The six-decade-long Left-Wing extremism (LWE), or Maoism, which first emerged in the Naxalbari village of West Bengal in 1967, appears to be on its last legs. The Maoist insurgency which not long ago spread its tentacles across one-third of India (223 districts at its peak in 2011), triggering unprecedented violence and paralysing development and governance across several states in central and eastern India (known as Red Corridor), has lost most of its strongholds in the recent years. The Maoist insurgency is now at a historical low—contained to six districts in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Telangana. The federal government’s deadline of 31 March 2026 to end India’s longest-running insurgency seems within the reach. In this context, drawing from ORF’s recent report, it is an imperative to examine the multi-layered dynamics of this protracted insurgency, revolutionary ideology, evolution of state response the post-conflict challenges (addressing development woes, reimagining governance, creation of peace and reconciliation mechanisms, re-building of trusts among affected populations, etc). The discussion around the following questions.
1) What is the key security and developmental dynamics which has shaped the evolution and fall of Left-wing insurgency movement in India?
2) What are the crucial tenets of India’s counter-insurgency and developmental measures that has contributed to the mitigation of the conflict?
3) What would be a developmental and governance vision for the red corridor in the post-conflict period?
