NAXALISM CONFOUNDS THE INDIAN STATE

AJAY K MEHRA discusses why and how the Maoist menace is alive and kicking

- AJAY K MEHRA 

Even as the Government of India has been resting on its supposed laurels of having incarcerated sixteen prominent activists, intellectuals, social workers, lawyers, cultural artists, dubbing them as ‘Urban Naxals’ three years back in the controversial Bhima Koregaon case, the ‘real’ Naxals killed 22, injured 31 and abducted one personnel (since released) of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Sukma-Bijapur border in Chhattisgarh on April 3, 2021.

Obviously, despite the elimination of their leaders and masterminds Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad (July 1, 2010) and Mallojula Koteshwara Rao alias Kishenji (November 24, 2011) and in the midst of an organisational crisis facing them since suffering their biggest setback in Ramguda (Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border) in a strike by Telangna’s anti- Naxal special police Greyhounds (on October 24, 2016) that wiped out 30 of their cadres and the entire leadership (at least twenty of them) of the Malkangiri- Koraput-Vishakhapatnam border, the Naxal leadership has been able to rebuild itself in Chhattisgarh, this time under tribal leader Madvi Hidma.

In his late 40s or early 50s (his real age is a matter of speculation), Hidma is the youngest member of the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist). A master strategist, he was responsible for several attacks on security forces, including the 2013 attack in Darbha valley in which Congress leader V C Shukla and Salwa Judum founder Mahendra Karma were killed.