India’s Counter-Naxal Approach: A Critical Review – OpEd
India’s renewed push to eliminate Naxalism by a fixed deadline has raised serious concerns about the trajectory of its internal security policy. Home Minister Amit Shah’s declaration that left-wing extremism will be “finished” by March 26, 2026, reflects not only an aggressive counterinsurgency posture but also a troubling preference for militarized solutions over political reconciliation. As the deadline-driven campaign accelerates, the human cost—particularly for India’s tribal communities—is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
At the heart of the problem lies the logic of numbers. Counterinsurgency framed around targets, timelines, and body counts inevitably incentivizes excess. Official data proudly cites the killing of over 200 alleged Naxalites in 2025 alone, portraying these deaths as markers of success. Yet history, both in India and globally, shows that insurgencies rooted in socio-economic grievances cannot be extinguished through force alone. When security operations become performance metrics, the distinction between combatants and civilians blurs, and accountability is often the first casualty.
Reports from Chhattisgarh, Bastar, and other “Red Corridor” regions suggest that this distinction is already eroding. Allegations of staged encounters, custodial deaths, and forced disappearances have been repeatedly raised by human rights organizations and local civil society groups. The reported killing of senior Maoist leader Basavaraju—allegedly while in custody—has further intensified scrutiny. Whether or not official narratives withstand legal examination, the broader pattern points to a counterinsurgency environment where due process is increasingly treated as an inconvenience rather than a constitutional obligation.
The primary victims of this approach are India’s Adivasi communities, who inhabit mineral-rich regions that have long been contested by the state, corporations, and insurgent groups alike. For decades, tribal populations have complained of land dispossession, lack of political representation, exploitative mining practices, and chronic underdevelopment. Schools, hospitals, and employment opportunities remain scarce, while security camps and armed patrols proliferate. In such an environment, counterinsurgency operations risk being perceived not as protection, but as occupation.
What makes the current campaign particularly problematic is the government’s failure to match its security rhetoric with meaningful reform. Successive administrations have promised land rights, forest protections, local employment, and inclusive development as pillars of a comprehensive solution to Naxalism. Yet these commitments have largely remained unfulfilled. Instead, economic policies continue to prioritize extractive industries, often at the expense of tribal consent and environmental sustainability. The result is a cycle where force is used to manage symptoms while underlying grievances deepen.
The moral hazard of deadline-driven counterinsurgency cannot be overstated. When security forces are implicitly rewarded for eliminating threats quickly, the pressure to produce results can override legal safeguards. Encounters become narratives of convenience, and entire villages risk being stigmatized as insurgent sympathizers. Such practices may deliver short-term tactical gains, but they undermine the long-term legitimacy of the state. Trust, once broken, is exceedingly difficult to restore.
International experience offers sobering lessons. From Latin America to Southeast Asia, states that relied primarily on militarization to suppress internal dissent often achieved temporary calm at the cost of enduring instability. Sustainable peace has consistently required political dialogue, institutional reform, and socio-economic inclusion. India’s own democratic framework, with its constitutional protections and federal structure, provides ample tools for such an approach—if the political will exists to use them.
The framing of Naxalites exclusively as “terrorists” further complicates matters. While insurgent violence against civilians is indefensible and must be condemned, reducing the conflict to a law-and-order problem obscures its political and social dimensions. It also forecloses space for surrender, rehabilitation, and reintegration—mechanisms that have previously shown promise in reducing violence without bloodshed.
Ultimately, the question is not whether the Indian state has the right to maintain security, but how it chooses to do so. A strategy that privileges coercion over consent risks normalizing extrajudicial practices and eroding democratic norms. If counterinsurgency becomes indistinguishable from collective punishment, the state may win territory while losing its moral authority.
As the March 2026 deadline approaches, India faces a critical choice. It can continue down a path where speed is valued over justice and force over reform, or it can recalibrate its approach to address the root causes of insurgency. Ending Naxalism will require more than bullets and deadlines—it will require listening to those who have long lived at the margins of India’s development story.