In Bastar, battle for hearts & minds via bijli-sadak-paani | India News

RAIPUR: There is no network or roads, but hope is being built, brick by brick, in a very remote area of Abujhmarh in Bastar. More accustomed to the noise of gunfire, tribals in Rekavaya village now hear the hum of cement mixers where a school is approaching. The first since Independence.
Like Rekavaya, about 300 kilometers from Raipur, the entire Bastar is experiencing a revival. 2024 will go down in history as the year when the “battle for hearts and minds” was no longer a cliché on this battlefield.
And like Rekavaya, change is coming to Bastar at the cost of human lives. Eight Maoists were shot dead in Rekavaya earlier this year and security camps were set up in the surrounding area. Only then were boats able to ply the Indravati River, carrying bricks and cement needed to build the school once run by the Maoists.
While Mao’s Little Red Book was once part of the curriculum, today children read the tables. And that’s the same story in the rest of Bastar.
At least 222 Maoists have been shot dead by security forces in Bastar since the Vishnu Deo Sai-led BJP government took office, more than in the previous five years combined. This aggressive campaign has driven the Maoists from their former strongholds – including the once impregnable Abujhmarh – and cleared the way for the bijli, the sadak and the paani.
Nearly 50 schools that were closed two decades ago due to Maoist violence have been reopened, some of them rebuilt by the same Maoists who demolished them, now on this side of society, having abandoned their weapons in the jungle and tried to pick them up. life again.
The strength of this year’s campaign can be gauged from the body count: 20 Maoists were eliminated in 2023, nearly 11 times as many have been neutralized this year, and 31 were shot dead in Narayanpur in a single operation.
The Chhattisgarh government has been quick to match security successes with development projects. And Puwarti, the home village of feared Maoist commander Hidma, has become a symbol of Bastar’s resurrection. In November this year, a group of villages near Puwarti got electricity for the first time since Independence. A road is being built.
A security camp, established earlier this year, proved to be a turning point. Thanks to this camp, the tricolor was raised for the first time in decades in Puwarti this Republic Day.
That is why Union Home Minister Amit Shah has promised that the Maoists will be eradicated by March 2026.
Crucially, the government seems to be winning the hearts and minds not only among the population of Bastar, but also among the Maoist cadres. This year has seen the highest number of surrenders in seven years – 802 cadres, giving a combined reward of over Rs 8.2 million. The only time more Maoists surrendered was in 2016, when 1,210 cadres surrendered their weapons.
The government recently revamped its rehabilitation policy by approving 15,000 houses for surrendered cadres and victims of Naxal violence, and including a skill development stipend of Rs 10,000 per month.

“The year 2024 was significant for troops in the Bastar range on all fronts. We made vital gains even in those areas that were considered impenetrable Maoist strongholds. The unprecedented gains in Abujhmarh and South Bastar have not only raised morale of the security forces but also gave the native population hope that the Naxal menace would end sooner than expected. It is not just the numerical body counts. Naxal recovered, but also the grade of cadres, like state committee level cadres, who were removed from the Naxal ecosystem that has given us the operational advantage in this season,” Bastar IG P ​​Sundarraj told TOI Range.
“Increasing our operational and developmental reach in deprived areas of South Bastar, West Bastar and Maad region has changed the situation. Providing basic amenities like PDS shops, anganwadi, hubs and household electrification in villages has saved the development deficit and has increased trust between the native population and the government, we hope to obtain much better results in the next season,” he added.
The solution to the Naxal insurgency is being executed from three directions: development, escalation of operations and surrenders. Until now, the fourth dimension is missing: peace talks. CM Sai and state home minister Vijay Sharma had hinted at talks with Maoists earlier this year, but there is no sign of them being formalised.
Some officials said that with nearly 20 Maoists being eliminated on an average every month, the government does not need to engage in peace talks, but there are already cries from Bastar that the sustained military campaign is leading to bloodshed of innocents.
The Maoists are venting their fury against civilians, killing even teachers, women and children with increasing savagery. Less than a fortnight ago, at least four children were injured in a “crossfire” during a clash in Abujhmarh. One of them, a 16-year-old girl, had a bullet lodged in her throat. His father claims he was shot by police.
There have been repeated accusations that the police ended up killing innocent villagers because they were considered Maoists. So far, the Sai government has not faced the kind of protests that broke out from time to time during the tenures of Raman Singh of the BJP and Bhupesh Baghel of the Congress. Maybe it helps that Sai is tribal and understands Bastar better. Perhaps it’s fitting that the new chapter of Bastar is written by a tribal.