Suppressing an insurgency is never easy, anywhere in the world—whether through dialogue or through the gun. Such operations are also rarely completely successful, as has happened this time against the Maoists in central India. In Bengal, the government had crushed the same Naxalites in 1972. In the Northeast too, the government has reached agreements with almost all insurgent groups, including the Nagas. Yet the central government has now announced that after the elections, central security forces will again be deployed in the Northeast, where a 2029 deadline has reportedly been set for the complete elimination of all insurgent groups—just as home minister Amit Shah had fixed March 31, 2026, as the deadline for wiping out Maoists in central India.
No amount of praise is enough for home minister Amit Shah for this unprecedented and near-total elimination of Maoists in central India. But now, for the future of post-Maoist central India, the region needs Amit Shah in his other role even more—that of the Minister of Cooperation. I never quite understood why, apart from home affairs, Amit Shah was given only the cooperation ministry. But whatever the reason, tribal central India, and places like Bastar, now need his second ministry more urgently.
It is said that Bastar’s original name was Bans-Tari—the land under the shade of bamboo. Bamboo grows abundantly there, but because of decades of Maoist violence, almost no bamboo harvesting took place. That has now begun. Yet there is not a single bamboo-based industry across Bastar. This bamboo will now travel to paper mills in neighboring Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, for which tribal communities may receive only Rs 4–6 per kilogram. As roads are finally being built in Bastar’s interior regions, paper mills may eventually come up there too. But past experience shows that such large modern industries create very little employment for local tribal people, while almost all profits flow outside the region.
Can a cooperative experiment based on bamboo khadi be attempted in this now “liberated” Bastar alongside paper mills? Large factories already exist that produce bamboo fabric, though they also pollute the environment heavily through the chemicals they use. Bamboo fabric is fashionable today. Khadi may neither be produced nor worn widely anymore, but bamboo khadi could provide work to the very hands that once held guns. Men could extract fiber from bamboo while women weave cloth from it. Of course, if our only objective is maximum profit, this may appear to be a losing proposition.
Back in 1980, when Indira Gandhi tried to find a solution to the Naxalite problem in Central India, she reportedly received two suggestions. First, ensure that tribal people get fair prices for forest produce. Second, somehow convert their agriculture from single-crop to double-crop farming. The argument was simple: if tribal communities remain occupied in farming for eight months of the year, they would happily spend the remaining four months singing and dancing, with little time left for rebellion. Today, after leaving the Maoist movement, many surrendered tribal cadres are completely unemployed—and nearly half the Maoist ranks were women.
Like bamboo, mahua also grows in abundance in central India’s forests. As soon as roads arrive, liquor factories based on mahua are likely to follow. Yet tribal gatherers may still receive only Rs 30–40 per kilogram for mahua flowers. In Gujarat, the cooperative experiment of Amul remains one of the greatest success stories in the cooperative sector even after several decades. People are now asking: can a similar experiment be attempted here through a “Bastar Mahua Union Limited”—perhaps nicknamed “BIMUL”? Since Abujhmad was once the unofficial capital of the Maoists, if such an experiment succeeds there, it too could perhaps become another “Amul.”
The success of Gujarat’s Amul cooperative movement was made possible by managers like Verghese Kurien and political leaders like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Will these new experiments receive the support of a new “Sardar”? Before the Bastar Development Plan—proposed at Indira Gandhi’s insistence to counter Naxalism—could take shape, Sikh militants assassinated her in 1984. In 1980, only 1.6% of Bastar’s land was irrigated. Astonishingly, forty-five years later, even as Maoists are retreating, the figure remains the same: 1.6%.
But today, sectors like solar energy have advanced dramatically. With an investment of Rs 2–5 lakh, every farmer’s land could potentially be irrigated. The Union Home Ministry has reportedly spent at least Rs 3,500 crore annually on security in Bastar. There are around seven lakh farmers in the region. The same Rs 3,500 crore could potentially double the income of every farmer in Bastar.
For the first time after the anti-Maoist operations, the home minister is scheduled to visit Bastar next week. To hear the voices of Gondi-speaking tribal communities living deep inside central India’s forests—people who have held guns for the past forty-five years—he could also encourage experiments such as Artificial Intelligence Radio (AI-R). The Maoist problem in central India was, fundamentally, a problem of broken communication, which the Maoists exploited. The planning for a Maoist-free central India of the future must now also begin by listening to the voices of tribal communities themselves.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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