3 March 1967: By any historical yardstick, the date carries weight. On this date, a peasant uprising in Naxalbari lit a fuse that burned through India’s internal security landscape for nearly five decades. On 3 March 2026, that fuse is finally sputtering out, as it is set to be consigned to the flames of Holika Dahan. Forty-nine years on, India stands on the verge of eradicating Naxalism – not by drift or accident, but by the force of political will, clarity of doctrine, and relentless execution under PM Narendra Modi and HM Amit Shah.

This has been a long war-ideological, kinetic, and moral – waged across jungles and courtrooms alike. Its endgame tells a story of what happens when a state finally decides to call terror by its name. What began as an armed agrarian revolt transformed into a militant insurgency with a pan-Indian footprint by the late 1990s. The merger of extremist streams under the banner of CPI (Maoist) in 2004 created a vertically integrated terror apparatus- complete with area committees, people’s militias, extortion networks, and propaganda wings. The Red Corridor expanded exponentially as governance retreated. Yet the decisive inflection point was not merely the insurgents’ brutality. It was the state’s ambivalence. The United Progressive Alliance years saw Naxalism peak – in violence, geography, and confidence. The toll is seared into memory.

In April 2010, the Dantewada massacre wiped out 76 security personnel in a single ambush, exposing lethal gaps in intelligence and leadership. Three years later, in May 2013, the Darbha Valley attack in Chhattisgarh murdered senior Congress leaders and party workers, shattering the myth that appeasement buys immunity. And yet, the response remained curiously constrained. The UPA refrained from defining Naxalism unequivocally as terror, preferring sociological euphemisms and fragmented remedies. When the Supreme Court terminated Salwa Judum in 2011 – however contentious the judgment – the Union government neither challenged its premise nor offered a robust replacement doctrine. The outcome was predictable: security forces were asked to fight with one hand tied, while the insurgents adapted, rearmed, and expanded.

This was not restraint, it was abdication. A state uncertain of its own moral authority ceded initiative to men with guns and manifestos. Everything changed after 2014. The Modi government re-anchored internal security around three non-negotiables: clear political backing, unified command, and relentless follow-through. Under Amit Shah, the Ministry of Home Affairs moved from episodic responses to a theatre-wide strategy -combining intelligence fusion, area domination, infrastr ucture p ush , and surrender-cum-rehabilitation policies. The results are not abstract. They are measurable. Districts once written off as “liberated zones” saw roads, towers, banks, and polling booths return. Cadres splintered. Leadership ranks thinned.

A series of high-impact operations decapitated the movement’s operational core-most notably the elimination of dreaded field commanders and the steady unravelling of logistics networks. Reports through 2025 pointed to the neutralisation of top commanders, including the much-feared Hidma, and high-profile surrenders such as Devuki, signalling not just battlefield success but ideological fatigue within the ranks. Most crucially, the government set a deadline. HM Shah’s declaration of 31 March 2026 as the outer limit for ending Naxal terror injected urgency across the system. Deadlines focus minds, they also communicate resolve-to security forces, to administrators, and to insurgents weighing their odds. What distinguishes this phase is not force alone.

It is the sequencing – security first, development fast, governance strong and long lasting. Welfare delivery followed area control, not the other way around. Developmental projects were initiated diligently. Tribal rights were mainstreamed without romanticising violence. The state re-entered spaces it had long abandoned. This is why today’s assessment is sober, not triumphalist. Naxalism is not being “managed”, it is being eradicated. Yet history warns against premature closure. As the jungle network collapses, a subtler challenge persists – the Urban Naxal mindset that launders violence through vocabulary. It is a politics that condemns the state reflexively, rationalises insurgent coercion, and litigates away the moral clarity required to fight terror.

Recent political signalling has sharpened this concern. The opposition’s choices – projecting figures associated with the legal dismantling of Salwa Judum, including former Supreme Court judge Sudarshan Reddy, and elevating lawyers like Menaka Guruswamy, who fought the case against Salwa Judum – are read by many as more than coincidence. They suggest a continuing soft corner for a worldview that treats armed revolution as grievance politics by other means. The danger is not immediate violence, it is ideological backsliding. Terror movements revive when societies forget why they defeated them. On this March 3, the arc from Naxalbari to near-eradication offers a hard lesson. Insurgencies do not die from analysis; they die from resolve.

India’s experience shows that when the state is confident, the Constitution firm, and politics aligned with security, even a five-decade-old terror movement can be brought to heel. The full credit for the successful vanquishment of Naxal Terror should go to PM Modi and HM Shah who have shown they are exemplary ‘finishers’ in India’s politics. From abrogation of Article 370 to Operation Sindoor to ending Naxalism, their actions do the talking. Forty-nine years after it first reared its ugly head, Naxal terror stands vanquished today not by chance, but by choice.

(The writer is a national spokesperson of BJP, besides being an acclaimed author.)

Chhattisgarh Maoist involved in killing of civilians & IED blasts surrenders

During the surrender, the cadre- Sukhram Markam, also laid down an SLR Rifle, 12 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition, and other articles.

52 Maoist cadres surrender in Chhattisgarh, ₹1.41 crore bounty neutralised

In a major breakthrough for Chhattisgarh’s counter-insurgency and rehabilitation efforts, 52 Maoist cadres surrendered in the Bijapur district on Thursday, signalling a further weakening of the outlawed organisation in the Bastar region.

14 Naxals killed in two separate encounters in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma and Bijapur districts

At least 12 Naxals were killed by security forces following an encounter that broke out in the forest area under…

You might be interested in

‘Depart now’: Washington tells Americans to flee 12+ Middle East countries as Iran conflict widens; 6 US troops killed

‘Depart now’: Washington tells Americans to flee 12+ Middle East countries as Iran conflict widens; 6 US troops killed

How does India shield itself from the coming ‘Oil Shock’?

How does India shield itself from the coming ‘Oil Shock’?

Middle East conflict: IndiGo plans to run 10 special relief flights from Jeddah to India on Tuesday

Middle East conflict: IndiGo plans to run 10 special relief flights from Jeddah to India on Tuesday

© The Statesman