Naxalism in India: Agrarian Tensions, Political Movement, and Development Challenges

In 1967, oppressed peasants armed with bows and arrows rose against feudal landowners in a small village called Naxalbari in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district. What began as a localized peasant uprising would evolve into one of India’s most persistent internal security challenges, spanning decades and affecting vast stretches of the country. Understanding Naxalism requires examining its deep roots in India’s nationalist movement, the government’s policy failures, and the developmental deficit that continues to fuel agrarian discontent in tribal regions.

Historical roots in the nationalist movement
Government mishandling and movement expansion
The Red Corridor emerges
The Planning Commission’s development perspective
Key findings of the Expert Group
A political movement requiring political solutions
The question of dialogue
The continuing challenge

Historical roots in the nationalist movement

The Naxalite movement did not emerge in isolation. Its origins are intertwined with the complex history of communist politics in India and the country’s transition to independence. The subaltern school of historians, most notably represented by Ranajit Guha, offers a critical perspective on this period. Guha argued that 1947 witnessed what he termed a “passive revolution,” where peasant struggles were co-opted into a regime of “dominance without hegemony” by India’s upper classes and castes. According to this interpretation, the Indian bourgeoisie failed to integrate the vast areas of life and consciousness of the masses into an alternative hegemony, creating a structural split between elite and subaltern domains of politics.

Debates about the nature of India’s ruling formation and the path forward led to what historians call the “double split” within the communist movement. The Communist Party of India (CPI) first fractured in 1964, giving birth to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M). This split was influenced by the Sino-Soviet conflict, with younger members siding with China’s revolutionary approach against the older generation’s preference for parliamentary methods.

The second split occurred in 1967-69, triggered by the Naxalbari uprising itself. When oppressed peasants, led by radical communist leaders Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal, and Jangal Santhal, revolted against local landlords in Naxalbari, the CPI(M)-now part of a coalition government in West Bengal-found itself on the side of maintaining law and order against its own ideological brethren. This contradiction led to the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, with Majumdar’s “Historic Eight Documents” becoming the ideological foundation of what would be called the Naxalite movement.

Government mishandling and movement expansion

The state’s initial response to the Naxalbari uprising set a troubling precedent that would haunt India for decades. The 1969 Union Home Ministry report titled “Causes and Nature of Current Agrarian Tensions” issued a prescient warning: far-reaching agrarian reforms were urgently needed to prevent the “green revolution from becoming a red revolution.” The report recognized that the underlying causes of peasant unrest-landlessness, exploitation by landlords, and lack of access to resources-needed immediate attention.

Instead of addressing these root causes, the government chose brutal suppression. In 1971, Operation Steeplechase deployed the army and Central Reserve Police Force into West Bengal. The operation lasted 45 days and effectively crushed the first wave of the Naxalite movement. By 1972, Charu Majumdar was arrested and died in police custody. The original CPI-ML fractured into more than 40 separate groups, and for nearly two decades, the movement remained dormant.

However, suppression without structural reform only delayed the inevitable. The tensions re-emerged in the 1980s and gained momentum during the 1990s when India’s economic liberalization brought mining corporations and development projects into mineral-rich tribal areas. The numbers tell a stark story: from activity in one police station in one district in 1967, the movement spread to over 460 police stations in 160 districts across 14 states by 2007. Police budgets increased thousandfold, yet the movement continued to expand-demonstrating conclusively that police power alone cannot contain what is fundamentally a political problem.

The Red Corridor emerges

By the 2000s, the affected regions had become known as the “Red Corridor,” stretching from Nepal through Bihar and the forested tribal regions of central India down to Karnataka. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared in 2006 that Naxalism was “the single biggest security challenge ever faced by our country.” The situation reached a critical point when the People’s War Group merged with the Maoist Communist Centre on September 21, 2004, creating the Communist Party of India (Maoist). This consolidation significantly enhanced the movement’s firepower, organizational capacity, and geographic reach.

The Planning Commission’s development perspective

Recognizing the limitations of a purely security-centric approach, the Planning Commission established an Expert Group in May 2006 to analyze the socio-economic situations in extremist-affected areas. The resulting 2008 report, “Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas,” marked a significant departure from prevailing official attitudes toward the Naxalite movement.

The Expert Group, which included veteran administrators, retired police officers, human rights activists, and academics, visited Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha-the states comprising the Central Tribal Belt where the movement was strongest. Their findings were revealing: the development paradigm pursued since Independence had been insensitive to the needs of marginalized communities. For Adivasis in particular, development projects generated multiple conflicts, undermined communal solidarity, and increased vulnerability to exploitation.

Key findings of the Expert Group

The report documented disturbing facts about displacement and marginalization. According to a study cited in the report, approximately 60 million people were displaced by development projects between 1947 and 2004. Of these, 40 percent were Adivasis and 20 percent were Dalits. Only one-third of all displaced persons were ever resettled. Land acquisition emerged as the single largest cause of involuntary displacement and landlessness among tribal populations.

The Expert Group argued forcefully that the problem should be understood in a proper development perspective and handled politically and administratively rather than through brute police force. They criticized the simplistic law-and-order framing that dominated official understanding, noting that this approach undermined social and economic amelioration instruments. The report rejected the official “security-centric” approach and instead advocated for an “ameliorative approach with emphasis on a negotiated solution.”

Particularly significant was the report’s finding that in areas under Maoist influence, the insurgents were actually carrying out reforms that the executive ought to have implemented. They were replacing the judiciary and police in ensuring law and order for the poor and oppressed. In Bihar, for instance, land declared beyond the ceiling that landlords could own remained in government possession for years without being redistributed-until Naxalites intervened.

A political movement requiring political solutions

The Expert Group’s analysis fundamentally reframed the Naxalite issue. They demonstrated that Naxalism is essentially a political movement with a strong base among landless and poor peasantry and Adivasis. This movement emerged from social conditions and experiences shaped by the huge gap between state policy and performance.

While the professed long-term ideology of the CPI(Maoist) involves capturing state power through armed struggle, the report emphasized that day-to-day manifestations of the movement represent fights for social justice, equality, protection against exploitation, and local development. The movement provides protection for the weak against the powerful-a function the state had failed to perform. Poverty, deprivation, oppression, neglect, and lack of access to basic resources remained the main reasons for discontent.

The question of dialogue

The Expert Group raised a pointed question: why did different preconditions apply to dialogue with Naxalites compared to negotiations with rebels in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, and Nagaland? The central government had demonstrated willingness to negotiate with various armed groups across the country, yet maintained a predominantly militaristic stance toward the Naxalites. The report urged that doors to negotiation should remain open.

The group recommended that disparities in physical, developmental, and social infrastructure be removed in Naxal-affected districts on a priority basis. They called for effective implementation of protective legislation like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (2005), the Forest Rights Act (2006), and proper rehabilitation policies for displaced populations.

The report also strongly criticized the formation of vigilante squads like Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, noting that such counter-insurgency tactics had aggravated the problem rather than solving it. Instead, they recommended creating an “empowered task force” to protect people and address their grievances-arguing this would be the best strategy to eliminate the influence of radical left groups.

The continuing challenge

More than fifteen years after the Expert Group’s report, India continues to grapple with the Naxalite challenge. While security operations have reduced the geographic spread of the movement-from 126 affected districts in 2014 to about 12 by 2025-the underlying issues of land alienation, displacement, and denial of forest rights persist in many tribal areas. The tension between development imperatives and protection of indigenous communities remains unresolved.

The Naxalite movement’s longevity points to a fundamental lesson: armed movements rooted in genuine grievances cannot be resolved through force alone. As the Planning Commission report noted, the sense of alienation among affected populations needs to be addressed by creating a positive image of the government through actual delivery of services and justice. The history of communism in India itself provides examples-both the CPI and CPI(M) eventually abandoned armed struggle for parliamentary politics.

What do you think? Can development initiatives truly address the root causes of Naxalism, or do they risk becoming tools of displacement themselves? How might India balance the legitimate security concerns with the political and developmental approach recommended by experts?

References

PDF 📄

Naxalism in India: Agrarian Tensions, Political Movement, and Development Challenges

Table of Contents

Historical roots in the nationalist movement 🔗

Government mishandling and movement expansion 🔗

The Red Corridor emerges 🔗

The Planning Commission’s development perspective 🔗

Key findings of the Expert Group 🔗

A political movement requiring political solutions 🔗

The question of dialogue 🔗

The continuing challenge 🔗