“From Red Zones to Growth Corridors”, India Narrative, December 05, 2025
“For decades, the map of India’s internal conflict has had a deep red stain over the forests of Chhattisgarh. In districts like Bastar, Sukma, and Bijapur, the Maoist insurgency has not only taken thousands of lives but has also mounted an assault on development itself. The tragedy of Chhattisgarh is not only that violence has persisted—it is that violence has denied some of India’s poorest citizens the very tools that could have lifted them out of deprivation.
In the thickly wooded stretches of the state, Maoists have long understood a simple truth: infrastructure is the enemy of insurgency. A road makes it harder to hide. A phone tower makes it easier for the state to govern. A school alters a child’s sense of the possible. And so, for years, these symbols of modern life were systematically destroyed. Mobile towers toppled. High-tension power lines blown up. Roads and bridges repeatedly mined, rebuilt, then mined again. Schools and hostels—often the only public buildings in remote tribal hamlets—reduced to rubble.
The economic cost has been staggering. Chhattisgarh is one of India’s mineral powerhouses, contributing 17 percent of the nation’s mineral production in 2022–23. But in Maoist-dominated pockets, mining trucks were ambushed, contractors threatened, and entire operations stalled. Forest-produce markets, central to tribal livelihoods, were disrupted. Agriculture suffered as the movement of goods became too dangerous. In many districts, the economy resembled a machine running only on half its gears…….”
Read full article at indianarrative.com
