This may be the nail in the coffin of Maoist menace

Before officially relinquishing his post, the suave and mild-mannered Singh invited a select group of editors to a breakfast meeting.

A question popped up during the general conversation to list three important issues that remained unfulfilled during his tenure. One of the three was Maoist Insurgency.

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Manmohan Singh felt that despite every effort, Maoism was spreading throughout the country. He felt that if the trend continued unabated, then within a few years it would have enough firepower to create a wedge in the centre of India. His fears weren’t unfounded. The Maoist insurgents were running a parallel government in many districts of Maharashtra, Telangana, and West Bengal. Their regional units decided on who would bid for government contracts, whether mobile towers would be set up or not. Even schools and police stations were under their influence. They would organize Jan Adalat (people’s courts), conduct hearings, announce sentences, and deliver punishment. They were running a parallel government within the state. To deal with the menace, ‘Operation Greenhunt’ was launched in Manmohan Singh’s second term, but failed to achieve its objective.

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His unfinished agenda has been completed to a great extent by the Modi government.

Last Wednesday, the operation to snuff out Naxals led by home minister Amit Shah registered a defining success when security forces gunned down Nambala Kesava Rao, alias Basavraju, in an encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur region.

Basavraju was the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He was also the head of the party’s military wing. This meant he shouldered the responsibility of the organization, ideology and the armed struggle. He performed his task with the utmost brutality. The death of more than 100 soldiers is a bloody testimony to his ‘red menace’. The government declared a ₹1.5 crore bounty on his head. His killing is a decisive blow to the armed Maoist insurgents.

Basavraju was the last flag-bearer in the almost 60-year-old tradition of Kanu Sanyal, Charu Majumdar, Kishanji and Ganapati. Kishanji’s killing and Ganapati’s arrest marked a precipitous fall in the number of leaders with the same depth, strength of ideological conviction, and organizing abilities. At such a critical juncture in the Maoist insurgency, Basavraju took the reins of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in 2017—though the world only learned about it a year later, on 10 November, 2018, in an official communique.

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Like most of his predecessors, Basavraju was educated. He had a degree in engineering from Warangal Government Engineering College. During his time in college, he gravitated towards ultra-left ideology. Its followers believed in what Kanu Sanyal used to say—that Gore Saheb Gaye par Kale Saheb Aa Gaye (white bosses have left, leaving behind black bosses). These ideology-driven young men felt that on 15 August, 1947, one set of rulers was replaced by another set of rulers. They forgot this when they transitioned from ideological struggle into an armed insurgency. The gun-toting men morphed into a new class of oppressors, losing their moral authority. This was the reason Maoists kept losing support among the people of the jungle, whom the government and we in the urban areas call tribals. Earlier, these jungles, land, and people acted as their protective shields.

Basavraju’s post can be filled by any of his lieutenants, but the moot point is whether they would be able to fill the void created by his demise. Will the new person be able to match his zeal and intellectual prowess? The answer is an emphatic no by experts. It’s no surprise that Shah has given a deadline of March 2026 to end the Maoist menace. Never before has anyone seen this degree of confidence among the ruling dispensation in tackling the Maoist threat. If the central government delivers on its promise, it would be a logical end to a bloody insurgency that began in 1967 and kept threatening the Indian state intermittently. It would also help at least a big chunk of five states to finally connect with the national mainstream.

Shashi Shekhar is editor-in-chief, Hindustan. Views are personal.