Bijapur and Dantewada, Chhattisgarh: It was the summer of 2004 when 4-year-old Sanju Mandavi first saw the young uniformed men and women in his home village of Usur, in southern Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, a land of tribals, or Adivasis, wracked for decades by low nutrition levels, little access to good healthcare and a Maoist insurgency.

It was the year the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre, two of the largest armed left-wing guerrilla groups in India merged to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist). 

The Maoists—as the members of the Party came to be known—became a voice for innumerable tribals aggrieved by their place at the bottom of India’s economic ladder and the handover of their land to mining companies. Young Adivasis aspired to join the ranks of the insurgents. 

“I was really attracted to the uniform,” Mandavi, a lean, soft-spoken man aged 25, told Article 14, sitting in a bare-walled room in one of the large police camps near Dantewada in southern Chhattisgarh. “Which young boy is not?

”In 2010, aged 10, he had joined the Maoists in their fight to overthrow the Indian State. His main motivation was to eat better than his parents and two brothers, he said, who were eating the local millets they harvested. 

There were no schools in his village, so his options were to join the rebels or continue to do hard farm labour with his father.

The Communist Party of India (Maoist) or CPI (Maoist), banned in June 2009, claimed in an October 2004 press statement that the Republic of India was a “semi-colonial, semi-feudal system”. 

Since then, along with its military wing, the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army, the CPI (Maoist) has taken on the security forces, with guerillas like Mandavi killing hundreds of police and elite paramilitary troops and civilians not aligned with their goals. 

The End Game?

The Maoists and their splinter groups were once spread across large parts of northern and eastern India, covering about one third of the country’s territory. 

The conflict, which has lasted for over five decades, has cost more than 10,000 lives, including those of civilians, security forces and Maoists.

In 2009, when the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called Maoism “the biggest internal security threat to India,” Maoists were present in 20 of the country’s 28 states. 

However, in the past few years, violent conflict has been restricted to parts of Jharkhand, Odisha and Maharashtra. But, the epicentre is Southern Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, which includes the districts of Kondagaon, Kanker, Bastar, Dantewada, Sukhma, Narayanpur and Mandavi’s home district of Bijapur.

Dry deciduous forests cover more than 30% of Bastar, where about 70% of the population comprise Adivasi communities.

On 6 October 2023, union home minister Amit Shah said his government was determined to end the Maoist insurgency within two years.

The security forces began patrolling more and more areas, setting up camps inside the forests, recruiting informers and ambushing the rebels.

On 9 February 2025, Shah revised that deadline to 31 March 2026. A week later, on 15 February, inspector general of Bastar Range, Sundarraj Pattilingam, told the Indian Express that the security forces would win the war “in the next few months”.

Credited with tilting the war against the Maoists is an Adivasi-only unit called the District Reserve Guards (DRG), according to all the senior police we spoke to for this story, staffed often by former Maoists. 

Civil society organisations, such as the People’s Union For Civil Liberties, have released multiple reports alleging that the DRGs are involved in widespread extrajudicial killings, with 11 instances in 2024 itself.

‘I Now Wear A Different Uniform’

When Sanju Mandavi was 16, he was recruited as militia, the lowest rank in the Maoist hierarchy. His main job was to alert others to police movement in the area. 

As he rose through the ranks of the Maoist Party, his disagreements with his fellow cadre increased. “It was never about ideology,” he said. “It was always something logistical: who gets to eat what, who does what work and the like.”

In December 2021, after 11 years of fighting the war as a Maoist, Mandavi gave up his arms and uniform and surrendered to the police. 

Once a Maoist surrenders, he or she is restricted to one room in a police camp for a few days during which, senior police officers repeatedly interrogate them, according to Gaurav Rai, superintendent of police (SP), Dantewada. The number of interrogations and how rigorous they are depend on their rank in the Maoist Party.

Mandavi was asked, for instance, what village he was from, what his family does, significant moments while he was a Maoist, the training he received, who other Maoists from his village were, and their ranks and whereabouts.

These questions were asked repeatedly by different police officers. Once they had verified some of the information with other sources, they offered him and his wife a place to stay, Mandavi said. 

A couple of months later, he was in training to be a DRG commando, to fight his former comrades. “I now wear a different uniform,” he said, and added that he started with a clean slate, the cases against him for being a Maoist being dropped.

Mandavi is now a one-star officer, equivalent to an assistant sub-inspector with the police.

‘Protracted Guerrilla War’

For decades, the security forces were making small advances, if any, against the rebels. 

“That is the nature of a protracted guerrilla war,” said Rai, the Dantewada SP. 

The guerrillas carried out what they call a tactical counter-offensive campaign, where they ambushed the security forces, aiming to cause maximum damage and then quickly retreat to lay low for many months. 

“They do this once a year on average,” said Rai. “This follows the pattern of the guerrilla warfare we witnessed in Vietnam or Cuba [in the 1960s and 70s].” 

Most of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers, Border Security Force (BSF) and even the leadership of the Chhattisgarh police are not from the region.

They are not intimately familiar with local languages, such as Gondi or Halbi, Adivasi culture or terrain of the forested hills. 

In the past, they paid a high price for this lack of knowledge. 

In April 2010, about 300 Maoists ambushed and killed 76 CRPF men in Chintalnar village of Dantewada, just 80 km south of what is now Rai’s office.

India's then home minister P Chidambaram had said that it appeared that the forces had "walked" into a rebel ambush by returning to the police base via the same route they had come. 

“We have to be careful every single time,” said inspector general of police, Bastar Range, Sundarraj Pattilingam. “They have to get it right only once.

”Three years later, in May 2013, a Maoist attack killed 27 people along with a former minister, Mahendra Karma and a senior Congress minister V C Shukla, in Darbha Valley of Sukma district. 

‘DRG Flipped The Battle’

But the tide turned in late 2022, senior officers said.

“DRGs flipped the battle for us,” said Smruthik Rajanala, additional SP (operations), Dantewada, who has led all  major operations of 2024. 

Although DRG units existed since 2008, over the last two years their recruitment increased manifold. 

In 2015, the combined strength of the force in the seven districts of Bastar was 1,700, according to the Chhattisgarh government. But today, every district SP has anywhere between 400-500 DRGs at his disposal, said Rai. 

To boost the forces fighting the Maoists, a special unit called the Bastar Fighters was set up in 2022. Young Adivasis in the Bastar Fighters were given training equivalent to that received by police constables. 

They are not very different from the DRGs, except their training is roughly half the duration.

“Now, we have 200-300 more men [per district] if we combine the Bastar Fighters as well,” said Rai, the Dantewada SP.

In 2024, security forces said they killed 287 Maoists in the Bastar region, more than 10 times the number the previous year. Security forces shot dead at least 80 alleged Maoists this year until 10 February 2025—including 31 on 9 February.

Combat training from a young age, exhaustive knowledge of the forests, basic understanding of first-aid and the ability to speak different languages make former Maoists invaluable combatants. 

“They are a killer force,” said Rai, referring to the DRG.

‘We Know How Maoists Think’

While senior officers could not give the ratio of surrendered Maoists to those directly recruited to the force, they said that the surrendered cadre had a major role to play in the success of the operations. 

Sanjay Potam, known by his nickname Badru, used to be the divisional committee member of Maoist Party in the Darbha region on the Dantewada-Sukma border. 

He surrendered in 2013 and since then has risen in the ranks of the DRG to become an officer, equivalent to the rank of an assistant sub-inspector. He has been awarded three presidential medals for his bravery.

“In the Dantewada and Sukma region, I can point out with confidence the villages in which people genuinely believe in the Maoist cause, in which they are with the Maoists out of desperation and in which there are no Maoists at all,” Potam told Article 14.

The security forces attribute their success in the fight against the Maoists to this accurate information. “Not only do we know how the Maoists function, we know how they think,” said Mandavi, who surrendered in December 2021.

In the jungles of south Chhattisgarh or eastern Maharashtra, forest villages are hard to access and most young people grew up disconnected to the state as elections were not conducted, schools were few and far between, hospitals were non-existent and ration cards were hard to come by. 

“When I was born, we used to be scared of the police,” said Potam, who is from Pusnar village in the Gangalur sub-district of Bijapur. “Naxals would talk to us, teach us, play with us.”

Mandavi was 10 when he joined the Bal Sanghatan, the children’s wing of the CPI (Maoist), in his village of Palaguda in Usur tehsil of Bijapur district.He formally joined the Party at 16. After a few months of training, Mandavi finally got what he had set his eyes on—“the Maoist uniform including the boots, cap and rifle”, he said and laughed. 

Growing Up Among The Rebels

Mandavi said his family mostly ate the local millets, which his father worked long hours to plant and harvest. 

His mother gathered forest produce, such as fruits, seeds and edible leaves. 

“In such a situation, a Maoist leader called Jyotakka gave me biscuits and tea from time to time,” said Mandavi, about the Maoist he had grown fond of as a young child. 

He remembers Jyotakka largely keeping to herself and spending time sewing clothes on an old sewing machine. 

In May 2023, 38-year-old Nerella Jyothi alias Jyothakka, surrendered before the police commissioner of Karimnagar, in central Telangana. She had a reward of Rs 500,000 against her name.

Since there was no school in their village, children would play, sing revolutionary songs Maoists taught and run around, Mandavi said. “There was nothing else to do in the village,” he said.

S*, 25, remembered being a part of the Chaitra Natya Manch, the Maoist wing that sings songs and performs street plays to create awareness on economic inequalities, deforestation, indiscriminate mining and water pollution, among other issues. 

“I used to love singing songs,” he said. 

S joined the Maoists in 2015, when they came from door-to-door requesting parents to send at least one of their children to join the ‘struggle’. 

“I was the middle child,” S laughed, explaining why he was picked. “You know, the least loved.” 

Today, S holds a rank equivalent to an assistant sub inspector in the DRG. 

Starting Young

Almost every young person who joined the Bal Sanghatan was between the ages of 11 and 15. 

“That is mainly to understand their ideology,” said Sundari Korram, 35, who joined the Maoists in 2006, when she was 15. “There is no combat. You can think of it as an informal school.”

Korram studied in a Jantana School, a school that Maoists run, where they teach the Maoist ideology along with basic mathematics, Hindi and the English alphabet. 

“I think I studied enough to be able to sign my name in Hindi,” said Korram, who joined the DRG’s all woman team, Dantewshwari Fighters, in 2019.

She surrendered in 2014, disillusioned with the Maoist ideology, along with her husband who used to be in the Maoist press team printing pamphlets and issuing press releases. 

Korram’s education in the Jantana School and some real life experience was enough to qualify her as a nurse or a compounder. 

The Maoists organised teams of doctors from towns and cities who went to the forests and spent anywhere between two weeks to two months training locals. 

“They taught us how to clean up the wounds, administer IV fluids, stitch up wounds and hand out medication for malaria, diarrhoea and vomiting,” Korram said.

S, the middle child, said the Maoists taught new recruits how to ambush the police, how to save themselves from an attack and dig trenches as a part of their guerilla training. 

“They give out rifles only after two to three months of training,” he said. 

Knowing different languages added value.“I knew some Hindi and Telugu, that was an advantage. I could translate from Gondi to those languages,” he said, explaining why he rose in the Party’s ranks.

“When we are patrolling the forests, sometimes we eat food that is slightly stale or is about to go bad,” said Korram, because forest dwellers understand that food is not always easily available. “But those who are not from the forests don’t understand that.”

Boundaries Don’t Matter

When the rebels were looking to flee after an ambush, one of their strategies was to cross district and state boundaries.

The villages on the Telangana, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh border districts were not just remote and forested but also gave the rebels the ease to move out of the jurisdiction where the incident occurred. 

The police of one jurisdiction would need to work through the red tape to collaborate with forces of other jurisdictions. “The same is true of the entire Bastar region,” said Rai.

“We know now that the most number of Maoists have been cornered in the villages on the borders of Narayanpur, Bijapur and Sukma,” said Potam, the DRG commando, “because they can ambush the forces in Sukma and easily cross over to Dantewada to hide from the Sukma police.”

Since 2023, Dantwada SP Rai said, teams of security forces from different districts have been working together. “Joint operations between districts have broken the backs of the Maoists,” he added.

The security forces seem to have borrowed this tactic straight out of the Maoist playbook. 

Potam said the Maoists have platoons in different districts, who come together to swell their numbers in order to combat the state forces during tactical counter-offensive campaigns. 

“They don’t have enough men or arms to fight the State, so once a year they get all the platoons together for a major operation,” he said. 

Propelled By Information

In 2012, security forces opened fire on Advaisis celebrating Beej Pandum—a local festival celebrating the sowing of crops—in Sarkeguda village of Bijapur, mistaking it for a Maoist meeting.

Seventeen people, including seven children, were killed. 

Such lapses in intelligence had been reduced considerably in recent years, said Rai.

The security forces now rely heavily on drone surveillance and remote planning. 

“70% of the success is due to tech,” said Rajanala, the additional SP.

On 4 October 2024, about 700 security forces led by the DRG surrounded a portion of the forest on Kohameta hill near the village of Thultuli in Narayanpur district and engaged the Maoists in a 9 hour long gun battle.

The operation claimed the lives of 35 rebels while no security personnel were harmed.

“That operation relied majorly on technology like GPS mapping and drones,” said Rajanala, who led the teams, adding that he cannot reveal any more details.

Along with tech, they use intelligence gained from people like Mandavi, who fought with the Maoists for 15 years. 

On 24 April 2017, the rebels ambushed a CRPF battalion between the villages of Burkapal and Chintagufa in Sukma district. “Our leader Hidma told me that we might get 10-12 soldiers,” said Mandavi. “I thought it was good enough if we got even one.”

About 300 Maoists cordoned off an area of about 6-7 kilometres and made small teams, Mandavi explained. “We fired for about one and a half hours or so from all directions,” he said. 

Maoists killed 25 police personnel in the encounter. “That was a huge success,” Mandavi said. 

Security personnel use the experience of people like Mandavi and plan out their operations in advance. “Planning is done in the headquarters,” said Rai, with senior SPs of various districts present.

 Earlier, the officer in-charge would plan out the offensive in the field. “In the past, the officer present had to plan as he went along, which was not very efficient,” he said. 

Camps, Camps & More Camps 

Once a police camp is established, an area of 50 to 60 km around the camp gradually turns off-limits to the Maoists, effectively stopping them from holding meetings in villages, IGP Pattilingam said. “They can’t hold meetings or recruit openly around the camps,” he said.

Once Potam joined the DRG, he said he petitioned senior officers to establish camps on the road between Gangalur and Mirtul in Bijapur district. “That would cut through the core area of the Maoists,” he said. 

In addition, Maoist influence would be restricted in his village of Pusnar, which falls in the same area. “Today, they have established five camps on that road,” Potam added.In 2024 alone, 30 new camps were built across Bastar, said Pattilingam, bringing the total to more than 250.

Nine of the new camps were set up in Abujhmad, with the 9th on 8 February 2024. Over the previous two decades, only four camps were constructed in Abujhmad. 

Initially, when the camps were established, Potam said, people from his villages called him names and asked for the camps to be removed. “But, I told them that having a camp in the area meant that they didn't have to walk 12 km to fetch rice,” he said. 

Every time a camp is established, Pattilingam said schools, hospitals and commercial activity follow.

N*, a 33-year-old villager from Pusnar, acknowledged that their village was better connected than it used to be, but said they did not feel free anymore.

“We are always under the watch of the security forces,” N added, under conditions of anonymity because they feared for their life.

Are DRGs Salwa Judum Reincarnated? 

In 2005, a civilian militia force—Salwa Judum, literally meaning "peace march" in Gondi—was deployed as a part of counterinsurgency operations in Chhattisgarh. 

Observers called it a “state sponsored vigilante force”. There were widespread allegations of extrajudicial killings, burning entire villages and forcing millions of people to flee into the jungles. 

Potam, was studying in class five in the government school in Gangalur, when many villages in his area were attacked by the Salwa Judum. 

“I hid in the forests along with dozens of people from my village for six months,” said Potam. “At that time, the Maoists told us that Judum will kill us anyway, at least if we joined the rebels, we could die defending ourselves.”

That day, 30 people from his village joined the rebels, at Maoist leader Ganesh VK’s encouragement, he added. 

In April 2008, the Supreme Court directed the Chhattisgarh government to not support Salwa Judum. 

Himanshu Kumar, an activist who filed a case against the Salwa Judum in the Supreme Court, said that the DRGs are nothing but the Special Police Officers of the Salwa Judum era. 

“We have reports that the DRGs are savage and indulge in extrajudicial killings and other atrocities,” he added. 

Members of the Salwa Judum, which the Supreme Court declared illegal and unconstitutional in 2011, are now fighting for the security forces, wrote Rahul Pandita, author of a book on Bastar. “Many of its members were then absorbed into the DRG.” 

Rajanala said the DRGs were not civilian militia.

“They are trained in police academies, where sensitivity training—meaning how to deal with local populations who are innocent—is crucial,” he said, contrasting them to Judum fighters who were civilians without any training. 

Moreover, Rajanala said, the DRGs use weapons only after authorisation. “Every bullet is accounted for.” 

It is the question of accountability that bothers Dantewada-based human rights lawyer Bela Bhatia. 

“Over the years, in different incidents, ground enquiries have confirmed villagers’ allegations that their family members who were not Maoists were killed by the security forces,” she said. 

“In many of those instances, witnesses could name members of the DRG, who they recognized because they used to come to their villagers when they were Maoists,” said Bhatia. “They named these persons in the complaints they filed in police stations against the alleged fake encounters.”

“But did the government—even in a single case—take punitive action?" said Bhatia. 

"It is clear that the police and paramilitary forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Bastar enjoy unquestioned impunity.” she said.

Jumping Ship

Asked whether they jumped ship to fight for the other side because of the immunity the security forces afforded them, all the DRGs interviewed for this story said they did not. 

Each had a different reason. 

Korram’s father was the sarpanch, or village council head, of Bhatbeda village in Narayanpur district. “As the village head, he had to interact with the healthcare workers or those who were responsible for making ration cards or even the police,” she said. 

Even though she was a part of the Maoist organisation and her father was vocal about his support for the Maoist ideology, Korram said the rebels beat him a few weeks after she left the party. 

He allegedly bled to death. 

Since then, her two brothers and their families have been living in Narayanpur town, for fear of being attacked if they lived in their village.

“I asked the senior most leaders in the central committee how this was fair,” she said, explaining that her father was only working to bring in food grains and medicines to his village.

As a nurse, she was expected to visit other towns and cities to collect medical supplies. “I saw what access to goods and medicines can do to a community,” she said. “Why were my villagers being kept from those essentials?”

Mandavi used to be a courier in the Maoist Party, because he knew how to ride a motorcycle. He said the Maoists asked him to carry heavy luggage or drop older party members to different places.

 “But I used to work for several days without sufficient rest or food,” he said, adding that living in the forests was tough.

Maoists held meetings called “Atmalochana, Alochana”, loosely translating to ‘introspective analysis’, during which, they claim, all hierarchies are dissolved. 

In those meetings, everyone is allowed to speak their minds. Mandavi voiced his concerns in a September 2021 meeting about some people working all the time while others did not. 

“The central committee team heard me out patiently and even agreed I was right,” he said. But, his local commanders were unhappy with him, he added. 

His wife, Tulshi, was stationed in a neighbouring rebel camp. “I wrote her a letter to be ready, took the bike, picked her up and rode all the way to Telangana,” he said. 

He surrendered in Dantewada after being on the run for two months and could not return to his village for fear of being killed. 

Potam, who was among the senior members of the Maoist Party in 2012, said he was forced to leave the party over petty differences. 

“I said we will not have mutton one day, but my platoon members wanted to eat mutton,” he said. 

While residing in the forests with limited supplies, cooking and eating meat is a rarity. “They said the money belongs to the party, not me.”

When Potam quit the party and went back to his village, the Maoists came and set up a Jan Adalat or a people’s court, he said, to decide if he was justified in quitting the party. 

“They decided they would break my limbs as punishment,” he said. 

Potam said he fled the village for Dantewada in 2014, at night, along with his wife. 

He worked odd jobs for about six months. “I then secured a job as a clerk in a government office,” he said. 

Some of his former comrades told him he might be found and killed as the senior Maoists feared he would share operational secrets with the police.

“So, I reached out to the police and asked for a job,” he said.

“Most people who exit the Maoist organisations have no option but to become policemen,” said Potam. “That is our only way of being protected.”

Monetary Benefits

Activist Himanshu Kumar said the problem with the DRG unit was that it takes the onus away from the State to create other employment opportunities. 

“It is the State’s responsibility to create jobs that will bring the Adivasi youth away from violence, instead of pushing them further into it,” said Kumar.

Along with promotions and medals, monetary rewards, running into millions of rupees are also provided as incentives for the DRG. 

“When Maoists are killed, the team responsible gets a predetermined amount as a reward,” said SP Rai, who explained that the reward increased depending on the seniority of the Maoist killed. 

On 22 January2025, Pratap Reddy Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapati (62), who was a central committee member of the Maoist Party, died in a police ambush, along with 14 other rebels. 

He carried a bounty of Rs 1 crore, which was distributed among the various security teams responsible for the operation, said IG Pattilingam. 

In August 2024, Scroll.in sourced police statements, either directly or through media reports, for 28 of 38 encounters conducted in 2024. The reward money for the ‘encounters’ totalled Rs 5.42 crore. 

“The total amount is likely to be higher since information was not available for 10 encounters,” Scroll reported. 

The report said many families disputed the claims that those killed were Maoists, raising questions of whether they were killed because of the financial incentives being offered. 

A Maoist press statement released two days after one of the biggest encounters of 2024, in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, alleged that of the 29 Maoists who were killed, only 12 people had been shot during the gunfight. 

The others, the Maoists claimed, had been rounded up and made to walk two kilometres to a memorial erected by the Maoists, where they were tortured and killed.

“I was a nurse, I would never torture anyone,” said Korram, denying allegations that monetary incentives push DRGs to kill those who could be captured and arrested.

SP Rai said that capturing a Maoist was more valuable to the security forces than killing them. “When we capture them, they come with invaluable intelligence about the Maoists,” he said. 

He added that there was no need to kill Maoists, as for every one killed, ten surrendered out of fear. 

According to figures from the Union Home Ministry, since January 2024, 812 Maoists were arrested and 723 have surrendered in Chhattisgarh.

A DRG commando, Maasa Madvi, who surrendered in 2023, said that he quit the Maoist Party because he saw the end approaching. 

“For those of us who live in the forests, Maoists were providing employment and food,” he said. “When we see that their hold is loosening, we will go where we find food and employment.” 

*Name changed on request.

(Raksha Kumar is a journalist focusing on human rights and social justice issues.)

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