The Swami Vivekananda Airport at Raipur, Chhattisgarh’s capital, has imposing statues of Adivasis celebrating ethnic culture, meant to represent the State’s commitment to preserving their way of life. But far from being the cultural emblems of Chhattisgarh, the impoverished Adivasis, trapped in the middle of a raging conflict between security forces and naxalites, have now become a living representation of the human cost of violence and instability in their homeland.
Since the BJP government assumed power under the first tribal Chief Minister, Vishnu Deo Sai, in December 2023, there has been a fivefold increase in the number of killings, arrests, and surrender of naxalites, amid serious allegations of arbitrary use of state power and staged encounters as part of “Operation Prahar”.
The government has also launched a simultaneous crackdown on those fighting for tribal rights, claiming that they have Maoist links. In April 2022, addressing an election rally in Kanker, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had declared: “We will root out naxalites from Chhattisgarh in the next two years.”
This is under play now. Security forces claim to have neutralised several top Maoist leaders and made significant dents in the insurgents’ network and logistical support systems. Security forces, including State police and paramilitary forces such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, and the Border Security Force, claim to have killed at least 130 naxalites in encounters in the past six months alone against 25 in 2023 and 32 in 2022. Likewise, 390 naxalites have been arrested so far in 2024 against 134 in 2023 and 76 in 2022. Between May 11 and July 18 alone, more than 40 naxalites were killed in various operations.
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Speaking to Frontline, Sunil Kumar, editor of the local daily Chhattisgarh, said: “It is the highest number of killings in such a short span since the State came into being. The April 16 encounter was particularly notable as naxalites claimed, for the first time, that all 29 individuals killed by security forces belonged to their organisation.” He added, however, that it “represents a policing achievement rather than a democratic success. Efforts to reduce distrust and foster confidence must be strengthened.”
Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who is also the State’s Home Minister, told Frontline in an interview (see page 44) that he has made peace talk offers to the insurgents. The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) has urged the government to first demilitarise the forests and revoke all contracts with mining corporations.
Tribal rights activists and civil society groups have decried the growing culture of impunity, alleging that the security forces, including the District Reserve Guard Force of the Chhattisgarh Police, which is likened to the banned Salwa Judum, are involved in extrajudicial killings of Adivasis after branding them as naxalites.
A photograph of Janela Nuruti (15) at her home. Janela was the youngest of 29 Maoists killed in the April 16 encounter. | Photo Credit: ASHUTOSH SHARMA
Kavita Srivastava. national president of the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), said: “The forced mass surrender and arrests of Adivasis and activists continue indiscriminately, which is a great cause of concern as both the State and the Central government are complicit in these human rights violations.” Sharma, however, denied these allegations.
Life in the Red Corridor
In the nondescript forest village of Kalpar in Kanker district, a newly framed picture of a girl hangs on the outer mud wall of a hut with red tiles. The lower left corner of the picture gives details: Name: Janela Nuruti; Date of birth: 20/03/2009; Date of death: 16/04/2024.
The name of 15-year-old Janela, alias Jeni, appears as “slain Maoist” in the lists issued by both the security forces and the insurgents. She is believed to be the youngest casualty in an operation that killed 29, including 15 women, somewhere in the thickly forested hills between Kalpar and Hapatola villages on April 16.
The villages around the encounter site are part of the “Red Corridor” that connects parts of adjoining Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh. One of the boards installed by the CPI(Maoist)’s People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army in Kalpar calls for “expanding and intensifying” the class struggle and guerrilla war. Another exhorts: “Defeat counter revolutionary”.
While the Chhattisgarh Police have announced cash rewards and jobs to people who provide information leading to the arrest or killing of naxalites, banners in the forest pledge to demolish the network of informers. Several banners denounce “draconian and Brahmanical Hindutva fascism” and pledge to defeat capitalism. In its statements, the CPI(Maoist) has consistently attacked the ruling BJP, alleging that the “Hindutva fascist government” is conducting a genocide against tribal people to serve the interests of its corporate friends.
Mainu Nuruti, the young dropout in Dinagunda who now teaches the village children. | Photo Credit: ASHUTOSH SHARMA
Kalpar is located along a dirt track about 10 km from the left bank of the Chhoti Betiya river at Bechaghat, which demarcates the border between the State and the area controlled by naxalites. A large swathe of the bamboo and sal forest is dotted with memorials to naxalites slain in gunfights with armed forces.
Brutalising Adivasis
Alongside Janela’s picture is the portrait of her late father, Ramsai Nuruti, who died in 2015. Speaking to Frontline on April 22, Mithun Nuruti, Janela’s elder brother, said: “Our father left home to purchase piglets when he was picked up by the police on suspicion of being a naxalite sympathiser. He was released after three years of brutal torture, a physical wreck; months later he died.” Ramsai is not an exception. Many others in the area complained that they too were wrongfully detained by the police and eventually released by the court.
Rainu Nuruti, Janela’s relative, said that before the April 16 encounter, security forces had visited them at night on three occasions. “They misbehaved with the women and roughed up the men, accusing us of sympathising with Maoists,” he said.
Mithun said that Janela was a student at a primary school in Narayanpur district’s Dinagunda village. She would walk three hours daily to attend school. The school, started in 2013, is a basic structure supported by wooden logs and roofed with clay tiles. The government teacher makes only rare appearances, so villagers pool money and pay a monthly fee of Rs.1,500 to a local youth, Mainu Nuruti, to teach the children. The school had some pictorial charts with numbers and alphabets, a worn-out portrait of Subhas Chandra Bose, and two plastic chairs.
Mainu, a school dropout himself, told Frontline that he quit after class V. “Why did they kill Janela? They should have arrested her,” he said, echoing the sentiment of the other villagers. Sharing the names of the 29 slain Maoists, the north sub-zonal bureau of the CPI(Maoist) claimed that 12 of its members were killed in the gunfight while 17 others were “murdered” after arrest. But police officials dismissed the assertions as “propaganda” to gain public sympathy.
Sajanti, alias Lakmi Nuruti (20), was also killed in the recent encounter. She was from the adjoining village of Kumudgunda in Narayanpur district. Kumudgunda is located about 65 km from the Chhota Betiya river. Residents of this isolated village said that farming opportunities are limited, and they are solely dependent on the forest for survival.
The primary school in Dinagunda village is a basic structure supported by wooden logs and roofed with clay tiles. The government teacher makes only rare appearances. | Photo Credit: ASHUTOSH SHARMA
Sajanti’s mother, Sundari, said that her daughter “joined the Maoists two years ago and had returned home only once a few months ago”. She is devastated by the ongoing conflict between security forces and Maoists and burdened by the daily struggle for survival. “We have lost all hope,” she said. “Everyone here is heartbroken.”
Govt schemes only on paper
While the government has several schemes on paper that promise to purchase forest produce from Adivasis, in reality it is the contractors who pocket the profits, the villagers said.
This reporter visited the area just before the general election. Asked if they would vote on April 26, the villagers in Kalpar and Kumudgunda asked: “What has the government given us?” They said they did not have an anganwadi centre for children or basic amenities such as water and electricity, proper roads, or public transportation. Although some of them have ration cards, they claimed they do not always get the free rations. While the State government claims that those killed in anti-insurgency operations were armed Maoists, the PUCL has contested it, stating that several victims were “ordinary citizens engaged in routine activities such as collection of tendu leaves and mahua flowers in the forests”.
Charges of fake encounters and arrests are not new in Chhattisgarh. The CoBRA unit of the CRPF was accused of killing eight people, including three minors, and injuring others several villagers in Edesmetta, Bijapur district, on the intervening night of May 17-18, 2013. A judicial commission’s report on the Edesmetta encounter, chaired by Justice V.K. Agarwal, found that the death of a CRPF constable, Dev Prakash, was the result of “friendly fire”. The judicial panel concluded there was no evidence to support claims that the villagers were armed and attributed the incident to panic and misunderstanding.
Similarly, in the 2012 Sarkeguda encounter case where 17 villagers were shot dead in Bijapur district, a judicial committee found that there was inadequate evidence to link the deceased to naxalite groups. In a damning critique, the commission suggested that security personnel may have fabricated details to justify the massacre.
A PUCL report mentions the death of a 6-month-old infant in Bijapur’s Mudvendi village on January 1 this year. While the police claimed the infant died in cross-fire, the report referred to eyewitness claims that a paramilitary commando fired directly at the mother. The report added: “When the villagers gathered to protest about this death at Bellam Nendra on January 20, three villagers were shot dead, including two minors.”
Year of assaults
The report cited an encounter on April 2 in Bijapur’s Korcholi in which 14 people were killed. “Villagers said the deceased included a young speech and hearing impaired woman named Kamli Kunjam who was forced at gunpoint to come out on the road,” the report said.
The Chhattisgarh chapter of the PUCL issued a report on June 29 about the killing of two Adivasi minors in Bijapur district’s Bodga village on May 12. Its report contradicted the police version that 9-year-old Lachman Oyam and 12-year-old Boti Oyam were killed by an improvised explosive device planted by naxalites. The report said that the boys died while handling an unexploded shell dropped by security forces during an aerial attack in March and that the police had offered compensation of Rs.5 lakh to the bereaved families if they signed papers stating the children were killed by Maoists.
Besides the PUCL, the Delhi-based Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization and the Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisations (CDRO) have highlighted the aerial bombings in Bastar. The issue was also raised in the European parliament in 2023 by Marisa Matias, who charged the government of ordering these attacks. The Chhattisgarh Police have denied these allegations as “Maoist propaganda”. The CDRO has called for a Supreme Court-monitored investigation into the aerial bombing incidents.
The hand pump in Dinagunda village in Narayanpur district is the only public utility set up by the state. All schemes and talk of development remain on paper in this remote village, which does not have a proper school or road connectivity. | Photo Credit: ASHUTOSH SHARMA
Two days after the April 16 encounter, villagers in Kumudgunda said that the police picked up a young woman named Lakhmi from Koilibeda town, where she had gone to sell ropes made from tree bark. Across the State there are complaints that people are being detained on little or no evidence of Maoist links.
Human rights violations
Many human rights groups have also pointed to the widespread detention of people fighting for tribal rights. On April 2, the police arrested the noted activist Surju Tekam, vice president of the Sarva Adivasi Samaj, who has been mobilising protests against corporatisation and human rights abuses. He is in jail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Arms Act, denied bail by the National Investigation Agency court in Bilaspur. Tekam’s family alleged that security forces planted literature linked to the CPI(Maoist) and weapons in his residence.
Similarly, the police arrested the PUCL executive committee member Suneeta Pottam, charging her of complicity in nearly a dozen cases, including murder and attempted murder, from 2020 to 2024. The Adivasi human rights defender Hidme Markham said: “She [Pottam] has been arrested on fabricated charges as in many cases, including mine.” Markham was acquitted in four cases, including one under the UAPA in January 2023, after the police failed to substantiate the charges.
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The new government has denied permission for peaceful protests against mining projects and displacements and has arrested several people who have done so, including Mahadev Netam of Madhonar Andolan, Lakhmu Korram of Madh Bachao Andolan, and Guddu Salaam of Irakbhatti Andolan.
After Home Minister Vijay Sharma offered talks with the naxalites, the veteran politician Arvind Netam, 82, who has represented the Kanker Lok Sabha constituency five times, said that the offer needs to come from the top, as naxalism is not a law and order problem restricted to a single State. When reminded of Amit Shah’s assertion that the government would root out naxalism from Chhattisgarh in two years, Netam said: “You have deployed 1.5 lakh paramilitary soldiers. Double the number, but it won’t solve the problem in the long run. Maoist insurgency has economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions. Such a complex issue can’t be resolved through militaristic means.” The problem, Netam said, is that the government has changed, but there is no change in economic planning, policies, or administration.
Sundari, a resident of the Kumudgunda tribal village in Narayanpur district, whose daughter Sajanti was killed in the April 16 operation. | Photo Credit: ASHUTOSH SHARMA
The excessive use of force could prove counter-productive, Netam said. “Our ancestors fought the British to safeguard jal, jangal, zameen. Adivasis did not surrender their rights to water, forests, and land a century ago, nor will they do so in the next hundred years.”
Kavita Srivastava demanded an immediate ceasefire and an end to the targeting of activists and the restrictions on anti-mining campaigns. Justice is vital to ensure peace, she said, urging the government to release those arrested in false cases and push for FIRs in the reported encounter deaths.
She also called for a Supreme Court-led judicial commission to investigate the encounters. “The government must go beyond military action and build trust by setting up inquiry commissions to uncover the truth about encounter incidents. Filling the region with armed personnel will only lead to hostile occupation, undermining long-term peace and security.”
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