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Operation Kagar, India’s escalating anti-Naxalite campaign in Chhattisgarh, leaves Adivasis reeling from repression, displacement, killings and other violence by state authorities and security forces

SPREAD OVER 4000 square kilometres in the south of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, Abujhmarh is a hilly forest area covering three major districts – Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada. It is home to several Adivasi communities, including the Gond, Muria, Abujhmarhia, Madiya and Halba tribes. India’s 2011 Census puts the Adivasi population in Chhattisgarh about a third of the state’s 25.5 million people. The area remains highly militarised as it is a hub for the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency, led by the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). 

In recent months, Chhattisgarh is witnessing a massive crackdown, led by Indian security forces, called Operation Kagar – “Final Mission”. Operation Kagar has four strategic goals: establishing paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) bases across Bastar, a hotspot of the insurgency that includes the Abujhmarh forest; deploying drones and satellite imaging for intelligence-gathering; setting up over 612 Fortified Police Stations on territory reclaimed from insurgents; and implementing a “surrender policy”, under which a reported 7500 Naxalites have already surrendered over the past decade. 

But Operation Kagar has come at a heavy cost, including for Adivasis. 

On 17 April, the CPI (Maoist) issued a public statement, with its North-West sub-zonal bureau calling for a one-month ceasefire and the formation of a joint representative committee comprising state officials and Maoist leaders to pave the way for a “permanent solution”. 

The CPI (Maoist) criticised ongoing security operations in the Kanker, Bijapur and Sukma districts in southern Chhattisgarh, even after the party had said it was open to peace talks. It added that Adivasi civilians were reportedly killed on 12 and 16 April.

On 24 April, in a memorandum addressed to India’s president, DroupadiMurmu, more than 300 people expressed alarm over escalating counter-insurgency operations in Bastar, as well as in Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand and other areas. The memorandum warned that the Indian government’s anti-Naxalite drive put Adivasi lives “under immediate and unprecedented threat” and called for action from the president, herself an Adivasi woman. 

The violence only escalated further on 21 May, with a fierce gunfight in Narayanpur leading to the killing of Nambala Keshava Rao, alias Basavaraju, the general secretary of the CPI (Maoist), as well as Sajja Venkata Nageswara Rao, the editor of the Naxalite magazine Awam-e-Jung, and about 26 others. 

After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also heads India’s ruling national government, was elected to power in Chhattisgarh in a state election in November 2023, there has been an escalation in killings, clampdowns on civilian protests and unsustainable development projects in the state. Community development organisations have called Operation Kagar a war “waged against innocent adivasis,” even as the Indian government continues to claim the counterinsurgency operations have been a success. Leading those claims is Amit Shah, the country’s home minister and the right-hand man of the prime minister, the BJP’s Narendra Modi.

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a website tracking militancy across the region, 500 Naxalites have surrendered to the police in 2025. Around 228 Naxalites have been killed in Chhattisgarh this year as of May, going by the website’s count, with government leaders putting the number even higher. After a visit to Chhattisgarh in April, Shah announced that security forces had killed 287 Naxalites, including 14 top leaders. He also said they had arrested 1000 people, and facilitated 837 surrenders in one year. 

The escalation is staggering. In 2023, by comparison, just 23 Naxalites were reportedly killed in the state. The current surge in killings directly correlates with a bounty system, with rewards of up to INR 25 lakh – around USD 29,000 – sometimes being offered to security personnel per Naxalite killed.

CHATTISGARH’S BASTAR REGION has witnessed continuous shootings since the beginning of this year, even as public pressure has mounted on the Indian government to initiate peace talks. While there is periodic data released on the number of reported Naxalites killed, there is little information on civilian deaths. 

The human rights activist and Adivasi rights advocate Soni Sori, herself a survivor of torture at the hands of security forces, said that she has often seen women and children impacted by crackdowns on Maoists. 

In December 2024, four children were injured in a shootout between Chhattisgarh police and Maoists. An independent fact-finding team that visited Narayanpur district between December 2024 and January 2025 found that many of those shot at close proximity by the District Reserve Guard Forces (DRGF), a police unit that includes former Naxalites, were between eight and 14 years old. At least three of those killed in December 2024 were minors. The same fact-finding team also recorded eyewitness testimony of security forces raping young women. The Inspector General Police of Bastar, P Sundarraj, did not respond to emailed questions about the December 2024 encounter or allegations of security forces being implicated in the rape of civilians. 

At the time of the encounter, police alternately denied that children had been targeted or said that Naxalites were using children as human shields, contradicting eyewitness accounts that the children targeted had simply been farming kosra – millet. According to police officials, at least seven Naxalites were killed in an “encounter”, or gunfight, with security forces in the villages of Kummam and Lekawada in Narayanpur district. Sori, who travelled to these villages, said that the children had been injured due to gunfire.

“This is a pattern by the authorities whenever our people are injured. In the name of Naxalism, they have ruined so many lives. It is so disturbing to see that despite innocent people being killed, they are either termed Maoists or sympathisers. But they are just ordinary villagers,” Sori said.

Naxalbari and the continuous rebellion

This was just one of many similar accounts. In April 2024, this reporter visited Gomagal village, also in Narayanpur district, where the Chhattisgarh police claimed that two Naxalites had been killed in a gun battle on 2 February 2024 while a team of security personnel was out on patrol, having heard that there were Naxalites in the area.

The Kovasi family lives in a small hut located a few metres away from the Kundel forest. KumeKovasi was still reeling with the shock of her nephew Piso’s death. She insisted Piso had no prior connections with Naxalites and was merely a farmer belonging to the Madiya tribe. He and three others had been going to drink sulphi, extracted from the palm tree, when they were ambushed by security forces. The four were unarmed, the family said. 

Piso’s devastated wife expressed anger towards the government and security forces. “When he had no connection to Naxalites, why was he killed?” she asked, in tears.

While Piso and KanharuDuru were killed, 18-year-old Raju (who goes by one name) and 45-year-old SomaruWedde were injured. 

Raju was shot in the back and had to undergo an operation. “I was drinking water from the neher (stream) when we started hearing gunshots,” he said. While I ran in the opposite direction Piso and Kanharu, by mistake, ran towards where the police forces were standing. While running I was shot in the back but managed to escape and fainted nearby.”

Despite repeated attempts, their complaints to police have still not been registered. Instead, a complaint against Piso and Kanharu was filed accusing them of being Naxalites. Police officials, meanwhile, claim to have recovered a .12-bore gun and a muzzle-loading gun from the encounter site – a claim the villagers dispute to this day.

Civilians have also become the victims of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) amid the conflict between security forces and Naxalites. Officials claim that IEDs are the most potent weapon used by the Naxalites to ambush security forces. 

In February, near Ambeli village, eight security personnel from the DRGF and Bastar Fighters, both units of the state police, were killed along with a civilian driver after Naxalites blew up a vehicle that was part of a security convoy. The incident was widely reported in the press. There have been fewer reports on the story of 23-year-old SaraswatiOyam. 

The young woman said she was going to harvest fruit of the mahua tree, near the Indravati River in late March, when she stepped on an IED. When I saw her in hospital, she was crying in pain as doctors changed her bandages. Oyam eventually had to have her left leg amputated due to extensive damage caused by the blast. 

Despite these accounts, Chandrakant Gavarna, the Additional Superintendent of Police in Bijapur, claimed that there had been no civilian casualties attributable to the state’s anti-Naxalite drive as of April 2025. Rather, he argued, the recent operations had helped bridge the gap between the people and the police, and many areas earlier off limits are now accessible thanks to increased security presence. 

“In Bijapur alone, six camps have opened up. Setting up of new camps means more buses will move on the roads. At some places buses are moving after 20 years,” Gavarna said. He also cited what he said was a 73-percent drop in the number of casualties among security personnel and a 70-percent decline in civilian deaths compared to the previous decade, and an increase in the number of Naxalite surrenders. “In three months, 157 Maoists have surrendered, and more are coming in,” he said. 

OPERATION KAGAR has led to growing militarisation within Chhattisgarh’s Fifth Schedule areas – autonomous areas designated for Scheduled Tribes under a provision of the Indian Constitution. It is estimated that as many as 250 security camps have been established in Bastar since 2019. This growing securitisation has led to other clampdowns too; in the guise of cracking down on Naxalites, there has also been a massive crackdown on Adivasi-rights advocates and activists protesting development projects. 

In districts like Bijapur and Narayanpur, civilians are routinely picked up by the police for interrogation. Many have been arrested – often members of the MoolvasiBachao Manch (MBM), established in 2021, which was banned by the BJP-led Chhattisgarh government in November 2024. 

MBM was a forum for the rights of Bastar’s indigenous people that held massive protests against corporatisation and militarisation in the region, leading to the mushrooming of 45 protest sites across Bastar. The organisation was started by Adivasi youth exhausted with news of staged “encounters”, of mining projects and road construction in Adivasi areas without the permission of local village-level legislative body, or gram sabhas.

In late March this year, this reporter travelled to Silger, the starting point of the MBM protests. To get there, visitors have to pass through several CRPF camps, a constant reminder of the militarisation and ongoing conflict in the area.

Located close to the border between Bijapur and Sukma districts, Silger is a small Adivasi village. Once known as a Naxalite stronghold, it came to international attention after three protesters were killed by police there on 17 May 2021.

KawasiVaga, Ursam Bhima and Uika Pandu, who was a minor, were killed by police while protesting against a new CRPF camp in Silger. This was merely the continuation of longstanding protests against security forces in the area, with locals often alleging police harassment and torture. On 22 May, the CRPF also shot dead an unarmed civilian, Midiam Masa, in Tolevarti, neighbouringSilger. These incidents sparked mass protests, from which a new generation of Adivasi leaders emerged.

Young activists like SuneetaPottam, Raghu Midiyami, Gajendra Mandavi and others from Bastar co-founded the MBM. Many of these founding members are now in jail under various laws, some of them on anti-terrorism and money-laundering charges. 

This March, Midiyami, a Gond Adivasi, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in Chhattisgarh on terror-funding charges. Midiyami is currently being held in jail in Jagdalpur, Bastar’s largest city. He was also connected to a different case registered in November 2023, when Chhattisgarh police arrested and filed charge-sheets against two individuals named Gajendra and Laxman, and identified them as being connected to MBM.

The NIA has claimed that, in February 2024, it uncovered further details of an alleged terror-funding network, and it is charging Midiyami with collecting, storing and distributing funds to support CPI (Maoist) activities.

Shalini Gera, Midiyami’s lawyer, said that his case appeared far-fetched. She explained that Gajendra and Laxman were arrested by the Chhattisgarh police while allegedly carrying a large amount of cash. The police were not satisfied with their explanations of how they came upon that cash and arrested them, charging them with laundering money for Naxalites. The case was then transferred to the NIA three or four months later, after they were slapped with charges under India’s draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

 “They are claiming that Raghu founded the MoolvasiBachao Manch on instructions from the Maoists to oppose police camps, roads and bridges, and used funds supplied by the party for its activities. However, no unlawful activities have been ascribed to the Manch, and how this links to Gajendra’s original case is also not clear,” Gera said.

In Silger, this reporter met Midiyami’s family, who were reeling in the aftermath of his arrest. 

JogaMidiyami, Raghu’s older brother, has been taking care of his family since his father died when he was quite young. “I made sure that Raghu studied because I was not able to,” he said. “I paid for his school fees, but when he went to college he started earning himself by doing menial jobs and paid for his own education.”  Joga added that many Adivasi children have been deprived of education because of the ongoing conflict.

Where is Sodi Shambo?

Raghu had not even mentioned being part of the protests at first, his brother said. “It was when he stopped coming home as he was busy, that is when we got to know that he was at the protest.”

A coalition of non-governmental organisations and activists have come forward to condemn the ban on the MBM. “The government’s broad designation of these activities as unlawful undermines democratic principles and risks criminalising peaceful assemblies in villages,” their statement said. It also pointed out that Adivasis were being painted as insurgents simply because they had called for the fulfilment of their constitutional rights, better health services and education, participation in development, compensation for loss of lives and a stop to militarisation.

The situation remained tense in Silger when this reporter visited. At the time, most of the villagers had migrated to the state of Telangana to work on chilli plantations or to collect and sell mahua. All that remained of the protest sites set up by young Adivasis were small structures made out of straw and mud. 

When this reporter visited Bastar last year, almost all the protest sites were still active. However, only a couple remained as of May 2025. Drones were buzzing in the area, checking for movement. A few former protesters said that regular arrests continued to take place. “Everyone is scared,” one protester said before moving away. What we were doing was exercising our rights.”

In Irabatti, another protest site in Narayanpur district, the government continues with the construction of roads and telecommunication towers. At the time of my visit, a road was being constructed in Irabatti while hundreds of trees lay cut down beside it. 

“This road means nothing to us,” a young Adivasi woman, Roshini, who was part of the Irabatti protest, said. “They shut down the protest after promising us that they would not do anything without our permission. And soon after, they forcefully removed us. I don’t want this road that is being made by ruining our land.”

THE BATTLE between Naxalites and the Indian state goes back decades. In 1967, oppressed peasants staged an uprising against landowners in Naxalbari, in West Bengal, leading to the formation of the Naxalite or Maoist movement, modelled on the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to state capture. 

In what is now Chhattisgarh too, the Naxalite movement began to take formal shape in the late 1960s. Since then and over decades, the Naxalites have continued to mobilise impoverished villagers to assert their rights. In response, the Indian state has worked to suppress the Maoists with increasing brutality through military and paramilitary operations. In 1973, the West Bengal government, headed by the Congress leader Siddhartha Shankar Ray, detained as many as 32,000 Maoist supporters or sympathisers, many of whom were killed at the hands of the state. This suppression continued into the 1980s, yet new Naxalite groups continued to be formed, leading to regular clashes between Naxalites and police.

While the movement initially focused on land rights and social justice, by the 1990s and 2000s, even as the conflict intensified, resource extraction, including through mining, became a key factor in the Maoist insurgency. In resource-rich areas like Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, mineral extraction was widespread, leading to displacement, environmental degradation and the loss of traditional livelihoods. The Naxalites shifted their focus to these regions, opposing mining operations and the displacement of indigenous populations, but also trying to exert control over them, including through extortion. 

Despite brutal crackdowns, the Naxalites continued to organise, including politically, with the CPI (Maoist) being formed in 2004. Manmohan Singh, when he was the prime minister of India, called the Naxalites the “greatest internal security threat” to the country, and his government launched a major crackdown, called Operation Green Hunt, in 2009. In the preceding years, the SalwaJudum, a government-supported militia, travelled from village to village alongside security forces, particularly villages believed to be Naxalite strongholds, conducting violent raids, combing for insurgents and evacuating villagers to government-run camps. There were also many reports of the beating, rape and killing of villagers. The violence of the SalwaJudum remains embedded in public memory. 

While travelling in Silger, this reporter met Vallan and Ioto, both in their fifties, who were returning from harvesting mahua. Both recalled the brutality of the SalwaJudum, yet they said that the current crackdowns were worse than in the early 2000s. Still, they planned to continue protesting the corporatisation and militarisation of their lands. 

“We are still going to continue with our agitation and also to teach the future generation, for when the police come to arrest our children then we have no choice but to fight,” Vallan said. Ioto added, “These trees, this land is ours. If they want to make roads, they have to ask us before cutting down trees.” 

A 2024 fact-finding study, ‘Citizens’ Report on Security and Insecurity, Bastar Division’, linked the rise of security camps to an increase in drone attacks, grenade firings and extrajudicial killings. It also identified the widespread human-rights violations being reported in the area as one of the primary reasons why Adivasis oppose the camps. Peaceful protests against the camps have been ignored or violently suppressed, with methods ranging from lathi charges to burning down protest sites and firing on demonstrators. 

The report claimed that at least 141 encounters were reported as “successful” anti-Maoist operations in the first half of 2024, yet no inquiries were conducted to verify these claims. “Villagers have pointed out that many of those killed were ordinary civilians, shot in staged encounters,” it states.

The report also points out that the true purpose of the security camps is to safeguard corporate interests, especially in mining, and to facilitate the Indian state’s deeper penetration into Bastar. It also notes that mining companies are operating in the region with minimal oversight, often violating environmental and forest laws. 

Due to the growing number of military camps and the rapid expansion of roads and rail infrastructure, Adivasis are losing their land in violation of numerous laws, including the 1996 Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act among others.

While Adivasis living in Scheduled Areas have constitutional rights to dissent on land and forest matters, recent legal amendments exempt security-related infrastructure from forest and environmental clearances, especially in the areas affected by the insurgency.

This reporter spoke to a former Naxalite, Ramesh Badarna, who surrendered in 2014. He said that the government not only intended to end Maoism but also to instill fear in civilians so that they do not choose the same path.

“It is civilians who are protesting against forceful making of roads and other projects,” Badarna said. “In the name of development, they are oppressing people. What people were told is that development is important but instead they are being killed.”

Soon after Basavaraju’s killing on 21 May, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, lauded the security forces for eliminating 27 Naxalites. Reacting to a post by Amit Shah on X, Modi said, “We are proud of our forces for this momentous success. Our government is committed to eradicating the menace of Maoism and ensuring a life of peace and progress for the people.”

Despite the Indian government touting the success of its anti-Naxalite campaign, the core issues at the heart of the insurgency – poverty, displacement, unsustainable development and resource extraction at the expense of Adviasis – remain unaddressed. 

Nikita Jain is a Delhi-based journalist with almost a decade of experience. She has covered issues including gender, conflict, politics, the environment and human rights in India. She won Laadli Media Award in 2022 and 2023.

This article was originally published on Himal Southasian.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.