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EditorialsNaxalismLeft Wing ExtremismRed CorridorSamadhanCobraTribal DevelopmentInternal Security
Left-wing extremism (LWE), the Maoist or Naxalite insurgency, has been called the gravest internal-security threat India has faced. The standing debate is whether it is fundamentally a security problem to be defeated by force, or a developmental problem rooted in land, forest rights, displacement and the neglect of tribal India, to be cured by inclusion. The honest answer is that it is both, and the policy question is the sequence and the balance.
- The movement is named after Naxalbari, the West Bengal village where a peasant uprising began in 1967. The dominant outfit today is the Communist Party of India (Maoist), formed in 2004 by a merger, banned as a terrorist organisation under the UAPA.
- The affected belt is the Red Corridor, historically running across parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, concentrated in forested, tribal, mineral-rich districts. The number of LWE-affected districts has fallen sharply over the past decade; verify the latest MHA figure.
- The security response is captured in the MHA's SAMADHAN doctrine (Smart leadership, Aggressive strategy, Motivation and training, Actionable intelligence, Dashboard-based KPIs, Harnessing technology, Action plan for each theatre, No access to financing). The lead central force is the CRPF, with its specialised jungle-warfare CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) units.
- The developmental response includes road connectivity in affected districts, the Aspirational Districts Programme, financial inclusion, skill and education schemes, and security-related expenditure schemes to reimburse states. The rights frame includes the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the PESA Act, 1996 (extension of Panchayats to Scheduled Areas), which recognise tribal claims to forest and self-governance.
- The grievance base: tribal alienation from land, displacement by mining and dams, weak delivery of justice and services, and the absence of the state in remote interiors, which the Maoists fill with a parallel order.
The security-first view
- Armed extremists who kill security personnel and civilians, run extortion networks and obstruct development cannot be negotiated with from a position of weakness; the state must first re-establish its monopoly on force.
- Visible gains, the shrinking of the affected map, the killing or surrender of senior cadre, the holding of elections in former no-go areas, came largely after sustained, intelligence-led security operations.
The development-first view
- Force without development is a holding operation, not a cure; where the root cause is exclusion, military success without inclusion simply postpones the next cycle.
- Heavy-handed operations risk human-rights violations against tribal civilians and feed the Maoist narrative of a predatory state; the alienation that follows replaces the cadre that is killed.
- The lasting test is whether the state arrives with roads, schools, health, forest rights and honest administration once the area is cleared, the "hold and develop" half of "clear, hold and develop".
The settled answer is development plus security, sequenced and integrated, not one against the other. Security operations create the space; development must follow into that space promptly, or the space is lost again. Implement the Forest Rights Act and PESA honestly so that tribal communities own their land and govern their affairs; pair every clearing operation with connectivity, services and a credible surrender-and-rehabilitation policy; keep operations proportionate and accountable to protect the civilian population whose trust is the real prize; and dry up extortion financing. The CRPF and CoBRA buy the time; governance has to use it.
An insurgency that grows in the gaps where the state is absent cannot be killed by force alone; it can only be replaced, by a state that arrives with roads, rights and justice and stays. The question in the Red Corridor was never development or security; it was always whether development would follow the soldier into the cleared ground.
Thesis to adapt: Left-wing extremism is a symptom of exclusion exploited by armed ideology; the cure is a state strong enough to keep order and just enough to be worth obeying.