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Subject: Internal Security

  • Remembering Niketu Iralu: Peace activist, bridge between Nagas, mainland India

    Remembering Niketu Iralu: Peace activist, bridge between Nagas, mainland India

    Why in the News

    Niketu Iralu, a Naga peace activist, died in a Delhi hospital on 18 August 2026 at the age of 91. He spent six decades on reconciliation between Naga factions and between the Naga people and the rest of India, outside every formal negotiating channel. His maternal uncle, Angami Zapu Phizo, led the Naga National Council (NNC), which declared Naga independence on 14 August 1947. The Centre constituted a new ministerial panel last week to carry forward the stalled talks on a final Naga settlement. The conflict has found no solution in the nearly eight decades since that declaration. One position holds that a final text can now be signed. The competing position is that the reconciliation work behind six decades of talks has no institutional successor.

    What is the Naga peace process?

    1. A ceasefire came before any accord: A peace camp at Chedema, on a hilltop near Kohima, negotiated a ceasefire in 1964 between the rebel Naga Federal Government and the Government of India. It was the first suspension of hostilities after more than a decade of armed insurgency.
    2. The Shillong Accord split the movement: NNC representatives signed the Shillong Accord in 1975, accepting the Constitution of India. A faction rejected it and formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in 1980.
    3. The current track opened with the 1997 ceasefire: The Centre signed a ceasefire with the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) faction in 1997. Talks under it have run for close to three decades without a final agreement.
    4. The Framework Agreement fixed the terms in 2015: The Centre and the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) signed a Framework Agreement on 3 August 2015 recognising the “unique history” of the Nagas. Its contents have never been published.

    Why did a family at the centre of the sovereignty claim produce its leading peace advocate?

    1. The lineage ran through the sovereignty movement: His father, Sevilie Iralu, was among the first Naga doctors. His maternal uncle led the council that made the 1947 declaration.
    2. He chose a different method: He committed himself to non-violence, dialogue and reconciliation rather than armed struggle. He became known across the Northeast as a peace activist rather than a political negotiator.
    3. Initiatives of Change shaped that method: He worked in Initiatives of Change, an organisation that pursues social transformation through “personal change”. Its premise is that a political conflict is resolved by first changing the people inside it.
    4. Mainland India was a discovery, not an inheritance: He left for Madras Christian College in the 1950s, his first encounter with mainland India. He described the crowds boarding trains at Kolkata as a scale of population that felt unsurvivable.
    5. His house was named for the method: His home at Sechu Zubza in Kohima district was called Kerunyu Ki, “The House of Listening”. People travelled to it for counsel rather than to a party office or a negotiating table.
    6. Recognition came as a bridge builder: He received the Bhupen Hazarika Integration Award among other honours. Hundreds gathered at Dimapur airport when his body arrived from Delhi.

    How does the Second World War figure in Naga political memory?

    1. The war reached Naga villages: The Japanese Army invaded Nagaland in 1944 during the Second World War. His village, Khonoma, was overrun and families fled into the forest.
    2. The battle of Kohima was the turning point: The Japanese retreated after the battle of Kohima. An advance past it would have taken them to the Brahmaputra valley and into mainland India.
    3. The cemetery fixed the memory: The Kohima War Cemetery carries the epitaph, “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for their tomorrow, we gave our today.”
    4. The war left a habit of seeing the enemy as human: His sister slapped a Japanese soldier helping himself to a Naga shawl, and the soldier bowed and left. He read that restraint as evidence that the soldier also had a sister at home.

    What did the 1990 repatriation of Phizo’s body show about informal mediation?

    1. The leader died in exile: Angami Zapu Phizo died in London in April 1990. He had been in exile since 1960, when he left for the United Kingdom to mobilise world opinion for the Naga cause.
    2. The request came from the insurgent side: NNC leaders asked him to help bring the body back to India. No working channel existed between the NNC and the Government of India at that point.
    3. The government feared a funeral would trigger violence: The Janata Dal led government judged that returning the body might set off violence in Nagaland. A Janata Dal member of the Rajya Sabha, who had worked with him in Initiatives of Change for three decades, argued that denying the Nagas the right to grieve was the greater risk.
    4. The ask was procedural, not financial: He told the then Finance Minister at a 5 a.m. meeting that the Nagas had collected the money themselves. He asked only for foreign exchange clearance.
    5. The state supplied the logistics: The remains were received at the technical area of Palam airport. A Home Ministry aircraft then carried the casket to Kohima for the funeral.

    Does reconciliation require a community to confront its own failures?

    1. The demand was turned inward, not outward: A tribute in Ukhrul Times described him as a man who spent decades asking Nagas to confront their failures, resist hatred and recover the courage to listen. The demand was addressed to Naga society, not to the Indian state.
    2. Moral courage was defined as internal criticism: He held that moral courage involves “telling one’s own side what it does not want to hear”. He did not treat reconciliation as a concession or as weakness.
    3. Factional politics penalises exactly that: Naga groups have fought each other as often as they have fought the state, and internal criticism reads as disloyalty inside a faction. Eg. The NSCN split of 1988 into the Isak-Muivah and Khaplang factions produced years of inter-factional killing.
    4. The obstacle is not an administrative clause: The unresolved items are a separate Naga flag and a separate Naga constitution, which are claims about identity rather than about administration. A negotiator can concede an administrative arrangement, and only the community can revise a claim about who it is.

    Challenges to the Naga peace settlement

    1. The flag and constitution demand is unresolved: The NSCN (Isak-Muivah) insists on a separate Naga flag and a separate constitution, the Yehzabo, rejected by the Centre as incompatible with Indian sovereignty. Eg. The talks declared concluded in October 2019 ended without agreement on either demand. Fix. Settle the symbolic claim as a cultural flag protected under Article 371A’s guarantee for Naga customary practice, separated from any constitutional status.
    2. The territorial claim crosses three other States: The “Greater Nagalim” demand would merge Naga inhabited areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh into one unit. Eg. The Manipur Assembly has repeatedly resolved against any settlement altering the State’s boundaries. Fix. Use non-territorial autonomy, giving Naga councils outside Nagaland cultural and development powers without redrawing State boundaries.
    3. The negotiation has two competing counterparties: The Centre talks in parallel to the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) and to the Naga National Political Groups, and each rejects a settlement signed only with the other. Eg. The Working Committee of the Naga National Political Groups signed a separate Agreed Position in 2017. Fix. Convene one joint negotiating forum so a single signed text binds every group.
    4. Ceasefire ground rules are routinely breached: Cadres under ceasefire run parallel taxation in Nagaland and in Naga areas of Manipur, which keeps an armed economy alive through the negotiation. Eg. Traders and salaried employees in Dimapur pay levies to more than one faction. Fix. Publish the ceasefire monitoring group’s findings with a fixed penalty schedule for each verified breach.
    5. A text kept secret cannot be ratified: The 2015 Framework Agreement has never been published, so no legislature or public body has examined what was agreed. Eg. Nagaland’s own legislators have sought disclosure of the text on the floor of the Assembly. Fix. Table the agreed text in Parliament and in the Nagaland Assembly before signature, so ratification precedes implementation.
    6. Security law feeds the grievance the talks address: The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 remains in force across parts of Nagaland, sustaining the alienation a settlement is meant to end. Eg. The Oting killings of December 2021 in Mon district led the Assembly to demand repeal. Fix. Complete the district by district withdrawal already begun and move residual powers to a civil authority subject to judicial review.

    Conclusion

    The Naga settlement is stalled on claims about identity, not on administrative detail, and identity claims are revised by a community rather than conceded by a negotiator. The reconciliation work that kept six decades of talks survivable was carried by individuals with no official standing, and it has no institutional successor. A ministerial panel can reopen the file. It cannot by itself rebuild the trust that would let a signed text hold.

    “[2025, GS3, 15 marks] What are the major challenges to internal security and peace process in the North-Eastern States? Map the various peace accords and agreements initiated by the government in the past decade.”

  • Dimagi Naxal frames the mind as a security question

    Why in the News

    The Prime Minister’s Independence Day address named the dimagi Naxal, the intellectual Naxal, as a target of the state’s response to Left Wing Extremism (LWE). The address is defended as doing what Indian political discourse had avoided for four decades. The war against Naxalism had been measured in body counts, arms recoveries and district maps turning from red to green, and the architecture of ideas behind the insurgency was rarely confronted. The claim now advanced is that naming the ideological network forces a final battle on the deadliest terror threat to have plagued India. What that opens is a contest over whether a state can move against an ideology without moving against protected speech.

    What does the term dimagi Naxal name?

    1. The ideological support network rather than the armed cadre: The term identifies those who supply the intellectual and organisational scaffolding of the insurgency instead of carrying weapons for it.
    2. Why the coinage matters: Naming that layer shifts the counter insurgency target from territory held to ideas circulated, which no previous formulation did.
    3. Where it was used: The formulation was made from the Red Fort on Independence Day, which places it in the government’s highest profile annual statement of priorities.

    Why does the argument treat Naxalism as an ideology before a militia?

    1. The founding case: Naxalism was always an ideology before it was a militia, and the ideologue of Naxalbari theorised, organised and incited others towards armed revolution rather than acting out of personal deprivation.
    2. The social origin of the leadership: Naxal leadership across generations has been drawn from comfortable, often landed or urban intellectual backgrounds.
    3. The stated political objective: Naxals seek to overthrow the Republic of India along with its bourgeois constitution and to establish a communist state. That state is to liquidate class enemies by armed revolution.
    4. The view of the Indian state itself: Underground cadre, overground members and sympathisers hold that India is an artificial and illegitimate entity denying the right of self determination to different nationalities and working at the behest of international capital.

    What did the shift to urban expansion after 2009 change?

    1. The decision and its trigger: After Operation Green Hunt in 2009, Maoists decided to expand aggressively in urban centres and to hide in plain sight.
    2. The cover adopted: Cadre positioned themselves as human rights activists, university professors, journalists and even corporate employees.
    3. The functions assigned: The stated aims are to act as couriers, to provide safe houses for cadres of banned outfits, to stall action against terror groups, to wage an ideological war on the Indian state and to promote anarchy.
    4. The vocabulary used: Propaganda is packaged in acceptable terminology such as human rights, Dalit assertion, farmer issues and individual rights, with the ostensible aim of justice for the marginalised.
    5. What is not stated publicly: The theoretical framework behind that vocabulary associates freedom from hunger and poverty with the balkanisation of India, which makes it a messianic cult in the form of a secular ideology.

    Why did the ecosystem’s attack shift to development itself?

    1. The doctrine that worked: The government’s counter Naxal doctrine has rested on a triad of security, rehabilitation and development.
    2. The response it provoked: Because the doctrine worked on the ground, the Naxal intellectual ecosystem shifted its attack to development itself.
    3. What is now opposed: Nuclear power projects, agricultural modernisation programmes and infrastructure corridors have been opposed by a recurring cast of civil society groups.
    4. The stated basis of the objection: The objection advanced is not a specific local grievance or a flaw in the project but the writ of the Indian state in that territory.

    What does the movement’s own history suggest about resurgence?

    1. The first wave and its collapse: The first wave of Naxalism was crushed by the mid 1970s.
    2. The interval before its return: It resurfaced two decades later, which shows that suppression of the armed layer alone does not settle the question.
    3. The peak of the second wave: By the mid 2000s nearly a third of the country’s territory lay in the Red Corridor.

    How has the mode of ideological transmission changed?

    1. The old method: Ideologues had to organise physically, travel to villages, print pamphlets and hold clandestine meetings.
    2. The new method: Their successors use smartphones and build a following on Instagram, YouTube and X by monetising a persona built around resistance.
    3. What has and has not changed: The medium has changed and the incitement is more diffuse, and the function is unchanged, which is manufacturing moral cover for anti state violence and instability.
    4. Why participation has widened: Others join for the allure of resistance as a cultural posture or for the profit that anti establishment content generates, without following where the argument leads.

    Can the state contest an ideology without policing lawful dissent?

    1. The stake as the argument puts it: If the Naxals succeed there will be no freedom or liberty, no police but a party militia, no rule of law or courts but kangaroo courts, and intellectuals and professors sent to labour camps.
    2. Why bluntness is defended: People must know what the ideology stands for and the consequences that follow if it prevails.
    3. The asymmetry that closes the argument: A government can be voted out at the next election, and a state that collapses cannot be voted back.
    4. The unresolved edge: The categories the formulation names are professors, journalists and activists, so the test of the doctrine is whether it distinguishes material support for a banned organisation from lawful advocacy that the state finds inconvenient.

    Challenges to the counter Naxal doctrine

    1. A security vacuum follows the withdrawal of central forces: Handing territory back to thin State police forces creates gaps that splinter groups and criminal networks occupy. Eg. Areas cleared in earlier operations in the 1970s were reoccupied two decades later. Fix. Convert forward operating bases into permanent State police stations with local recruitment before central armed police forces are drawn down.
    2. Former cadre turn to organised crime: An insurgency deprived of ideology retains its weapons, terrain knowledge and extortion networks. Eg. Maoist financing in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh already ran on levies from contractors and transporters. Fix. Tie surrender and rehabilitation payments to verified livelihood placement over several years rather than to a one time cash grant.
    3. Absentee administration in the cleared districts: Security gains do not hold where teachers, doctors and revenue officials do not report to their posted stations. Eg. Interior blocks of Bastar have run on deputation and vacancy for years. Fix. Pay a hardship differential and fix minimum tenure norms so that posting to an interior block is a career step rather than a punishment.
    4. Rejected forest rights claims reopen the original grievance: Land alienation is the grievance the insurgency was built on, and the statutory remedy is under used. Eg. Community Forest Rights claims face high rejection rates in the same districts that were worst affected. Fix. Audit rejected claims at the district level under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and record reasons for each rejection in writing.
    5. Peace attracts the extraction that caused the conflict: A district declared safe becomes available for mining and industrial investment, which brings displacement back. Eg. Iron ore and bauxite belts overlap almost exactly with the former Red Corridor. Fix. Require Gram Sabha consent under the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 and transparent use of District Mineral Foundation funds before new leases are cleared.
    6. Prosecuting the overground network is evidentially hard: Cases built on association rather than on an act collapse in court and produce long undertrial detention in the interim. Eg. Several urban prosecutions under anti terror law have run for years without trial beginning. Fix. Require sanctioning authorities to record specific evidence of material support before charges are framed, and impose statutory timelines on trial commencement.

    Conclusion

    The formulation moves counter insurgency from a territorial contest to a contest over ideas, at the point where the armed movement has been declared defeated and its support network has not. The government’s own record shows that suppression of the armed layer without settling the grievance produced a second wave two decades later, which is the case for confronting the ideology rather than only the militia. What remains unresolved is the line between the material support network the state may lawfully dismantle and the criticism a democracy is obliged to tolerate, and that line will be drawn by courts rather than by speeches.

    “[2025, GS3, 10 marks] The Government of India recently stated that Left Wing Extremism (LWE) will be eliminated by 2026. What do you understand by LWE and how are the people affected by it? What measures have been taken by the government to eliminate LWE?”

  • Saving faces: Use of facial recognition equipment at protest site is worrisome

    Why in the News

    The Delhi Police has told the Supreme Court that it deployed a facial recognition system at the site of the Cockroach Janta Party protests, along with a mobile surveillance van, a command and control vehicle, smart spectacles and drones. The disclosure came in the same proceeding. In that proceeding the force has continued to deny using excessive force or manhandling demonstrators, contrary to the protestors’ own testimonies. India is therefore normalising the technical ability to subject political gatherings to searchable biometric surveillance. Legislation and judicial oversight have not yet settled when the state may lawfully do so. The contest is between a policing capability that is already operational and a legal framework that names no threshold, no authorising authority and no retention rule for its use.

    What is a facial recognition system?

    1. It converts a face into a searchable record: The system extracts measurable geometric features from a face image and stores them as a numeric template that can be matched against other templates.
    2. Two distinct operations, two different risk profiles: Verification matches one face against one claimed identity. Identification matches one face against an entire database, and only the second turns a crowd into a search.
    3. Real time capture removes the choice to participate anonymously: Cameras enabled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) scan faces as people move and run matches against a database without any interaction with the person scanned.

    What surveillance equipment did the police say it had deployed?

    1. A facial recognition system with AI enabled cameras: These scanned faces in real time against a database. The demonstration was under way at the time.
    2. A mobile surveillance van: A vehicle mounted capture platform able to move with the crowd rather than covering a fixed field.
    3. A command and control vehicle: The on site node where feeds from the various capture devices were aggregated and acted on.
    4. Smart spectacles: Wearable devices used to identify individuals on the move, which extends identification beyond fixed and vehicle mounted cameras.
    5. Drones and videographers: Aerial and handheld recording covering the site from angles the ground cameras did not reach.
    6. Private contractors hold two of these systems: The van and the spectacles have been tied to private contractors on terms that have never been disclosed, so a commercial entity sits inside the capture chain on an unknown mandate.

    What did the police not disclose?

    1. Whether every face in range was processed: The force has not addressed whether actual biometric processing occurred for every individual within the range of the cameras, which is the difference between targeted identification and mass capture.
    2. Where discarded images went: Images from checks that produced no match were open to copying in the interim, and the force has not said whether any copy survives.

    Which laws currently govern facial recognition, and what do they leave open?

    1. No statute governs the technology: There is no law in force that regulates the use of facial recognition systems by the state, so deployment rests on executive decision alone.
    2. The data protection law is not yet operative on this point: The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, whose data processing obligations are not yet in force, still makes broad exemptions for state agencies.
    3. The existing police database is purpose limited: The Automated Facial Recognition System of the National Crime Records Bureau is meant for identifying criminals and unidentified bodies, not for scanning an assembly.
    4. The 2022 statute widened records, not subjects: The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 expanded the set of records the police may collect, but only from specified persons rather than from the public at large.
    5. The gap is the crowd: Every one of these instruments operates against identified groups of people, and none of them authorises indiscriminate capture of everyone present at a location.

    Can mass biometric capture at a protest survive the proportionality test?

    1. The state carries the burden: Interference with the right to privacy must clear a well established proportionality test, and the burden of establishing each limb sits on the state.
    2. The first limb already fails on the facts: The existence of a legitimate objective is hard to establish for facial recognition used en masse, because the technology is indiscriminate at the point of capture and cannot be aimed at a suspect.
    3. A less restrictive alternative exists: Conventional policing achieves the same objective of maintaining order and identifying offenders without capturing the biometrics of every person present.
    4. Constitutional validity is not the only test: Even leaving aside the constitutionality of the police action, a capability deployed without a governing standard sets the precedent for the next deployment.

    How does biometric surveillance affect the right to protest?

    1. The deterrent operates before any legal restriction: The chilling effect on potential participants curtails the right to protest without any order prohibiting the protest.
    2. Anonymity is part of the freedom: Assembly has historically carried the assurance that presence in a crowd is not the same as being recorded as an individual participant.
    3. The cost falls on people with the most to lose: Government employees, students facing institutional discipline and people in precarious work self select out once presence becomes a permanent identified record.
    4. The chill is unfalsifiable: Nobody counts the people who stayed home, so the harm never appears in the record a court would examine.

    What remains unanswered before this use can be justified?

    1. The access controls: It is unknown which officers, agencies or contractor personnel could query the captured images and against which databases.
    2. The authorising legal provisions: The provisions relied on to authorise the major decisions, including the decision to scan an entire assembly, have not been identified.
    3. The false positive rate: The expected error rate of the system has not been stated, and a false match at a protest site produces detention of an innocent person on machine evidence.

    Challenges to the regulation of facial recognition technology in India

    1. Deployment has run far ahead of legislation: State and city police forces have procured systems under general policing powers rather than under any enabling statute. Eg. Several State police departments and airports adopted facial recognition without a dedicated legal framework in place. Fix. Enact a facial recognition statute prescribing permitted purposes, a judicial or independent authorisation requirement, and a fixed retention period.
    2. The data protection statute exempts the principal user: Broad exemptions for state agencies mean the very actor conducting mass capture falls outside the consent and purpose limitation architecture. Eg. The Justice B N Srikrishna Committee had recommended narrow and specified exemptions rather than open ended ones on grounds of sovereignty and public order. Fix. Replace the blanket agency exemption with a case by case exemption that must be notified with reasons and laid before Parliament.
    3. Accuracy is unequal across populations: Error rates for facial recognition are consistently higher for darker skinned faces, women and younger subjects, so the burden of false matches is not evenly distributed. Eg. Independent testing of commercial systems has repeatedly found the highest error rates for darker skinned women. Fix. Mandate published accuracy testing disaggregated by skin tone, sex and age before any system is procured for policing use.
    4. Private contractors sit inside the state’s capture chain: Outsourcing capture hardware and processing places biometric data with entities that are not accountable through public law remedies. Eg. Police facial recognition deployments in several States run on vendor supplied platforms whose procurement contracts are not in the public domain. Fix. Require every surveillance procurement contract to be published with its data handling clauses, and make the contractor a joint respondent in any privacy proceeding.
    5. There is no oversight body with jurisdiction: No standing authority audits police biometric systems, so no institution can verify retention, deletion or match logs after the event. Eg. Agencies conducting interception under existing law are reviewed only by an internal executive review committee. Fix. Establish a statutory surveillance oversight commission with power to inspect match logs and order deletion.
    6. Function creep is the default trajectory: A database built for one purpose is progressively opened to others once the infrastructure exists. Eg. Facial recognition adopted for airport boarding convenience has been proposed for wider identity verification uses. Fix. Write a statutory bar on cross purpose querying, with each authorised purpose requiring a separate legislative amendment.

    Conclusion

    The disclosure establishes that the capability to convert a political gathering into a searchable biometric record is already deployed, contracted out in part, and operating without a statute that says when it may be used. The proportionality test, on the facts available, is not close: the technology captures indiscriminately, a less restrictive alternative exists, and the state has not identified the provision that authorised the decision. Until Parliament enacts a facial recognition law with a stated purpose, an authorising authority, a retention limit and published accuracy standards, each deployment simply widens the precedent for the next one.

    “[2024, GS3, 10 marks] Describe the context and salient features of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023″

  • CRPF forms core group to review self-harm cases after a spate of suicides

    Why in the News

    The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has constituted a high level core group to conduct monthly reviews of self harm cases among its personnel. Deaths by suicide in the force touched a five year high of 59 in 2025, which moves the response from unit level handling of individual incidents to a standing headquarters mechanism.

    What is the Central Reserve Police Force?

    1. Mandate: The Central Reserve Police Force is the Union’s principal internal security force, deployed on requisition to States for counter insurgency, anti Left Wing Extremism operations, law and order duty and election security.
    2. Command: It functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs and is headed by a Director General, with operations organised through executive battalions and specialised wings.
    3. Scale: It is the largest of the Central Armed Police Forces, with a sanctioned strength above three lakh personnel spread across every State and Union Territory.

    What do the suicide figures in the force since 2021 show?

    1. Five year peak in 2025: Fifty nine CRPF personnel died by suicide in 2025, the highest figure in the five year series and the trigger for the present review mechanism.
    2. The full series: The force recorded 57 such deaths in 2021, 43 in 2022, 57 in 2023, 46 in 2024 and 59 in 2025.
    3. The current year: Nineteen such deaths were reported till 30 May 2026.
    4. No downward trend: The numbers oscillate within a narrow band rather than falling, which indicates that existing unit level welfare measures have not shifted the underlying pattern.
    5. Deaths on duty: The figures from 2021 to May 2026 show that several of these deaths took place while the personnel were on duty, not while on leave or at home.

    Why has a headquarters level core group been created rather than leaving reviews to individual units?

    1. A structured mechanism: Senior officers at a meeting in the CRPF headquarters earlier this month identified the absence of a structured mechanism to examine such incidents as the gap to be closed.
    2. Recurring risk factors: A unit examining a single death cannot detect a factor that repeats across battalions, so pattern identification requires a body sitting above the unit.
    3. Command level ownership: The core group is headed by the Director General of the force, which places accountability for prevention at the apex of the command chain rather than with the battalion commandant.
    4. Fixed periodicity: The group is to meet every month, converting review from an event triggered by a death into a standing calendar obligation.
    5. Four review heads: Each monthly meeting is to cover the self harm incidents reported, the causes and circumstances behind them, the availability and use of welfare or psychological support, and the preventive steps taken by the unit concerned.

    What drives self harm among central armed police force personnel?

    1. Prolonged separation from family: Personnel serve long tenures in field formations away from their home States, with leave frequently curtailed during active operations.
    2. Operational stress in insurgency theatres: Extended deployment in Left Wing Extremism affected districts and in Jammu and Kashmir combines physical risk with an absence of privacy and rest.
    3. Domestic and financial distress: Land disputes, family illness and debt at the home station cannot be attended to from a field posting, and the inability to act is itself a stressor.
    4. Grievance and leave denial: Perceived unfairness in leave sanction, posting and promotion converts an administrative decision into a personal grievance with no accessible appeal.
    5. Stigma around psychological help: Seeking counselling is read within the force as an admission of unfitness for armed duty, which suppresses the demand for the support that does exist.

    What does the National Human Rights Commission’s intervention add to the response?

    1. External scrutiny: The National Human Rights Commission took note of the rising figures last week and sought reports from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Director General of the force.
    2. Reframing the issue as a rights question: The Commission’s entry treats deaths in service as a question of the State’s obligation to its own personnel rather than as an internal personnel matter.
    3. A reporting obligation: A requisition from the Commission compels a written response from both the administrative ministry and the force, creating a record that survives changes in command.
    4. Timing: The core group’s formation and the Commission’s notice fall in the same month, so the force’s internal mechanism now operates under an external deadline.

    Challenges to the CRPF’s self harm prevention mechanism

    1. A review body without a treatment capacity: A monthly review can classify causes but cannot supply the clinical care the classification points to, and psychiatrist and counsellor strength in the central armed police forces remains far below the deployed strength. Eg. Composite hospitals of the central armed police forces routinely operate with a single mental health specialist serving several battalions spread across districts.
    2. Under reporting of distress: Personnel avoid recording psychological symptoms because a medical entry can affect weapon issue, posting and promotion prospects. Eg. Screening drives in armed forces and central police organisations consistently record self reported distress far below the levels found in anonymous surveys of the same units.
    3. Housing and family accommodation deficit: Family accommodation available to central armed police force personnel falls well short of the authorised requirement, which keeps families separated even at peace stations. Eg. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has repeatedly recorded a housing satisfaction ratio below half the sanctioned entitlement across the central armed police forces.
    4. Leave and rotation practice: Announced entitlements are overridden by operational exigency in the very theatres where the stress is highest. Eg. The force’s initiative to give personnel around 100 days with their families each year has proved hardest to implement in the Left Wing Extremism theatre where deployment density is greatest.
    5. Weapon access at the point of crisis: Personnel on duty carry service weapons continuously, which removes the interval between intent and act that prevention depends on. Eg. Several of the deaths recorded between 2021 and May 2026 occurred while the personnel were on duty, when the service weapon was in hand.
    6. Fratricide and grievance escalation: Unresolved interpersonal grievance within a small deployed unit escalates into violence against colleagues as well as self harm. Eg. Fratricide incidents in central armed police force camps have prompted the Bureau of Police Research and Development to study stress and grievance handling in deployed units.

    Conclusion

    The Central Reserve Police Force has moved suicide prevention from ad hoc unit level handling to a monthly review chaired by its Director General, after 2025 recorded the highest figure in five years. The immediate status is that the core group stands constituted and the National Human Rights Commission has sought reports from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the force. The next expected step is the submission of those reports and the first monthly review sitting of the core group.

  • After Naxalism, a development corridor

    Why in the News

    The Centre declared the country free from Naxalism on 31 March 2026, closing a security campaign that ran for decades across the forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and the rest of the former Red Corridor. The tension this exposes is that the military defeat of an insurgency does not by itself produce the economic activity that must occupy the space the guns have vacated.

    What is Left Wing Extremism and what was the Red Corridor?

    1. The movement: Left Wing Extremism (LWE), commonly called Naxalism, is an armed insurgency pursuing the capture of state power through protracted rural armed struggle, drawing on Maoist doctrine.
    2. The territory: The Red Corridor was the contiguous belt of forested and mineral-rich districts across central and eastern India where Maoist cadres exercised effective control and the state's writ was contested.
    3. What that control looked like: For decades the region was associated with ambushes, armed cadres and Maoist control rather than with routine administration.
    4. The declared end point: The Centre declared the country free from Naxalism on 31 March 2026, which is treated as a turning point rather than as the end of the task.

    What are CoBRA units?

    1. What they are: Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) is the specialised jungle warfare and guerrilla warfare force raised within the Central Reserve Police Force for anti-Naxal operations.
    2. Their role here: CoBRA units, deployed alongside state police forces, carried out the operations that dismantled strongholds which had remained difficult to penetrate for years.

    What was the strategy that dismantled the insurgency?

    1. Intelligence-led operations: Operations were driven by actionable intelligence on cadre location and movement rather than by area domination alone.
    2. Centre and state coordination: Greater coordination between central and state forces removed the seams across state borders that cadres had used to evade pursuit.
    3. Disruption of Maoist financing: Agencies targeted the financial networks that sustained the insurgency, cutting the flow that paid, armed and supplied cadres.
    4. Rehabilitation: A surrender policy sought to bring former cadres back into civilian life through financial assistance, training and support for reintegration.
    5. Sustained expansion of the security grid: The security presence was expanded continuously rather than surged and withdrawn, so that recovered territory was held.
    6. Political direction from the top: Repeated engagement by the Union Home Minister, including visits to Bastar and security review meetings on the ground, kept the Centre involved in an operational challenge requiring coordination between Delhi, state governments and personnel deployed deep inside difficult terrain.

    Which operations broke the strongholds?

    1. Black Forest: One of the named operations conducted by CoBRA units alongside state police forces.
    2. Octopus: A second named operation in the same series.
    3. Double Bull: A third named operation in the same series.
    4. Chakrabandha: A fourth named operation in the same series.
    5. The common outcome: Together these operations helped dismantle strongholds that had remained difficult to penetrate for years, which is what allowed a more permanent state presence to be established.

    What has the development push delivered since 2014?

    1. Security infrastructure: 408 new security camps and 597 fortified police stations have been established in LWE-affected areas since 2014.
    2. Road connectivity: More than 12,000 km of roads have been constructed in the affected regions.
    3. Formal finance: 1,804 bank branches and 1,321 ATMs have been added.
    4. Postal reach: 6,025 post offices have been added.
    5. Telecommunications: Mobile connectivity has expanded across most villages in the affected regions.
    6. Education and skills: Eklavya Model Residential Schools, Industrial Training Institutes and skill development centres have been established alongside the physical infrastructure.

    Why does a road, a bank branch or a tower change more than the statistic suggests?

    1. Roads change access, not distance: A road changes access to a market and to a hospital, converting a physical distance into a usable one.
    2. Bank branches change the terms of credit: A bank branch connects households to formal finance and displaces the informal lender who set the terms in its absence.
    3. Towers change the relationship to the state: A telecom tower brings a remote village closer to the rest of the country, which affects everything from grievance redress to remittances.
    4. Schools change the option set: A school or a skill centre expands the choices available to young people, which is the mechanism by which recruitment into an insurgency loses its appeal.
    5. The sequencing that made it possible: These interventions became feasible only once security forces could establish a more permanent presence in areas where the state had previously struggled to maintain one.

    Why is the end of armed conflict the easier half of the task?

    1. The achievement is a milestone, not an outcome: The guns going silent is an important milestone, and the harder task is ensuring that the space they leave behind is filled with roads, schools, businesses, livelihoods and functioning institutions.
    2. The nature of the state's presence must change: The objective now is a state presence defined by institutions and opportunity rather than by the security challenge that once dominated the landscape.
    3. Infrastructure is an input, not a result: Roads, branches and towers must begin to generate sustained economic activity, better education and greater integration with the rest of India, which is not automatic.
    4. The next phase is less visible: The coming phase will be less dramatic than the operations that made the headlines, and could be more important in determining the legacy of the campaign.
    5. Reversibility is the risk: Rehabilitation must hold, since the surrender policy's purpose is to prevent former cadres from returning to the movement and to prevent the movement from replenishing its ranks.
    6. The test stated: The former Red Corridor becomes a development corridor only when the infrastructure now reaching these regions begins to generate sustained economic activity, which is where the larger test begins.

    Conclusion

    The military campaign against Left Wing Extremism succeeded through intelligence-led operations, central and state coordination, disruption of financing, rehabilitation and a sustained security grid, and the Centre declared the country free from Naxalism on 31 March 2026. The infrastructure that followed, 408 camps, 597 fortified police stations, over 12,000 km of roads, 1,804 bank branches, 1,321 ATMs and 6,025 post offices, has changed the physical reach of the state. What remains unresolved is whether that reach converts into sustained economic activity and institutions, since the durability of the achievement will be judged on that conversion and not on the operations.

    Left Wing Extremism in India

    1. What it is: Left Wing Extremism is an armed movement seeking to overthrow the state through protracted people's war, organised around rural base areas, guerrilla zones and armed squads.
    2. Origin: The movement takes its popular name from the 1967 peasant uprising at Naxalbari in West Bengal.
    3. Present organisation: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was formed in 2004 through the merger of the People's War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India, and is proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
    4. Geographic concentration: Activity was concentrated in a forested, mineral-rich and tribal-majority belt spanning Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.
    5. Structural drivers: The movement drew on land alienation, displacement by mining and infrastructure projects, denial of forest rights, absence of administration and the weakness of local grievance redress in Fifth Schedule areas.
    6. The doctrinal frame: The Union government's approach has been organised around the SAMADHAN doctrine, which sets out the components of the counter-insurgency response.
    7. Institutional lead: The Ministry of Home Affairs coordinates the response through the Left Wing Extremism Division, with the Central Reserve Police Force as the principal central force deployed.

    Laws Governing the Response to Left Wing Extremism

    1. Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967: The principal central law used to proscribe the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and its front organisations and to prosecute membership and support.
    2. The 2019 amendment allows the designation of individuals, not only organisations, as terrorists.
    3. Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002: The instrument used to trace and attach the financial networks that sustained the insurgency.
    4. Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005: A state law empowering the declaration of organisations as unlawful and criminalising membership and assistance in the most affected state.
    5. Andhra Pradesh Public Security Act, 1992: The corresponding state instrument in the southern part of the former corridor.
    6. Arms Act, 1959 and Explosive Substances Act, 1908: Govern possession and use of weapons and explosives, which are the principal charges alongside the terrorism statutes.
    7. Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA): Extends panchayat provisions to Fifth Schedule areas and vests the Gram Sabha with powers over land, minor minerals and local plans, addressing a grievance the insurgency mobilised.
    8. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006: Recognises individual and community forest rights, addressing the land and forest alienation that underpinned recruitment.
    9. Fifth Schedule to the Constitution: Governs the administration of Scheduled Areas through the Governor and the Tribes Advisory Council, and is the constitutional frame within which most affected districts sit.

    Government Initiatives for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas

    1. National Policy and Action Plan, 2015: The overarching framework combining security measures, development interventions, rights and entitlements of local communities, and public perception management.
    2. Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme: Reimburses state governments for security-related expenditure including training, operational costs, ex gratia payments and the surrender and rehabilitation of former cadres.
    3. Special Central Assistance (SCA) for the most affected districts: Funds public infrastructure and services in the districts of highest concern, filling critical gaps identified by district administrations.
    4. Special Infrastructure Scheme (SIS): Strengthens state police infrastructure, including special forces and fortified police stations, in affected states.
    5. Road Connectivity Project for LWE Affected Areas (RCPLWEA): Successor to the Road Requirement Plan, it constructs and upgrades roads and bridges to open isolated blocks to administration and markets.
    6. LWE Mobile Tower Project: Installs mobile towers in affected districts to extend telecommunications where commercial operators would not otherwise invest.
    7. Eklavya Model Residential Schools: Provide residential schooling for tribal children in blocks with high Scheduled Tribe population, extending secondary education in the affected belt.
    8. Aspirational Districts Programme: Targets the least developed districts, a large share of which fall in the former corridor, on health, nutrition, education, agriculture, financial inclusion and infrastructure indicators.
    9. Civic Action Programme: Funds central armed police forces to conduct welfare activities that build confidence between security forces and local communities.

    Back2Basics: The SAMADHAN Doctrine

    1. What it is: SAMADHAN is the Union government's stated doctrine for countering Left Wing Extremism, articulated as an eight-point formulation.
    2. S, Smart leadership: Leadership capable of directing an operation that spans police, intelligence and administration.
    3. A, Aggressive strategy: A posture of sustained offensive operations rather than defensive holding.
    4. M, Motivation and training: Continuous training and morale management for deployed forces.
    5. A, Actionable intelligence: Intelligence specific enough to act on, which is the input the campaign was built around.
    6. D, Dashboard-based key result areas and key performance indicators: Measured performance targets for units and districts.
    7. H, Harnessing technology: Use of surveillance, communications and data tools in operations.
    8. A, Action plan for each theatre: A theatre-specific plan rather than a uniform national approach.
    9. N, No access to financing: Cutting the financial networks that sustain cadres, weapons and logistics.

    Key Facts about the Left Wing Extremism Campaign

    1. The declaration: The Centre declared the country free from Naxalism on 31 March 2026.
    2. Central Reserve Police Force: The largest central armed police force, it marked its Raising Day on 27 July and has been the principal force deployed in the campaign.
    3. CoBRA: The Commando Battalion for Resolute Action is the Central Reserve Police Force's specialised jungle and guerrilla warfare unit for anti-Naxal operations.
    4. Named operations: Black Forest, Octopus, Double Bull and Chakrabandha are the operations named as having dismantled entrenched strongholds.
    5. Bastar: The Bastar division of Chhattisgarh was the operational centre of the campaign and the site of repeated ministerial review visits.
    6. Infrastructure since 2014: 408 new security camps, 597 fortified police stations, over 12,000 km of roads, 1,804 bank branches, 1,321 ATMs and 6,025 post offices in affected areas.
    7. The origin marker: The movement is named after Naxalbari in West Bengal, the site of the 1967 uprising.

    Challenges in Consolidating the Post-Insurgency Transition

    1. Infrastructure without economic activity: Physical assets do not automatically generate livelihoods, e.g. more than 12,000 km of roads open access to markets only where there is production to move.
    2. Reversibility of surrender: Rehabilitation fails where former cadres find no economic footing, e.g. surrendered cadres receiving one-time financial assistance without sustained employment remain vulnerable to re-recruitment.
    3. Unsettled land and forest rights: The grievance that fed recruitment persists where titles remain unrecognised, e.g. pending individual and community claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 in Fifth Schedule districts.
    4. Displacement from mining and industry: Development in a mineral-rich belt can reproduce the alienation the insurgency mobilised, e.g. resettlement disputes around iron ore and coal projects in Bastar and Jharkhand.
    5. Thin administrative capacity: Newly opened blocks lack the staffing to run the institutions now built, e.g. teacher and health worker vacancies in interior blocks leave schools and health centres nominally functional.
    6. Security-first institutional habits: Areas administered through a security grid do not convert automatically to civil administration, e.g. 408 security camps and 597 fortified police stations remain the most visible state presence in many blocks.
    7. Justice system backlog: Cases registered during the campaign remain unresolved and undercut confidence, e.g. long undertrial detention of tribal accused under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
    8. Residual and displaced cadres: Movement remnants may relocate rather than dissolve, e.g. cadre movement across inter-state boundaries has historically shifted the problem rather than ended it.
    9. Fragile fiscal continuity: Development spending contingent on the insurgency's salience declines once the emergency is declared over, e.g. schemes framed as LWE-specific lose their justification the moment the region is declared free.

    Way Forward

    1. Shift funding from security-tagged to development-tagged windows: Convert LWE-specific central assistance into sustained district development funding, so financing does not lapse with the security declaration.
    2. Complete forest rights recognition: Clear the backlog of individual and community forest rights claims in the former corridor, which addresses the grievance the movement recruited on.
    3. Staff the institutions already built: Fill teacher, health worker and revenue staff vacancies in the newly connected blocks, since a building without staff does not constitute a functioning institution.
    4. Link infrastructure to production: Tie the road, banking and connectivity network to minor forest produce value chains, agro-processing and local enterprise credit, so that access converts into income.
    5. Make rehabilitation employment-linked: Extend the surrender policy beyond financial assistance into guaranteed placement in skill centres, Industrial Training Institutes and public works, so reintegration is durable.
    6. Strengthen PESA implementation: Operationalise Gram Sabha powers over land, minor minerals and local plans under the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, so local consent governs the next phase of development.
    7. Fast-track pending cases: Establish dedicated courts to clear the backlog of insurgency-era cases, since prolonged undertrial detention undermines the legitimacy the campaign gained.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 10 marks] The Government of India recently stated that Left Wing Extremism (LWE) will be eliminated by 2026. What do you understand by LWE and how are the people affected by it? What measures have been taken by the government to eliminate LWE?”

  • In J&K, a facade of normalcy cannot substitute for peace

    Why in the News

    An administrative order circulating in Anantnag directed government employees to take part in a Tiranga Rally, making attendance at a State sponsored event an official obligation. The order brings out the central tension in the governance of Jammu and Kashmir since August 2019, between an official account of restored normalcy and a security regime of raids, dismissals, detentions and attachments that continues without pause. Whether participation of this kind reflects public enthusiasm or administrative compulsion is the question the order leaves unanswered.

    What is Article 370 of the Constitution?

    1. What it provided: A temporary provision under Part XXI that limited Parliament’s legislative power over Jammu and Kashmir to defence, foreign affairs and communications, with other laws requiring the State government’s concurrence.
    2. The linked provision: Article 35A, added by a 1954 Presidential Order, allowed the State to define permanent residents and reserve rights in employment and property for them.
    3. What changed in 2019: Presidential Orders of August 2019 applied the whole Constitution to the State and rendered Article 370 inoperative, and Article 35A ceased to apply.
    4. The statutory change: The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 split the State into two Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir with a legislature, and Ladakh without one.
    5. The judicial outcome: The Supreme Court upheld the 2019 measures in In re Article 370 of the Constitution (2023) and directed that statehood be restored and elections held.
    6. The contested question: The argument advanced in this piece treats the 2019 change as an abrogation imposed without consent, and reads subsequent governance as its continuation.

    Who is an overground worker?

    1. The term: A person alleged to provide logistical support to militants, such as shelter, transport, money or information, without taking part in armed action.
    2. Why the term matters: It is not defined in statute, so the label carries no fixed evidentiary threshold and can be applied to large numbers after a single incident.

    What is preventive detention?

    1. What it is: Detention ordered by the executive to prevent an anticipated act, without any charge, trial or conviction.
    2. Its basis: Article 22(3) to 22(7) carve preventive detention out of the ordinary protections against arrest, and permit detention up to three months before an Advisory Board must review it.

    What is the United Liberation Council?

    1. What it is: The name attached to a purported threat letter reported on 12 August, described by authorities and sections of the media as an affiliate of Lashkar e Taiba.
    2. What the letter did: It reportedly named several Kashmiri Pandit government employees and carried their telephone numbers.

    Why is the Tiranga Rally order treated as symptomatic rather than isolated?

    1. The object is not the issue: The objection is not to the national flag but to the coercive form of the instruction.
    2. Obligation replaces participation: When attendance at a government event becomes an administrative duty, the resulting turnout cannot be read as evidence of public sentiment.
    3. A pattern of governance: The order fits a style of administration that has defined the region since the Union government took direct control in August 2019.
    4. Display as policy output: A visible ceremony is treated as the deliverable, so the appearance of normalcy substitutes for the conditions that would produce it.
    5. Self defeating measurement: A government that compels attendance loses the only instrument that could have told it whether sentiment had actually changed.

    What measures define administration in the Valley since 2019?

    1. Raids and investigations: Searches and investigations by multiple central and State agencies have become a recurring feature of life in the Valley.
    2. Dismissals from service: Government employees have been dismissed over alleged links with militancy or with militant sympathisers, without the ordinary departmental process.
    3. Mass detention: Thousands have been detained after militant incidents, at times under broad allegations of being overground workers.
    4. Institutional closure: Educational and charitable institutions have faced closure or restriction over alleged links with banned organisations.
    5. Property attachment: Properties worth hundreds of crores of rupees have been attached under various laws.
    6. House demolition: Homes have been demolished where a member of the family stands accused of militancy.
    7. Post incident crackdowns: Thousands were reportedly detained after the killing of a police constable in south Kashmir, and the cycle of raids, detentions and suspicion followed the killing of migrant workers.

    What does the record on the Kashmiri Pandit community show?

    1. The threat letter: Reports on 12 August described a purported threat letter naming several Kashmiri Pandit government employees along with their telephone numbers.
    2. The attributed source: The letter was attributed to the United Liberation Council, described as an affiliate of Lashkar e Taiba.
    3. The casualty count: 25 members of the community have been targeted and killed since 2019.
    4. The named victims: They include Ajay Pandita Bharti, Rakesh Pandita, Makhan Lal Bindroo, Rahul Bhat, Rajni Bala, Puran Krishan Bhat and Sanjay Sharma.
    5. Why the memory matters: For a community displaced in the 1990s, each such threat revives the circumstances of that displacement rather than reading as an isolated crime.
    6. The return condition: Return has to rest on an environment in which the community feels safe, not on participation in official ceremonies designed to demonstrate that everything is normal.

    Why do the claim of normalcy and the continuing security regime contradict each other?

    1. The official account: The government tells the rest of India that Kashmir has entered a new era of peace and normalcy.
    2. The parallel reality: Extraordinary security measures, raids, detentions, dismissals and restrictions continue to shape the everyday lives of ordinary people.
    3. Both cannot be operative: A settled peace does not require a standing apparatus of preventive detention and property attachment to maintain it.
    4. The tourist test fails: Busy markets, full hotels and traffic on the roads are what a visitor sees in a few days. They measure commerce, not security of person.
    5. What each side gains: The government gains a demonstrable output in the display. The population gains nothing it can rely on when the display ends.
    6. The unresolved reminder: The threat letter of 12 August is the demonstration that the underlying problem has not closed, whatever the ceremonies record.

    How should normalcy actually be measured?

    1. Freedom to speak: Whether ordinary people feel secure enough to speak freely without anticipating consequences.
    2. Law as protection: Whether families believe the law will protect them rather than intimidate them.
    3. A visible future: Whether young people see a future for themselves in the region.
    4. Safe return: Whether communities that have suffered displacement and violence feel safe enough to return and rebuild their lives.

    What does the security regime do to a generation born after the conflict?

    1. Who they are: Those in their teens and twenties in Kashmir were born decades after the worst years of the conflict and bear no responsibility for the violence of the 1990s.
    2. What they observe: Many grow up watching fathers, brothers, relatives and neighbours being summoned, detained or questioned.
    3. Collective punishment: Large scale detentions and punitive measures after militant attacks deepen the perception that a whole community is being punished for the acts of individuals.
    4. The asymmetry they learn: One section of society is repeatedly assured that everything is normal while another is continually asked to prove that it is not a threat.
    5. The outcome: This produces bruised memory rather than reconciliation, and bruised memory does not disappear because officials are instructed to display flags.
    6. The time horizon: Brute force can silence a street for a period. It cannot silence a generation’s memory.

    What distinctions must the state draw?

    1. Militant and citizen: The State must distinguish between a militant and an ordinary citizen, which mass categorisation after an incident destroys.
    2. Accused and convicted: It must distinguish between an accused person and a convicted person, which dismissal, attachment and demolition before trial collapse.
    3. Family member and accused: It must distinguish between a family member and the person accused of committing a crime, which punitive action against a household erases.

    Challenges to restoring political normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir

    1. Punitive measures before adjudication: Attachment and demolition operate before a court has decided guilt, so the penalty precedes the finding. e.g. property attachments running to hundreds of crores of rupees under various laws since 2019.
    2. Undefined categories in enforcement: Terms such as overground worker carry no statutory definition, so detention scales with suspicion rather than evidence. e.g. thousands reportedly detained after the killing of a police constable in south Kashmir.
    3. Employment as a security instrument: Dismissal without departmental inquiry converts government service into a lever of security policy. e.g. dismissals of employees over alleged links with militancy since 2019.
    4. Targeted killings of minorities: The safety of returning and resident minority employees remains unsecured. e.g. 25 members of the Kashmiri Pandit community killed since 2019 and a threat letter naming employees on 12 August 2026.
    5. Statehood still pending: Restoration of full statehood remains incomplete, leaving an elected government without control over police and public order. e.g. the Supreme Court’s 2023 direction to restore statehood at the earliest.
    6. Space for civil society: Closure of educational and charitable institutions removes the mediating layer between the State and the population. e.g. restrictions on institutions over alleged links with banned organisations.
    7. Cross border sponsorship: Infiltration and external support keep the security justification alive irrespective of local political settlement. e.g. attacks on migrant workers in the Valley followed by area wide crackdowns.
    8. Economic dependence on tourism: A single security incident removes the region’s main visible income source. e.g. the collapse of bookings in the Valley after major attacks on visitors.

    Conclusion

    The administrative order in Anantnag is a small instrument, and its significance lies in what it substitutes for. Kashmir needs healing built on dignity, justice, security and dialogue, and healing cannot be produced by an order requiring attendance. A facade of normalcy may impress visitors, and it cannot substitute for real peace. The measure of whether the situation has changed is whether the State begins to distinguish the militant from the citizen and the accused from the convict, not whether the flag is displayed on schedule.

    Jammu and Kashmir after 2019

    1. Constitutional status: The former State was reorganised on 31 October 2019 into the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, with a legislature, and the Union Territory of Ladakh, without one.
    2. Political timeline: Assembly elections were held in 2024, the first since 2014, restoring an elected government to the Union Territory.
    3. Statehood question: Full statehood has not been restored. Public order and police remain with the Union government under the Reorganisation Act.
    4. Security geography: The region has a Line of Control of about 740 km with Pakistan and a Line of Actual Control segment with China in Ladakh.
    5. Displacement history: Large scale displacement of the Kashmiri Pandit community occurred from 1990, and return and rehabilitation remains an unfinished policy objective.
    6. Economy: Horticulture, handicrafts and tourism dominate the economy, all of which are directly sensitive to security incidents.

    Constitutional Framework Governing Jammu and Kashmir and Security Measures

    1. Article 1: Declares India a Union of States and makes the territories in the First Schedule part of that Union.
    2. Article 3: Empowers Parliament to form new States and Union Territories and to alter boundaries, the provision used for the 2019 reorganisation.
    3. Article 370: The temporary provision governing the State’s relationship with the Union, rendered inoperative by the Presidential Orders of August 2019.
    4. Article 14: Requires equality before the law, which limits arbitrary classification of persons or communities in security administration.
    5. Article 19: Guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, association and movement, subject to reasonable restrictions on the specified grounds.
    6. Article 21: Protects life and personal liberty, and requires that any deprivation follow a procedure that is fair, just and reasonable.
    7. Article 22: Provides protections on arrest, and separately permits preventive detention with an Advisory Board review after three months.
    8. Article 239A read with the Reorganisation Act: Provides the framework for a legislature in a Union Territory, with police and public order reserved to the Union in the case of Jammu and Kashmir.
    9. Article 355: Places a duty on the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance.

    Laws and Rules Governing Security Administration in Jammu and Kashmir

    1. Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019: Created the two Union Territories and set out the distribution of legislative and executive power between them and the Union.
    2. Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967: The principal anti terrorism statute, providing for banning organisations, designating individuals and attaching proceeds of terrorism.
    3. Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978: Permits preventive detention for up to two years on grounds of security of the State or maintenance of public order.
    4. Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990: Confers search, arrest and use of force powers on the armed forces in areas declared disturbed, with prior sanction required for prosecution.
    5. National Investigation Agency Act, 2008: Establishes the central counter terrorism investigation agency and defines the scheduled offences it can take over.
    6. Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002: Provides for provisional attachment of property representing proceeds of crime, used in terror financing investigations.
    7. Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023: Replaces the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and carries the powers to issue prohibitory orders and regulate assemblies.

    Back2Basics: In re Article 370 of the Constitution (2023)

    1. What it was: A Constitution Bench judgment of the Supreme Court on the validity of the Presidential Orders of August 2019 and the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019.
    2. Holding on sovereignty: The Court held that Jammu and Kashmir retained no element of internal sovereignty after its accession and the adoption of the Constitution.
    3. Holding on Article 370: Article 370 was held to be a temporary provision, and the President’s power to declare it inoperative was held to survive the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of the State.
    4. Holding on Article 35A: The Court held that the removal of Article 35A did not violate the fundamental rights framework.
    5. Direction on statehood: The Court directed that the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir be restored at the earliest, while upholding the carving out of Ladakh.
    6. Direction on elections: The Election Commission was directed to hold Assembly elections by 30 September 2024.
    7. Additional direction: The Court recommended a truth and reconciliation commission to examine human rights violations in the region since the 1980s.

    Government Initiatives

    1. Prime Minister’s Development Package, 2015: An outlay of about Rs 80,068 crore covering road, power, health, tourism and rehabilitation projects in the region.
    2. Prime Minister’s Package for Kashmiri Migrants: Provides government jobs and transit accommodation to support the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandit families to the Valley.
    3. Udaan and Himayat: Skill development and placement schemes for youth of the region, run through the National Skill Development Corporation and the rural livelihoods mission.
    4. Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme: Funds higher education outside the region for students from Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
    5. Security Related Expenditure scheme: Reimburses the Union Territory for expenditure on security, relief and rehabilitation of surrendered militants and civilian victims.
    6. Operation Sadbhavana and the Civic Action Programme: Army and central armed police force programmes that fund schools, medical camps and community infrastructure in border and affected areas.
    7. New Central Sector Scheme for Industrial Development, 2021: An outlay of about Rs 28,400 crore of capital and interest incentives to attract manufacturing investment to the Union Territory.

    Key Facts about Jammu and Kashmir

    1. Reorganisation date: The two Union Territories came into existence on 31 October 2019, observed as National Unity Day.
    2. Representation: The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir returns five members to the Lok Sabha and Ladakh returns one.
    3. Delimitation: The 2022 delimitation raised Assembly seats to 90, with 43 in the Jammu division and 47 in the Kashmir division, besides seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the first time.
    4. Reservation extension: Central laws on reservation, including for Scheduled Tribes such as the Gujjar, Bakarwal, Gaddi and Sippi communities, now apply to the Union Territory.
    5. Boundaries: The region borders Pakistan along the Line of Control and China along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.
    6. Geography: The Pir Panjal range separates the Jammu division from the Kashmir Valley, and the Jhelum, Chenab and Indus are the principal rivers.
    7. Treaty link: The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 governs the use of the western rivers that flow through the region, and India placed it in abeyance in 2025.

    Challenges in Internal Security Management

    1. Balancing force and consent: Security operations that succeed tactically can widen alienation and cost the political objective. e.g. area wide cordon and search operations following a single militant incident.
    2. Preventive detention without adjudication: Detention laws allow long custody without trial, which produces grievance even where the intelligence is sound. e.g. detention up to two years permitted under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978.
    3. Radicalisation through digital channels: Recruitment and propaganda have moved online, beyond the reach of physical area domination. e.g. encrypted messaging used for handler communication in recent militancy cases.
    4. Terror financing: Funding routes through hawala, cryptocurrency and front organisations are hard to interdict. e.g. investigations into non governmental organisations and trusts by central agencies since 2017.
    5. Rehabilitation of surrendered cadre: Without livelihood and social acceptance, surrendered militants relapse. e.g. surrender and rehabilitation policies across the Northeast and Left Wing Extremism affected districts.
    6. Centre and State coordination: Multiple agencies operating in the same theatre create gaps in intelligence handover. e.g. the multi agency centre framework created after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
    7. Human rights accountability: Sanction requirements delay prosecution in cases of alleged excess, which erodes trust in the process. e.g. the prior sanction requirement for prosecuting armed forces personnel.
    8. Border management technology: Infiltration continues where terrain defeats physical fencing. e.g. tunnels detected along the international boundary in the Jammu sector.

    Way Forward

    1. Restore statehood on a stated timeline: Give the elected government responsibility for public order so accountability for security decisions is politically located.
    2. Individualise security action: Confine dismissal, attachment and demolition to persons against whom a case is established, with reasons recorded and an appeal available.
    3. Institutionalise dialogue: Create a standing channel with elected representatives, civil society and displaced communities rather than event driven engagement.
    4. Secure minority employees: Provide verified protection and posting choices to Kashmiri Pandit employees rather than requiring presence at ceremonial events.
    5. Time bound trials: Expand special court capacity so that persons in preventive detention are either charged and tried or released.
    6. Youth employment at scale: Convert skill schemes into placement linked outcomes so that the young have a visible economic route.
    7. Independent grievance mechanism: Set up an accessible body to examine complaints of excess, following the reconciliation mechanism the Supreme Court recommended in 2023.

    “[2023, GS3, 10 marks] Winning of ‘Hearts and Minds’ in terrorism-affected areas is an essential step in restoring the trust of the population. Discuss the measures adopted by the Government in this respect as part of the conflict resolution in Jammu and Kashmir.”

  • March to July, Govt sent one blocking order to social media firms every minute

    Why in the News

    Nearly 1.95 lakh state backed content blocking orders were sent to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July 2026, an average of one every 68 seconds, against a daily average of six in the preceding year. Most were routed through the Sahyog portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs and issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the safe harbour condition, rather than the dedicated blocking power in Section 69A. The surge, combined with automated execution by the platform, converts a conditional legal duty into unconditional compliance.

    What is the Sahyog portal?

    1. What it is: A platform built by the Ministry of Home Affairs through which central and State agencies send content blocking notices to online intermediaries.
    2. Who uses it: Various central and State law enforcement and government agencies issue notices, and all three major social media companies have joined the portal.
    3. Legal hook: Notices are issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the provision that conditions an intermediary’s legal immunity.
    4. What it replaced: It centralises what were previously scattered notices from individual police units and departments into a single automated channel.
    5. Scale of use: Between October 2024 and October 2025 the portal carried 2,312 blocking orders to 19 online platforms, a daily average of six.
    6. What one order covers: A single blocking order can cover hundreds of individual pieces of content or accounts, so the order count understates the volume removed.

    What is safe harbour under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000?

    1. The immunity: Section 79 protects an intermediary from liability for content that its users post, provided it does not initiate, select or modify that content.
    2. The condition: Section 79(3)(b) withdraws that immunity if the intermediary fails to remove unlawful material after receiving actual knowledge or a government notification.

    What is Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000?

    1. The power: It allows the Union government to direct the blocking of public access to information in the interest of sovereignty, defence, security of the State, friendly relations, public order or the prevention of a cognisable offence.
    2. The safeguards: Blocking under it follows the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, which require a committee review and reasons in writing.

    What is actual knowledge in intermediary liability?

    1. The test: Actual knowledge is the point at which an intermediary is informed of specific unlawful content and becomes obliged to act on it.
    2. Where it comes from: The Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) read down Section 79(3)(b) so that actual knowledge means a court order or a government notification, not a private complaint.

    What is an Application Programming Interface?

    1. What it is: A defined interface that allows one software system to send instructions directly to another without a person operating either end.
    2. Its use here: Meta has integrated its interface with the Sahyog portal, so a flagged item uploaded to the portal is removed from its platforms automatically.

    What does the scale of the blocking orders show?

    1. Total volume: Nearly 1.95 lakh blocking orders in five months, about 1,275 a day, or one every 68 seconds.
    2. Instagram: Around 1,00,000 orders, just over half of the total, and the platform on which the student protests were most visible.
    3. Facebook: Around 80,000 orders.
    4. YouTube: Nearly 15,000 orders.
    5. Concentration: Meta owned platforms received roughly nine out of every ten orders issued to the three companies.
    6. The baseline: The comparable figure for October 2024 to October 2025 was 2,312 orders across 19 platforms, a daily average of six.
    7. Official record: The Ministry of Home Affairs annual report for 2024 and 2025 recorded a little over 1.11 lakh pieces of suspicious online content blocked until March 2025 under Section 79(3)(b).
    8. Comparative removals: Meta reported removing over 23 million pieces of content in Indonesia between July and December 2025 against about 41,000 in India, which had already doubled from 28,000 in the first half of that year.
    9. User base: India has over 600 million social media users, with an estimated 10 million to 100 million posts a day.

    What changed in February 2026?

    1. The amendment: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
    2. The new deadline: Content must now be removed within two to three hours, against the earlier window of 24 to 36 hours.
    3. Added conditions: The amended rule requires that an order come from an officer of a prescribed rank and state its reasons.
    4. The compliance effect: A window of two to three hours makes case by case human review commercially impossible at Indian volumes.
    5. The platform response: Meta integrated its interface with the Sahyog portal so removal happens machine to machine, without separate human review.
    6. What was removed: Automation eliminates the room for the company to review or contest a directive before complying with it.

    Why does the shift from Section 69A to Section 79(3)(b) matter?

    1. Different purpose: Section 69A is a dedicated blocking power. Section 79(3)(b) is a condition attached to an immunity, not a power to censor.
    2. Different safeguards: Section 69A orders pass through a review committee under the 2009 Rules and carry recorded reasons. Section 79(3)(b) notices carry no equivalent statutory committee.
    3. Different issuing authority: Section 69A is exercised by the Union government. Section 79(3)(b) notices come from a wide range of central and State agencies through the portal.
    4. Different subject matter: Section 69A is largely confined to national security and public order. The portal route is used for a far wider category of content.
    5. The legal consequence: The intermediary that refuses a Section 79(3)(b) notice does not face a penalty. It loses immunity for all user content, which is a far larger risk.
    6. What that produces: The threat of losing safe harbour makes refusal irrational, so the conditional structure operates as a command.

    What content was targeted?

    1. The protest period: The five month window covered the student protests against examination paper leaks at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, which began in early June and were called off on 25 July after the resignation of the Union Education Minister.
    2. Official acknowledgement: A senior government official stated that a considerable share of the orders were issued as the protests gathered momentum, particularly on Instagram.
    3. Protest content: Users reported the removal of posts supporting the student protests.
    4. Policy criticism: Posts criticising the government’s ethanol fuel blending policy were among those blocked.
    5. Electoral content: Content relating to the West Bengal Assembly elections was also removed.
    6. Synthetic media: Deepfakes formed a further category among the removals.
    7. Political speech: The national convenor of a national political party stated that some of his Instagram posts were blocked in India.

    Where does automated compliance turn against the legal design?

    1. The doctrinal problem: Actual knowledge requires that someone at the company know of the content and assess the order. An interface that executes takedowns automatically has no knowledge at all.
    2. No verification of authority: Nobody at the company checks whether the order comes from an officer of the prescribed rank or states the reasons the amended rule requires.
    3. Conditional becomes unconditional: Machine to machine execution converts a conditional legal duty into unconditional compliance, which is the substance of the objection raised by the Internet Freedom Foundation.
    4. The state interest on the other side: Coordinated disinformation, deepfakes and incitement travel faster than any human review cycle, which is the case for a short deadline.
    5. The unequal risk: The cost of over removal falls on the user, who has no notice and no appeal. The cost of under removal falls on the company as loss of immunity for all content.
    6. Notice denied: Meta informs users which State authority sent a request in most markets, but not in India, citing legal obligations and regulatory considerations.
    7. No proportionality check: One order can cover hundreds of accounts, so a single instruction can remove speech at a scale no court has examined.

    Challenges to the content blocking regime

    1. Absence of a review committee: Orders under Section 79(3)(b) carry none of the committee scrutiny that Section 69A orders pass through. e.g. the 2009 Blocking Rules committee has no counterpart for portal notices.
    2. Secrecy of orders: Blocking directions are treated as confidential, so neither the user nor the public sees the reasoning. e.g. Rule 16 of the 2009 Blocking Rules requires confidentiality of complaints and actions taken.
    3. No pre decisional hearing for the user: The person whose speech is removed is not heard before removal and often not informed after it. e.g. account holders learning of removal only from the platform’s generic notification.
    4. Chilling effect on lawful speech: Platforms over comply to protect immunity, which removes lawful criticism along with unlawful content. e.g. removal of posts criticising the ethanol blending policy during the same five month window.
    5. Federal multiplication of issuers: A wide set of central and State agencies can issue notices, so there is no single accountable authority. e.g. the portal carried orders to 19 platforms from multiple agencies in the previous year.
    6. Litigation uncertainty: Platforms that challenge the portal route face the loss of immunity while the case runs. e.g. X Corporation’s challenge to the Sahyog portal before the Karnataka High Court, dismissed in 2025.
    7. Encryption and traceability conflict: The traceability requirement in the 2021 Rules cannot be met without weakening end to end encryption. e.g. the pending challenge by WhatsApp to Rule 4(2) of the 2021 Rules.
    8. Capacity asymmetry: Smaller Indian intermediaries cannot build automated compliance systems and face the same deadlines. e.g. the two to three hour removal window applies to every significant social media intermediary.

    Conclusion

    The volume of blocking orders has risen from six a day to about 1,275 a day, and the legal route has moved from a dedicated blocking power with statutory safeguards to a safe harbour condition that carries none. Automation completes the shift, because a system that removes content without any person reading the order cannot satisfy the actual knowledge standard the Supreme Court built the provision around. The amended rules are in force and the orders continue. The unresolved question is whether Section 79(3)(b) can lawfully function as a general censorship channel when the Constitution requires every restriction on speech to be traced to a specific ground and a recorded reason.

    “[2024, GS3, 15 marks] Social media and encrypting messaging services pose a serious security challenge. What measures have been adopted at various levels to address the security implications of social media? Also suggest any other remedies to address the problem.”

  • 25,000 Ex-Agniveers to Enter CAPFs Under 50% Quota

    Why in the News

    The armed forces will provide lists of eligible Agniveers to CAPFs for recruitment under the 50% reservation for former Agniveers. The first batch of around 25,000 Army Agniveers is expected to exit by December.

    What is Agnipath?

    • Agniveers are recruited for a fixed 4-year tenure, including training.
    • Up to 25% are retained in the regular armed forces based on merit and organisational requirements.
    • The remaining 75% exit with a Seva Nidhi package.
    • They do not receive pension or gratuity.

    What are CAPFs?

    • Central Armed Police Forces operate under the Ministry of Home Affairs, unlike the Armed Forces under the Ministry of Defence.
    • They include: BSF, CRPF, CISF, ITBP, SSB, Assam Rifles, and NSG

    CAPF Recruitment for Former Agniveers

    • 50% of Constable (GD) vacancies reserved for former Agniveers.
    • Eligible personnel will be identified through lists furnished by the Armed Forces.
    • Written examination, Physical Standard Test and Physical Efficiency Test are waived for former Agniveers.
    • Remaining 50% vacancies are filled through open recruitment.
    • Unfilled reserved vacancies are carried forward to open recruitment.

    Why is it Important?

    • The framework provides Agniveers a pathway to a longer career, as CAPF personnel can serve up to 60 years, compared with the shorter service period in the armed forces.

    Key Concerns

    • Eligibility depends on service-prepared lists, rather than direct application.
    • Criteria for inclusion in these lists are not clearly specified.
    • 50% of CAPF Constable GD vacancies are reserved.
    • Former Agniveers enter at the entry grade without seniority/pay protection for military service.
    • Different States have adopted different reservation and age-relaxation policies.

    Prelims Quick Facts

    • Agnipath tenure: 4 years
    • Retention: Up to 25%
    • Exit: Seva Nidhi, no pension/gratuity
    • CAPF quota: 50% of Constable GD vacancies
    • CAPFs: Under MHA
    • Armed Forces: Under Ministry of Defence
    • First Army Agniveer batch: About 25,000 expected to exit by December

    “[2023] With reference to Home Guards, consider the following statements:
    1. Home Guards are raised under the Home Guards Act and Rules of the Central Government.
    2. The role of the Home Guards is to serve as an auxiliary force to the police in maintenance of internal security.
    3. To prevent infiltration on the international border/coastal areas, the Border Wing Home Guards Battalions have been raised in some States.
    How many of the above statements are correct?
    (a) Only one
    (b) Only two
    (c) All three
    (d) None

  • Kondapalli in Bastar shows what state presence looks like after the Maoist withdrawal

    Why in the News

    Kondapalli, a village of 600 people in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district that served as the base of the most dreaded Maoist battalion, now has a road, a bus, grid electricity, a cellphone tower and a new school. The change moves the test of the insurgency’s end from the absence of armed cadre to the delivery of ordinary services, since a surrendered commander now demands from the State the borewell, pond, land rights and visiting doctor he once took up arms against it over.

    How does the forward base model work in the Red Corridor?

    1. Step one, the camp: A central armed police force announces a forward operating base inside a village previously controlled by the Maoists.
    2. Step two, clearing operations: A series of encounters follows, which pushes the armed cadre out of the area.
    3. Step three, the road: An engineering agency opens a motorable road to the camp, which ends the physical isolation the insurgency depended on.
    4. Step four, civil administration: Grid electricity, telecom towers, schools, anganwadis, ration shops, Aadhaar enrolment and bank accounts follow the road.
    5. Step five, the political process: Elections resume and elected panchayat bodies begin to function.
    6. Application in Kondapalli: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) announced its forward base in the village in November 2024, and this sequence has run there since.

    What is the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA)?

    1. About: The PLGA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), organised into platoons, companies and battalions.
    2. Its role here: Kondapalli served as the base of Battalion No. 1, the most dreaded unit of the PLGA.

    What was Battalion No. 1?

    1. About: Battalion No. 1 was the main armed formation of the Maoists in south Bastar, camped in the jungle outside Kondapalli.
    2. Present position: The battalion is gone from the area and security forces now camp in the same space.

    What is a Revolutionary People’s Committee?

    1. About: It is a grassroots governing body of the Maoists that ran village level administration, land distribution and dispute settlement in areas under their control.
    2. Its role here: A former commander of one such committee surrendered in Kondapalli in March 2025.

    What is the Bal Sangam?

    1. About: The Bal Sangam is the children’s wing of the Maoists, used to recruit and indoctrinate minors in areas under their control.

    What is the Chetna Natya Manch?

    1. About: The Chetna Natya Manch is the Maoists’ cultural troupe, which used song and theatre on themes such as jal, jungle and zameen to mobilise villagers.

    What was the Salwa Judum?

    1. About: The Salwa Judum was a civilian counter insurgency force set up in Chhattisgarh in 2005, which armed villagers against the Maoists.
    2. Legal status: The Supreme Court declared it illegal in 2011 and ordered the disarming of the appointed special police officers.

    What is the Red Corridor?

    1. About: The Red Corridor is the belt of forested, mineral rich and largely tribal districts across central and eastern India where Maoist influence was concentrated.
    2. Scale in Chhattisgarh: Kondapalli was one of nearly 400 villages in the State’s Red Corridor where the state had little say or presence.

    What is the Border Roads Organisation (BRO)?

    1. About: The BRO is a road construction agency under the Ministry of Defence that builds and maintains roads in border and strategically sensitive areas.
    2. Its role here: It began work on the Tarrem to Kondapalli road soon after security forces pushed the Maoists back in November 2024.

    What is a Bailey bridge?

    1. About: A Bailey bridge is a portable, prefabricated steel truss bridge assembled on site without heavy equipment, used where permanent bridges cannot be built quickly.
    2. Its use here: The BRO installed nine Bailey bridges over river streams on the stretch past Kondapalli.

    What is the Mahtari Vandan Yojana?

    1. About: It is a Chhattisgarh government scheme that transfers Rs 1,000 a month to eligible married women through direct benefit transfer.
    2. Its role here: One villager’s mother opened a bank account last year and now receives this transfer.

    How did the Maoists govern Kondapalli?

    1. Territorial claim: Kondapalli lay in the Maoists’ South Bastar division, part of what they called the Liberated Zone.
    2. Strength of the formation: The division was one of the strongest Maoist formations and among the last to fall, and could gather the support of 400 to 500 people at short notice.
    3. Economic function of the village: Kondapalli mattered to the Maoists because their supplies came from its local market.
    4. Commemorative gatherings: Hundreds of villagers were assembled every year at a 64 foot tall memorial in Komatpalli, part of the Kondapalli gram panchayat, for Martyrs’ Week.
    5. Land and housing: The Maoists redistributed land and helped villagers build their houses, which is how they gained trust.
    6. Local public works: They built small roads and a pond, and asked villagers to donate money for the treatment of anyone who fell sick.
    7. Forest rule: Cutting trees was punishable under their order.
    8. What was withheld: Residents describe the arrangement as delivering a sense of security and of being seen, with little development alongside it.

    How was that order enforced?

    1. Conscription pressure: At least one person from every village had to join, which put pressure on families to give up their sons or daughters.
    2. Recruitment through front organisations: A boy recruited as a teenager passed through the Bal Sangam and then the Chetna Natya Manch, singing about saving jal, jungle and zameen.
    3. Fear of dispossession: Recruits were told the government would steal their land and that they would eventually have to leave the village.
    4. Control of movement: Villagers leaving the Kondapalli gram panchayat were questioned on their return.
    5. Public punishment: Wrongdoers were beaten publicly under a tree.
    6. Killing of suspected informers: Those suspected of informing to the police were killed, and others left the village.
    7. Destruction of state assets: The Maoists burnt down the only school and the adjoining hostel in the 2000s to stop security forces sheltering there, and destroyed the electric poles the administration brought.
    8. Withdrawal of officials: Forest officials and the patwari, the village records keeper, stopped coming to Kondapalli.
    9. Control of communication: Phones were seized and villagers were told not to use them.
    10. Cost on the other side: Villagers were caught in the middle, and one resident’s uncle was killed by security forces on the suspicion that he was a Maoist.

    What ended the Maoist hold on Kondapalli?

    1. The forward base: The CRPF announced in November 2024 that it was establishing a forward base in Kondapalli.
    2. Encounters: A series of encounters followed, after which the Maoists were pushed into Telangana.
    3. Surrender of the formation: The cadre pushed into Telangana laid down arms in March 2026.
    4. Village level surrender: A former commander of the Revolutionary People’s Committee surrendered in March 2025 along with 12 other villagers.
    5. Rehabilitation in practice: He opened a kirana store with the money received under the State’s rehabilitation policy.
    6. Losses in the campaign: A villager’s 18 year old daughter, who left home in December 2022 to join the Maoists, was among about 30 Maoists killed in a security operation in Telangana’s Karregutta hills last year.
    7. Scale of the insurgency: The decades long insurgency claimed at least 4,741 lives in the Bastar region alone since 2000.
    8. National declaration: The Union Home Minister has declared the country Maoist free, 80 years after Independence.

    Which markers of state presence have appeared in the village?

    1. Grid electricity: Kondapalli received electricity from the grid last July, after years of solar lamps and then of darkness once those failed.
    2. Telecom: A cellphone tower was erected on the edge of the village in December last year, rising above the mud houses and small shops.
    3. School building: A new government school building came up in the summer of 2025, painted bright blue and standing by the main road.
    4. School capacity: The school runs classes 1 to 8 with 158 students and seven teaching staff, all male, and has blackboards and benches.
    5. What preceded it: After the school was burnt down children studied in a shanty in the same compound, and an asbestos shade was put up there in 2020.
    6. Anganwadi and residential school: An anganwadi and a residential school are under construction in the village.
    7. Panchayat and ration infrastructure: Panchayat bhawans have been built and the new ration shop is painted in the colours of the Tricolour.
    8. Identity and banking: Villagers were called to the police camp where they were enrolled under Aadhaar and given birth certificates and bank accounts.
    9. Cash transfer: A household bank account opened last year now receives Rs 1,000 from the State under the Mahtari Vandan Yojana for women.
    10. Return of the vote: The village voted for the first time last year, in the local body polls, having been told under the Maoists to make no demands of the government.
    11. Political visit: The Chhattisgarh Chief Minister visited Kondapalli on 2 June, a first for the village.
    12. Announced pipeline: The Bijapur District Collector stated that over the next two years the village will get a cricket ground, a health centre, a cement road and government scheme benefits.
    13. Security presence: Security forces now camp in the jungle outside the village where Battalion No. 1 used to camp.
    14. Private consumption: A villager bought a Redmi phone for Rs 10,000 after the Maoists left, and uses it to watch films, news and skill tutorials.

    How has connectivity changed?

    1. Bus service: A blue bus from Cherla in Telangana has run since March 2025 under the State’s rural bus scheme, making two trips a day.
    2. What it connects: The bus carries villagers to Bijapur, 79 km to the north, and to Cherla in Telangana, where many young men work as daily wage labourers.
    3. The road agency: The Border Roads Organisation began work on the Tarrem to Kondapalli road soon after November 2024.
    4. Engineering on the road: On the stretch running past Kondapalli into Telangana, the BRO installed nine Bailey bridges over river streams and 43 precast culverts to keep the road usable during the rains.
    5. Present condition: The road is still a work in progress, carrying the occasional motorcycle or truck with construction material.
    6. Travel before the road: A circuitous journey of 209 km taking five hours through Cherla was the only way to travel from Bijapur to Kondapalli.
    7. Travel now: A 90 minute car ride from Bijapur reaches the village without crossing into Telangana, passing the junctions of Awapalli and Basaguda and reaching Tarrem on the Sukma and Bijapur border.
    8. Map lag: For the 18 km beyond Tarrem, Google Maps still recommends the older and longer route through Telangana.
    9. What the road replaced: Villagers earlier walked two days to Telangana carrying 30 kg of rice, stayed 45 days and worked plucking chillies on farms.
    10. A generation without a bus: The bus stopped after the Maoists came from Telangana in 1985, and an entire generation grew up without ever seeing one.
    11. Border geography: Kondapalli sits on the Telangana border and is closer to Cherla at 46 km than to its own district headquarters at Bijapur, 79 km away.

    What distances still separate the village from basic services?

    1. Health care: The nearest doctor requires a journey of over 30 km to Basaguda.
    2. Schooling beyond class 8: Students travel 33 km to Basaguda or 23 km to Pamed to continue past class 8.
    3. Higher education: The village’s first graduate could finish his education only by leaving during the Salwa Judum years for a hostel in Basaguda and then a college in Dantewada.
    4. A second case of leaving to study: A CRPF recruit from the village completed school while staying in a hostel in Usoor in Bijapur.
    5. Schooling in the earlier generation: The village head travelled 27 km by bus to school in Awapalli in the 1980s.
    6. Food supply: Villagers earlier travelled to Awapalli even to buy rice, which took a full day.
    7. Maternal health: Women died in labour or on the way to hospital because there was no medical facility nearby and no road, and were carried on cots.

    Why does the arrival of the state not settle the question of legitimacy?

    1. The camp changed hands rather than disappeared: Security forces occupy the same jungle space the Maoist battalion used, so the village still lives beside an armed presence.
    2. The demands are the same goods: A surrendered commander now asks the State for a borewell for irrigation, a pond, land rights, small roads and a visiting doctor, which are the goods the Maoists claimed to supply.
    3. Memory of redistribution: Residents attribute the Maoists’ trust to land redistribution and help in building houses, which the State’s works now have to match.
    4. Memory of being caught in between: Families were punished by both sides, with suspected informers killed by the Maoists and a relative killed by security forces on suspicion.
    5. The Salwa Judum legacy: A villager still recalls her father being beaten for hours in 2006 during the Salwa Judum years, and the Supreme Court declared that force illegal in 2011.
    6. Delivery remains promised: The health centre, cement road and cricket ground sit on a two year timetable, and the anganwadi and residential school are still under construction.
    7. What residents ask for next: Villagers name a health facility, a school for higher studies and a self help group for poultry, farming and other livelihoods as the unmet needs.

    Challenges to consolidating state presence in Bastar

    1. Reversibility of security gains: Cadre pushed across a State border can regroup and return if camps thin out. e.g. the cadre pushed out of Kondapalli in November 2024 moved into Telangana and laid down arms only in March 2026.
    2. Roads reach before services do: Physical connectivity arrives years ahead of health and higher education facilities, so the mortality and dropout risks persist. e.g. Kondapalli residents still travel more than 30 km to Basaguda to see a doctor.
    3. Education discontinuity beyond the primary stage: Village schools stop at class 8, so children must migrate to hostels to continue studying. e.g. Kondapalli students travel 33 km to Basaguda or 23 km to Pamed after class 8.
    4. Unsettled forest and land rights: Slow recognition of individual and community forest rights leaves the state contested on the very issue the Maoists mobilised on. e.g. community forest rights claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 have seen high rejection rates in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar districts.
    5. Distrust from past counter insurgency: Civilian militias and killings on suspicion leave a memory that slows cooperation with the administration. e.g. the Supreme Court struck down the Salwa Judum in Nandini Sundar versus State of Chhattisgarh (2011).
    6. Livelihood dependence on distant labour markets: Without local employment, better connectivity mainly makes it easier to migrate out. e.g. young men from Kondapalli take the daily bus to Cherla in Telangana for daily wage work.
    7. Administrative vacancy in interior blocks: Staffing in remote blocks remains thin even after the security situation improves. e.g. forest officials and the patwari stopped visiting Kondapalli entirely during the Maoist years, and the new school runs with seven teachers for classes 1 to 8.
    8. Displacement risk from mining and infrastructure: Newly accessible mineral belts raise the prospect of acquisition in Scheduled Areas without full consent. e.g. protests over iron ore mining in the Bailadila range in Dantewada in 2019.

    Conclusion

    Kondapalli shows that the end of an insurgency is measured by the return of ordinary state functions, not by the absence of armed cadre. Within two years of the CRPF forward base, the village has a road with nine Bailey bridges, a daily bus, grid electricity, a tower, a school with 158 students, Aadhaar numbers and bank accounts, and it has voted for the first time. The health centre, the cement road and the school for higher studies remain on a two year promise, and the villagers’ claims on the State now decide whether the change holds.

    Left Wing Extremism in India

    1. About: Left Wing Extremism is an armed movement that seeks to capture state power through a protracted people’s war, drawing on grievances over land, forest rights, displacement and the absence of the administration in tribal districts.
    2. Origin: It began with the peasant uprising at Naxalbari in West Bengal in 1967, which gave the movement its popular name.
    3. Principal organisation: The Communist Party of India (Maoist) was formed in 2004 by the merger of the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India, and is banned as a terrorist organisation.
    4. Armed wing: The People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army is its military formation, organised into platoons, companies and battalions.
    5. Geography: Influence was concentrated in the Dandakaranya belt across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
    6. Parallel governance: Janatana Sarkars, also called Revolutionary People’s Committees, ran village administration, land distribution and dispute settlement in areas under Maoist control.
    7. Scale of decline: The number of districts affected by Left Wing Extremism fell from 126 in 2018 to 38 in April 2024, with the worst affected districts concentrated in the Bastar division.
    8. Policy frame: The National Policy and Action Plan of 2015 combines security measures, development, entitlements for tribal groups and perception management.
    9. Constitutional position: Police and public order are State subjects, so the Centre acts through central armed police forces, funding and intelligence sharing.

    Constitutional Framework Governing Scheduled Areas and Internal Security

    1. Article 244 and the Fifth Schedule: Provide for the administration of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes, including the Governor’s power to modify the application of laws and the Tribes Advisory Council.
    2. Article 275(1): Provides grants in aid to States for tribal welfare and for raising the administration of Scheduled Areas to the level of the rest of the State.
    3. Article 338A: Establishes the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to investigate and monitor safeguards for Scheduled Tribes.
    4. Article 355: Places on the Union the duty to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance.
    5. Article 356: Allows a proclamation where the government of a State cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution.
    6. Entry 1 of the State List: Places public order within the legislative competence of the States.
    7. Entry 2 of the State List: Places police within the legislative competence of the States.
    8. Entry 2A of the Union List: Covers the deployment of any armed force of the Union in a State in aid of the civil power.

    Laws and Rules Governing the Response to Left Wing Extremism

    1. Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967: Provides for banning unlawful associations and terrorist organisations and for offences of membership and support.
    2. Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019: Allows the Centre to designate individuals, and not only organisations, as terrorists.
    3. Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005: Criminalises membership of and support to organisations declared unlawful within the State.
    4. National Investigation Agency Act, 2008: Creates a central agency to investigate scheduled offences including terrorism, with jurisdiction across States.
    5. Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996: Extends panchayat provisions to Fifth Schedule areas and vests the gram sabha with control over minor forest produce and consultation before land acquisition.
    6. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006: Recognises individual and community forest rights of forest dwelling tribal groups.
    7. Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013: Requires consent, social impact assessment and rehabilitation, with additional safeguards in Scheduled Areas.
    8. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023: Section 152 penalises acts endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.

    Back2Basics: Bastar Region

    1. Designation: Bastar is an administrative division of southern Chhattisgarh and the core of the Dandakaranya region.
    2. Districts: The division covers Bastar, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Sukma, Bijapur and Kanker.
    3. Rivers: The Indravati and the Sabari are the principal rivers of the region.
    4. Protected areas: Kanger Valley National Park and the Indravati National Park and Tiger Reserve lie in the division.
    5. Landform features: The Chitrakote falls on the Indravati are the widest waterfall in India, and the Abujhmarh hills remain largely unsurveyed.
    6. Tribal groups: The Gond, Muria, Madia, Dorla, Halba and Bhatra communities live in the region.
    7. Cultural institutions: Bastar Dussehra runs for about 75 days and is among the longest festivals in the country, and the Ghotul is the traditional youth dormitory of the Muria.
    8. Mineral base: The Bailadila range in Dantewada holds some of India’s richest iron ore deposits.

    Government Initiatives for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas

    1. SAMADHAN doctrine: The Centre’s operational framework combining smart leadership, aggressive strategy, motivation and training, actionable intelligence, dashboards, harnessing technology, action plans for each theatre and denial of financing.
    2. Security Related Expenditure Scheme: Reimburses States for the costs of security operations, training, community policing and rehabilitation of surrendered cadre.
    3. Special Infrastructure Scheme: Funds fortified police stations, secure camps and district police infrastructure in affected districts.
    4. Special Central Assistance: Provides funds for public infrastructure and services in the most affected districts.
    5. Road Connectivity Project for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas: Builds all weather roads and bridges in affected districts, alongside the earlier Road Requirement Plan.
    6. LWE Mobile Tower Project: Installs mobile towers in affected districts to close the telecom gap.
    7. Civic Action Programme: Funds central armed police forces to run health camps, sports events and welfare activity to build local trust.
    8. ROSHNI and Eklavya Model Residential Schools: Provide skill training for youth and residential schooling for tribal children in affected districts.
    9. Aspirational Districts Programme: Targets health, nutrition, education and infrastructure indicators in the districts with the weakest outcomes, many of them in the Red Corridor.
    10. Niyad Nellanar scheme: A Chhattisgarh programme that saturates villages within a radius of new security camps with central and State scheme benefits.

    Key Facts about Left Wing Extremism

    1. Naxalbari: The movement takes its name from the 1967 uprising at Naxalbari in Darjeeling district of West Bengal.
    2. Formation of the CPI (Maoist): The party was formed on 21 September 2004 and is listed as a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
    3. Decline in affected districts: Affected districts fell from 126 in 2018 to 38 in April 2024.
    4. Salwa Judum: Formed in 2005 and declared illegal by the Supreme Court in 2011 in Nandini Sundar versus State of Chhattisgarh.
    5. Specialised forces: The Greyhounds in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the District Reserve Guard and Bastar Fighters in Chhattisgarh, are the principal anti Maoist units.
    6. Stated deadline: The Union government set a target of ending Left Wing Extremism by 31 March 2026.
    7. Bastar toll: The insurgency claimed at least 4,741 lives in the Bastar region alone since 2000.
    8. Karregutta hills: The hills on the Chhattisgarh and Telangana border were the site of a major operation against Maoist formations.

    Challenges in Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas

    1. Development deficit that created the grievance: Absence of roads, schools, health centres and electricity is the condition the movement recruited on. e.g. Kondapalli got grid electricity only last July and a cellphone tower only in December.
    2. Weak implementation of tribal rights law: PESA and the Forest Rights Act remain unevenly implemented, so consent and forest produce rights stay contested. e.g. community forest rights claims across the Bastar districts have been rejected in large numbers.
    3. Displacement from mining and infrastructure: Acquisition in mineral rich Scheduled Areas turns development projects into recruitment arguments. e.g. protests over iron ore mining at Bailadila in Dantewada in 2019.
    4. Human rights costs of the security response: Killings on suspicion and civilian militias damage the state’s legitimacy for a generation. e.g. the Supreme Court’s 2011 order disbanding the Salwa Judum and disarming special police officers.
    5. Financing of the insurgency: Extortion from contractors, tendu leaf traders and transporters sustains cadre even after territorial losses. e.g. levy collection on road contractors has repeatedly been cited in National Investigation Agency chargesheets.
    6. Coordination across State borders: Cadre exploit inter State boundaries where police jurisdiction ends. e.g. the Kondapalli cadre moved into Telangana after the November 2024 encounters.
    7. Rehabilitation follow through: Surrender packages fail where no livelihood follows the cash grant. e.g. surrendered cadre in Bijapur depend on small kirana shops set up with one time rehabilitation money.
    8. Sustaining services after the camp: Teachers, doctors and revenue officials remain reluctant to serve in interior blocks. e.g. the new Kondapalli school has seven teachers for classes 1 to 8 and no facility beyond that.

    Way Forward

    1. Saturate cleared villages with entitlements: Extend the saturation model so every village within reach of a new camp receives Aadhaar, bank accounts, ration cards, pensions and scheme benefits within a fixed timeframe.
    2. Complete the road and telecom grid: Finish the Tarrem to Kondapalli type links and the mobile tower programme so connectivity does not stop at the camp.
    3. Settle forest and land rights first: Clear pending individual and community claims under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and enforce gram sabha consent under PESA before any acquisition.
    4. Extend schooling beyond class 8 locally: Upgrade village schools and expand residential schools so children are not forced to migrate 20 to 35 km to continue.
    5. Place health infrastructure with the road: Staff sub centres and mobile medical units at the same time as road completion, rather than years later.
    6. Build local livelihoods: Fund self help groups, minor forest produce processing and poultry and farming enterprises so connectivity does not only enable outmigration.
    7. Make rehabilitation a multi year programme: Follow the surrender grant with skill training, credit and market linkage, and monitor outcomes for surrendered cadre.
    8. Institutionalise inter State coordination: Sustain joint operations, shared intelligence and unified surrender policies across Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra and Jharkhand.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2025, GS3, 10 marks] The Government of India recently stated that Left Wing Extremism (LWE) will be eliminated by 2026. What do you understand by LWE and how are the people affected by it? What measures have been taken by the government to eliminate LWE?”

  • For first time in 50 years, DGP sets foot on former Maoist bastion in Telangana

    Why in the News

    For the first time in 50 years, a Director General of Police set foot on the Telangana side of Karregutta, a hill once used to house Central Committee members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). The visit marks the decline of Left Wing Extremism under Operation Kagar, with around 700 surrenders in Telangana and the top leadership largely killed, arrested, or surrendered.

    What is Operation Kagar?

    1. Definition: Operation Kagar is a coordinated anti-Maoist offensive launched by security forces in pursuit of the central government’s deadline for a Naxal-free India.
    2. Scope: It combines intensified security operations with surrender-and-rehabilitation measures across the Maoist-affected belt.

    Who are the CPI (Maoist)?

    1. Definition: The Communist Party of India (Maoist), or CPI (Maoist), is a banned Left Wing Extremist organisation that seeks to overthrow the state through armed struggle.
    2. Leadership: Its former General Secretary Muppala Lakshmana Rao, alias Ganapati, was the longest-serving general secretary of the outfit.

    What happened at Karregutta?

    1. The DGP’s visit: The Telangana Director General of Police entered the Telangana side of Karregutta accompanied by a large contingent of police and revenue personnel.
    2. The message: The delegation’s size was meant to signal that it is now safe to visit the area, where earlier only specialised forces such as Greyhounds and COBRA units operated briefly during operations.
    3. Tricolour hoisted: The contingent hoisted the national flag at the spot.
    4. Tourism plan: The DGP announced the kaccha road into the forest would be tarred and the area developed into a tourist spot.
    5. Surrender support: Surrendered Maoists are given a lump-sum grant, including the bounty announced on their heads, to start a new life.

    What is the current status of the Maoist decline?

    1. Surrenders: Around 700 Maoists surrendered in Telangana alone during the operation.
    2. Leadership losses: By March 31, several Central Committee members of the CPI (Maoist) were killed, arrested, or had surrendered.
    3. Top commander killed: Former General Secretary Nambala Keshava Rao, alias Basavaraju, was killed in a police encounter in May 2025.
    4. Factional split: After Basavaraju’s death the party split into two factions, one led by Mallojula Venugopal Rao, alias Sonu, and another by Thippiri Tirupathi, alias Devuji, who later surrendered.
    5. Few absconding: Only two to three top Maoists remain absconding, chief among them Ganapati.

    Conclusion

    A DGP entering Karregutta after five decades, followed by the hoisting of the Tricolour, signals the sharp decline of the Maoist movement in Telangana under Operation Kagar. With around 700 surrenders, the top leadership neutralised, and only a handful absconding, the insurgency’s organisational base has collapsed. The next milestone is the government’s deadline for a Naxal-free India and the rehabilitation of surrendered cadres into mainstream society.

    Back2Basics:

    Left Wing Extremism in India (Foundational Context)

    1. About: Left Wing Extremism (LWE), also called Naxalism, is an armed insurgency by Maoist groups aiming to capture state power through violence.
    2. Geography: It has historically concentrated in a forested tribal belt across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Telangana, and neighbouring States.
    3. Nodal ministry: The Ministry of Home Affairs coordinates the national response through security and development measures.

    Communist Party of India (Maoist)

    1. Formation: Formed in 2004 through the merger of the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India.
    2. Status: Designated a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
    3. Objective: Seeks to overthrow the Indian state through protracted armed struggle.
    4. Armed wing: Operates the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army.

    Government Initiatives against LWE

    1. SAMADHAN doctrine: An overarching strategy covering smart leadership, aggressive strategy, motivation, actionable intelligence, and technology.
    2. Security Related Expenditure Scheme: Reimburses States for security operations, training, and rehabilitation of surrendered cadres.
    3. Aspirational Districts Programme: Targets development in the most backward districts, many of them LWE-affected.
    4. Road connectivity projects: The Road Requirement Plan and RCPLWE scheme build roads to open up affected areas.
    5. Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy: Provides grants, vocational training, and support to those who lay down arms.

    Key Facts about LWE

    1. Shrinking footprint: The number of LWE-affected districts has fallen sharply over the past decade.
    2. Declining violence: Incidents and casualties have dropped substantially with intensified operations.
    3. Elite forces: Greyhounds of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and the CoBRA units of the CRPF are specialised anti-Maoist forces.

    Challenges in Countering LWE

    1. Development deficit: Persistent gaps in roads, health, and education sustain grievances in affected areas.
    2. Difficult terrain: Dense forests and hilly terrain aid guerrilla movement and hamper operations.
    3. Tribal alienation: Displacement and land alienation feed recruitment among tribal populations.
    4. Rehabilitation gaps: Surrendered cadres struggle to find a foothold in mainstream society.
    5. Cross-border and inter-State movement: Cadres exploit State boundaries to evade coordinated action.

    Way Forward

    1. Sustained development: Extend roads, connectivity, and public services into cleared areas.
    2. Robust rehabilitation: Ensure surrendered cadres receive grants, skills, and livelihoods.
    3. Protect tribal rights: Implement the Forest Rights Act and Fifth Schedule protections effectively.
    4. Consolidate security gains: Hold cleared areas and prevent the movement’s revival across State borders.

    UPSC Relevance

    [UPSC 2018] Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is showing a downward trend, but still affects many parts of the country. Briefly explain the Government of India’s approach to counter the challenges posed by LWE.

    Linkage: The PYQ examines the Government’s approach to tackling Left Wing Extremism. Operation Kagar demonstrates the security and surrender components of this approach. The article also highlights the need for rehabilitation and development after security gains.