Counter-Insurgency Operations in Chhattisgarh | Arup Kumar Sen

The counter-insurgency operations against the ‘Maoists’ in Chhattisgarh got momentum after the BJP came to power in the State in 2023. To put it in the words of a reporter of The Hindu (November 15, 2024): “Under a muted October sky, 31 bodies of alleged Naxals lie in the open in Karli police lines, a sprawling campus in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada town…They were gunned down a day ago by security forces in what has been the biggest anti-Naxal operation in the Maoist-affected State, since Chhattisgarh’s creation in 2000.” The report further mentioned the outcome of the counter-insurgency operations of the State in 2024: “This year, the crackdown has been unprecedented: the bodies of 192 people allegedly Maoists – 125 men and 67 women – have been recovered. Up to 762 have been arrested…” (ibid.)

Very recently, it is reported in the media: “Security forces have established several forward bases in the remote Maoist zones of Chhattisgarh to try and strike deep into the rebel strongholds, sources in the Union home ministry have said… (The Telegraph, November 26, 2024)

The paradox lies in the fact that the ‘security’ measures of the State have created deep insecurities and human rights violations in the affected tribal zones:

…a fact-finding team of a civil rights group had claimed that Adivasi communities in the tribal belt of Bastar in Chhattisgarh were facing brutal repression and harassment by security forces and accused the Centre of launching a crackdown on them on the pretext of fighting Maoists. The rights group had also flagged how security forces illegally set up a large number of camps by forcibly grabbing the land of tribals in the Maoist belt in the name of

“area domination” (cited in ibid.)

To put it in the words of Giorgio Agamben, Chhattisgarh has emerged as a ‘State of Exception’ – “that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system.”