When the State Fights Back And Builds While at It

Paras Ratna

Few moments have so powerfully symbolised the Indian state’s triumph against the Maoist insurgency as the neutralising of Nambala Keshava Rao, better known by his alias Basav Raju. As the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Rao was among the most senior figures in the insurgency. His death on May 21 in Abujhmarh, Chhattisgarh, a dense forest region long regarded as an impenetrable Maoist bastion, marked a decisive breakthrough.

For decades, the Maoist movement posed a direct challenge to the Indian state. Drawing inspiration from Mao Zedong’s dictum that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” the insurgency turned swathes of central, eastern, and Southern parts of India into conflict zones known as the ‘red corridor’. At its peak in 2010, Maoist insurgency claimed 3,240 lives—nearly three times the combined toll of civilian and security casualties in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast that same year. No surprise, then, that the insurgency came to be described as ‘India’s single biggest internal security challenge’.

Fast forward to today, official data from the Government of India points to a decisive breakthrough in the fight against Maoist insurgency. The shift is evident across multiple indicators:

‘First, the number of districts affected by Left Wing Extremism has declined sharply from 126 in 2013 to just 38 in 2024.

Second, even among these, the number of districts that accounts for 90 percent of Maoist-related violence has halved, dropping from twelve to six

Third, reported incidents of Maoist violence have fallen from 1,936 in 2010 to 374 in 2024.

Fourth, the human cost of the conflict has also decreased significantly. Combined casualties of civilians and security forces dropped by nearly 70 percent—from 6,616 between April 2004 and April 2014 to 2,004 in the period from April 2014 to May 2024.

Finally, the number of police stations reporting Maoist-related violence has declined from 465 in 2010 to just 89 by June 2024, marking a reduction of over 80 percent.’

But this success was not achieved through firepower alone. India’s approach to counterinsurgency evolved into a careful blend of coercion and co-optation. Or, to borrow a Bollywood analogy, the state’s strategy combined the iron fist of Sunny Deol with the grounded empathy of Pankaj Tripathi.

At the heart of this effort was the National Action Plan launched in 2015. Building on earlier doctrines, this policy too prioritised both security and governance. On the security front, the government shifted from road-bound outposts to forward-operating bases located within five kilometers of Maoist strongholds. This enabled quicker response and deeper control. Surveillance drones, intelligence coordination, and financial disruption followed. Measures such as regulating tendu leaf contractors and digitizing tendering processes choked the insurgency’s funding sources. Road construction in conflict-prone areas was transferred to the Border Roads Organization, further limiting opportunities for extortion.

Meanwhile, governance initiatives aimed to deepen the state’s footprint in these areas. The numbers speak for themselves. A total of 14,618 kilometers of roads were constructed. Of the 10,505 planned mobile towers, 7,768 are now operational. As far as access to banking infrastructure is concerned, 1,007 new bank branches, 937 ATMs, and 5,731 post offices have been added. The state also invested in education and skill training, opening a total of 46 Industrial Training Institutes, 49 Skill Development Centers, and 178 Eklavya Model Residential Schools.

Building state capacity through infrastructure and welfare goods is widely seen as a key element of counterinsurgency strategy. Citing the case of Andhra Pradesh, Aditya Das Gupta, Kishore Gawande, and Devesh Kapur argue that when welfare schemes are implemented alongside strong security measures, they can strengthen state capacity and reduce the grassroots appeal of Maoist insurgency. Supporting this view, Sanjay Pulipaka and Arunima Wangchoo highlight how combining development and security policies was crucial in Andhra Pradesh. Hiring teachers and security personnel, investing in rural housing, the economic spillover from Hyderabad’s IT sector, and the creation of forces like the Greyhounds helped weaken support for Maoism. Similarly, Niranjan Sahoo points to the expansion of rural infrastructure, implementation of welfare and employment programs, and improved security through better funding and training. These efforts together increased state presence and reduced the appeal of insurgency.

Researchers have also stressed the role of political representation. In Bihar, for instance, Nitish Kumar co-opted Mahadalit communities, once a core Maoist base, by giving them political representation. In a similar vein, Aidan Milliff and Drew Stommes show that descriptive representation, where elected village council leaders share identity with the local majority- in this case marginalized Scheduled Tribe groups, helped lower Maoist violence in Chhattisgarh. Quota based representation enabled closer collaboration between these communities and the state, improving information flow and weakening insurgent control in conflict zones.

These examples show that counterinsurgency is not just about force or welfare: it crucially depends on political will. India’s experience offers two key lessons. First, a rising India with an increasingly representative democracy has managed to restore order not only in Maoist areas but also in long-troubled regions like Kashmir and the North East. Second, political will matters as much as state capacity. Bihar’s example shows that provinces with limited administrative capacity, too, can severely dent insurgency when leaders make the right choices of political accommodation.

This challenges a widely held belief that certain regions are simply ungoverned spaces. India’s case suggests otherwise. What are often labelled ungoverned may not necessarily be the result of weak state capacity, but of weak political resolve. Look no further than Pakistan, where even relatively developed provinces like Punjab, not just tribal areas like FATA, harbour United Nations-designated terrorist groups with impunity. In that sense, India’s counterinsurgency experience makes one thing clear and Pakistan’s internal security landscape arguably reinforces it: that so-called ‘ungoverned spaces’ are not mere accidents of geography or institutional weakness. More often, they reflect deliberate political choice.

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Paras Ratna is a PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore.