When P Chidambaram, as home minister, launched the so-called Operation Green Hunt, a para-military security offensive against India's Maoist insurgency in 2009, nobody could set a deadline to end the violent Left-wing extremism (LWE) that was deeply and firmly entrenched in the contiguous forests stretching across the country's entire north-south expanse, popularly known as ‘Red Corridor’.
A decade-and-a-half later, his distant successor under an entirely different dispensation at the Centre, Amit Shah, is confidently putting out a date - March 31, 2026 - to accomplish the task.
And given the massive and virtually irreparable damage inflicted by security forces on the rebels over the past about three years, a major part of which was witnessed in 2025, the finishing line appears tantalisingly reachable.
A brief history of Maoists
After the decimation of the original Charu Mujumdar-led Naxalite movement in the late sixties and early seventies in West Bengal, it had come up again in Andhra Pradesh under the leadership of Kondapalli Sitaramaiah in the eighties.
Sitaramaiah had set up the militant People's War Group, which merged with another armed group Maoist Communist Centre to form CPI (Maoist) in 2004, two years after his death.
This resurgence of Naxalite movement was fuelled by repressive state machinery that prompted hundreds of affected tribal victims to join the Maoist ranks.
Also, it was facilitated by availability of vast stretches of virgin forests, where government presence was virtually nil.
Legislative empowerment of tribals that pushed back against Maoist propaganda
The Manmohan Singh government, which was committed to rooting out the armed rebellion, came up with developmental ideas that promised to undercut the Maoist influence a great deal, like Forest Rights Act of 2006.
There already was the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 that offered the locals substantial scope to manage their own affairs as regards jal-jangal-jameen (water-forests-land), the three main planks of the Maoist agenda for them.
But the sudden attack by Salwa Judum forces on their lives in the Maoist stronghold of Bastar in Chhattisgarh had relegated these grassroots government initiatives with great transformative potential.
Counter-productiveness of Salwa Judum
While the current dispensation under PM Narendra Modi could well pat itself on the back for putting an end to the notoriously stubborn LWE insurgency, the end hasn't come as soon as it could well have had the BJP government in Chhattisgarh led by Raman Singh not unleashed the ill-conceived vigilante movement against the rebels called Salwa Judum, where civilians were armed to fight a war.
Judum forces caused widespread anger among tribals, with hundreds gravitating towards the Maoist movement and taking up arms against the State between 2006 and 2011, when Judum was called off following a Supreme Court order to the effect.
It led to massive displacement of tribals from their villages due to the fratricidal war that claimed hundreds of their lives. Judum only helped strengthen the Maoist propaganda that the State was an anti-people evil.
With its ranks swelling by hundreds of new cadres - officially about 500- the rebels went on the rampage inflicting crippling damages on security forces between 2009 to 2014.
It is no ordinary coincidence that the number of affected districts grew from 83 in 2009 to 126 in 2014. Clearly, Salwa Judum had put the anti-Naxal operations clock back by several years and, as such, the 2026 goal has come late in the day.
Politically, far from laying any claim to that success, the BJP must actually take the blame for delaying it, thereby causing huge setback to the country in terms of manpower, civilian lives and material resources.
2010-2014, the bloodiest years
Year 2010 saw the most infamous of Maoist attacks like the Dantewada ambush of 75 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.
The most daring and brutal of Maoist violence, however, had happened in May 2013, when they attacked a Congress party convoy and killed the entire top leadership of the party in Chhattisgarh, including state Congress chief Nandkumar Patel, Leader of Opposition Mahendra Karma and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister VC Shukla.
‘Clear and hold’ turns the tide
From being sitting ducks to transforming into a determined force with steely resolve, security forces stayed put through most challenging situations all these years to turn the tide decisively in their favour. Despite several unnerving setbacks, they kept penetrating deep into the Abujmad forest, the much-feared and presumed impregnable Maoist headquarter in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district, by employing the ‘clear and hold’ strategy.
‘Clear and hold’ is the name given to pushing the Maoists out from an area and establishing a permanent base there with a protected government delivery eco-system for the locals.
2025 is the end point of years of armed pushback by the State
The year 2025 saw record number of deaths and surrenders of Maoists, virtually decimating the armed movement and its top leadership, including general secretary Nambala Keshav Rao.
The number of Maoist-affected districts has shrunk from 83 across nine states in 2009 to just 11 in 2025, with only three - Dantewada, Sukma and Bijapur in Chhattisgarh state- now considered "most affected".
As per government statistics, the number had peaked in 2014 to 126 districts, 36 of them "most-affected".
Maoist-related violent incidents in 2025 fell to 218, an 89% drop from the peak of 1,936 in 2010. That year, 903 deaths - 626 civilians and 277 security personnel - were reported.
The numbers dropped by 91% to just 93 in 2025.
Over the past three years, the battle was surely tilting in favour of security forces but the proverbial last nail in the coffin came on May 21 this year when the Chhattisgarh's locally raised elite force Chattisgarh Reserve Guards carried out a daring operation in Abujmad forest to kill 27 hardcore guerrillas, CPI (Maoist) including chief, general secretary Nambala Keshav Rao (also called Basavaraju).
Another significant encounter in February 2025 in Bijapur resulted in the deaths of 31 Maoist rebels.
Apart from Nambala Keshava Rao’s killing, other top commanders too were eliminated in various other encounters.
Among the most prized ones was People's Liberation Guerrilla Army chief Hidma Madvi, the most ferocious of them, who was supposed to be behind the 2010 Dantewada ambush of 75 CRPF personnel and the Jheeram Ghati massacre of Congress leadership in 2013.
Running out of ammunition, literally and figuratively, the Maoists made a vain bid to secure ceasefire but the government had no compelling reason to even mull over the appeal. It led to a massive exodus from the Maoist camp in 2025, with 2,167 cadres surrendering till December 1, clearly exposing the large-scale demoralisation in the movement.
The surrenders included CPI(Maoist) Central Committee and Polit Bureau member Mallajula Venugopal Rao, alias Bhupathi/Sonu, presumably the potential successor to deceased Basavaraju, and Rupesh, alias Satish, and Ramdher Majji, both Central Committee members, apart from many divisional committee members.
What now remains of the movement is barely 100-odd armed cadres nationally, including the current chief Tripati Tirupati and a couple of Central Committee members.
March 31, 2026, therefore, could well bring curtains on the existing last vestiges of India's 'biggest internal security threat", as was once described by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
An imploding movement today
Hollowed out, the armed Maoist movement seems hopelessly weakened to be able to rise from the ashes, no matter if they have a history of resurrection.
With the State now back in command and having penetrated in the previously inaccessible forests the erstwhile safe havens of the rebels have been vastly reduced, making it virtually impossible for the rebels to restore the underground movement to anywhere close to the original strength.
Surrendered CPI (Maoist) Central Committee member Mallajula Venugopal Rao says in his 22-page letter to the party before quitting the movement, the armed struggle had failed and has no future.
He also says that the movement underestimated the State's power leading to collapse of the party's command structure.
Urging his former comrades to wind up the armed struggle, he tells then to form a political party like CPI (ML) and fight elections.
Sane counsel, however, has come too late in the day. End of the movement's march might really be co-terminus with the March of 2026, unless, of course, they reappear in some other avatar with a reinvented method to push their struggle.
The best antidote to Maoism is ensuring local rights are enforced
The government's best bet lies in not repeating the same old mistake of robbing the locals of their rightful claim over water, forest and land. Idea of development must be suitably tweaked for these areas to avoid their traditional rights being trampled upon.
Any attempt to remote-control lives of the people in Scheduled Areas through exploitative public or private enterprises could well breed fresh trouble.
(Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.)
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