra Pradesh, founded the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist — Peoples’ War Group (CPI (M-L) PWG, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Russian Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
Although Naxalism began with the Naxalbari Uprising in 1967 in West Bengal, it was in the 1980s that the movement gained significant ground in Bastar.