The Maoist Insurgency in India: Origins and Evolution

In May 1967, a peasant revolt in a small village in northern West Bengal lit a fire that would burn across central and eastern India for nearly six decades. That village was Naxalbari, and the movement it inspired-the Naxalite or Maoist insurgency-became what a former Prime Minister once described as the country’s gravest internal security threat. To understand how a localised agrarian protest grew into an armed rebellion spanning hundreds of districts, we need to trace its ideological roots, its key turning points, and the conditions that allowed it to survive for so long.

What is the Maoist insurgency? 🔗

The Maoist insurgency, commonly called the Naxalite movement, is a far-left armed rebellion that seeks to overthrow the existing state through a “protracted people’s war” and establish a communist regime. The ideology draws directly from the doctrines of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, who argued that revolution should be built on the peasantry rather than the urban working class. Followers are popularly known as Naxalites or Naxals, a name taken from the village where it all began.

The official term used by the government is Left-Wing Extremism (LWE). The movement’s central aim has remained remarkably consistent over the decades: to overthrow the government through armed rebellion and replace it with a Maoist system. It pursues this through guerrilla warfare, attacks on security forces and state infrastructure, and the creation of parallel administrations in remote regions.

The Naxalbari uprising of 1967 🔗

The story begins in the Naxalbari block of the Siliguri subdivision in the Darjeeling district. By the 1960s, two decades after independence, rural Bengal remained trapped in deeply unequal landholding patterns. Tribal cultivators and sharecroppers worked land they did not own, while powerful landlords and tea-garden owners controlled both the soil and the local economy. Land reform laws existed on paper but were rarely enforced.

The trigger came in the spring of 1967. A group of peasants began forcibly harvesting crops on disputed land, marking the boundaries with red flags. Tensions escalated quickly. On 24 May, a police inspector was killed by a group of peasants. The next day, police opened fire on protesting villagers in Naxalbari on 25 May 1967, killing several people, including women and children. This act of state violence transformed a local agitation into a symbol of armed resistance.

The leaders and the ideology 🔗

The uprising was led by radical communist figures who had grown frustrated with parliamentary politics. Charu Majumdar, the chief ideologue, argued that conditions in India were ripe for an armed revolution modelled on the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban examples. Alongside him were Kanu Sanyal and Jangal Santhal, who mobilised tribal peasants on the ground.

What makes this period especially interesting is the irony at its heart. The state government of the time was led by a Left Front coalition that included the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M). When peasants inspired by communist ideals rose up, the communist-led government found itself deploying police against a communist movement in the name of law and order. This contradiction pushed the radicals to break away entirely.

From uprising to organised movement 🔗

By the end of 1967, the original uprising in Naxalbari had been crushed. Many leaders were arrested, and the movement in its birthplace was effectively suppressed. But suppression did not kill the idea-if anything, it confirmed the Naxalite argument that the existing democratic system would never deliver justice to the poor and that only armed struggle could bring real change.

In 1969, the radicals formalised their split from the CPI(M) by founding the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), with Charu Majumdar as its chief leader. This new party called for an all-out people’s war. Majumdar’s writings spread beyond rural Bengal and found enthusiastic readers among students and intellectuals in cities like Kolkata, giving the movement an urban dimension it had not previously had.

Spread across states 🔗

Through the 1970s, internal splits, leadership arrests, and harsh state repression weakened the movement. Charu Majumdar himself died in police custody in 1972. Yet the underlying grievances had not disappeared, and the movement quietly regrouped. It resurfaced strongly in the 1980s, this time spreading well beyond Bengal into states such as Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and what later became Chhattisgarh.

One of the most important groups to emerge in this phase was the People’s War Group (PWG), which built a strong base in Andhra Pradesh. In the eastern states, the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), founded in 1975, became another major armed faction. For years these groups operated separately, often competing for influence within the broader Naxalite fold.

The formation of CPI (Maoist) in 2004 🔗

The single most significant turning point in the movement’s later history came on 21 September 2004. On that day, the two largest armed factions-the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre-merged to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist), or CPI (Maoist). The merger had been negotiated over more than a year of high-level discussions.

This unification mattered enormously. It eliminated internal rivalries, pooled resources and manpower, and created a centralised command structure with a clear chain of leadership. The CPI (Maoist) declared its stated aim plainly: to capture state power through people’s war and ultimately establish communism. Its armed wing, the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), carried out attacks on security forces and infrastructure.

The Red Corridor and liberated zones 🔗

After the merger, the CPI (Maoist) expanded across what came to be called the Red Corridor-a belt of forested, mineral-rich, and often underdeveloped districts stretching from parts of the eastern and central states down towards the south. In its strongholds, the group set up parallel administrative structures, collecting taxes, running its own courts, and effectively pushing out the formal presence of the state in what it termed “liberated zones.”

At its peak in the mid-2000s, the insurgency affected a large number of districts and claimed thousands of lives-civilians, security personnel, and insurgents alike. The CPI (Maoist) was eventually banned as a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, reflecting how seriously the state had come to view the threat.

Why did the insurgency take root? 🔗

The Maoist movement did not survive for decades purely on ideology. It drew strength from real and persistent grievances, particularly among tribal (Adivasi) communities in remote regions. Understanding these root causes is essential to understanding why the movement endured.

Land alienation and displacement 🔗

The most fundamental driver was land. Tribal communities traditionally depend on forest land for food, fuel, and livelihood, but laws and projects steadily eroded these rights. Large development projects such as dams, mines, and industrial zones led to displacement, often without adequate compensation or rehabilitation. To many policymakers, these forested regions were simply mineral reserves to be exploited; to the people living there, they were home.

Poverty, governance gaps, and exploitation 🔗

Beyond land, the affected regions suffered from severe poverty, poor infrastructure, and a near-absence of schools, healthcare, and basic services. Administrative apathy and corruption deepened the sense of neglect. In this vacuum, the Naxalites positioned themselves as protectors of the marginalised, offering swift, if violent, justice. Allegations of police atrocities, custodial torture, and heavy-handed operations further alienated local populations and reinforced the Maoist narrative of state oppression.

The state’s response: Operation Green Hunt and beyond 🔗

As the insurgency intensified after 2004, the government responded with a far more coordinated counter-insurgency effort. In 2009, it launched a large-scale offensive that the media widely dubbed “Operation Green Hunt.” This involved deploying paramilitary forces such as the CRPF and specialised units like the COBRA battalions alongside state police in affected districts.

The operation aimed to dismantle Naxalite strongholds and weaken their fighting capacity. While it disrupted Maoist activities in several areas, it also drew criticism for alleged human rights violations and the displacement of tribal populations caught in the crossfire between insurgents and the state.

A two-pronged strategy 🔗

Over time, the government recognised that force alone could not solve the problem. It paired security operations with development initiatives-building roads, schools, banking and postal services, and improving connectivity in affected districts. Schemes targeted the very developmental gaps that the Maoists had exploited for recruitment. The SAMADHAN strategy, introduced in 2017, captured this integrated approach, combining smart leadership, actionable intelligence, technology, and a determined effort to cut off Maoist financing.

Where the insurgency stands today 🔗

The arc of the insurgency has shifted dramatically in recent years. According to official data, the number of LWE-affected districts fell from 126 in 2014 to just 11 by 2025, with the once-continuous Red Corridor reduced to scattered pockets, mainly in parts of Chhattisgarh. Violent incidents declined by more than half over the same period, and deaths of security personnel dropped sharply.

The government set a firm target of making the country completely free of Naxalism by 31 March 2026. Intensified intelligence-led operations dismantled much of the CPI (Maoist) leadership, while surrenders of senior Maoist commanders signalled a movement in steep decline. By early 2026, the area under Naxal influence had shrunk to a handful of districts, a remarkable contraction from its peak. Whether this marks a permanent end to the conflict or merely a low point in a longer cycle remains a question worth watching, given that the underlying grievances around land, livelihood, and tribal rights have not entirely vanished.

Why this history matters 🔗

The Maoist insurgency is more than a security story. It is a lens into the unfinished business of land reform, the tensions between development and indigenous rights, and the consequences of governance failures in the country’s most remote regions. The movement’s longevity-surviving multiple governments and waves of repression-shows that armed rebellion thrives wherever people feel excluded from the benefits of growth and justice. A purely military victory, however complete, addresses the symptom rather than the cause.

What do you think? Do you believe the dramatic decline in Naxal violence reflects a genuine resolution of the grievances that fuelled the movement, or has it been achieved mainly through superior force? And how should a democracy balance the demands of development in mineral-rich regions with the rights of the tribal communities who call those forests home?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_India_(Maoist)
2. https://vajiramandravi.com/upsc-exam/naxalism-in-india/
3. https://www.efsas.org/publications/study-papers/an-introduction-to-naxalism-in-india/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalism
5. https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/maoist/terrorist_outfits/CPI_M.htm
6. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/4/26/indias-maoist-rebels-an-explainer
7. https://lotusarise.com/left-wing-extremism-in-india-upsc/
8. https://theiashub.com/free-resources/post-independence/naxalite-movement-causes-tribal-inequality-governance-issues
9. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2203440&reg=3&lang=1
10. https://ddnews.gov.in/en/naxal-affected-districts-reduced-to-11-as-govt-pushes-towards-naxal-free-india-by-march-2026/