Ongoing as a low level insurgency India[1] Militias: (until 2011)[2] Naxalites: Droupadi Murmu (President) Narendra Modi (Prime Minister) Amit Shah(Minister of Home Affairs) Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar (Director General) Pranay Sahay (Former Director General)[20] Mahendra Karma † (Leader of Salwa Judum) The Naxalite–Maoist insurgency is an ongoing conflict between left-wing extremist groups and the Indian government.

The insurgency started after the 1967 Naxalbari uprising and the subsequent split of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leading to the creation of a Marxist–Leninist faction.

The faction splintered into various groups supportive of Maoist ideology, claiming to fight a rural rebellion and people's war against the government.

The insurgency reached its peak in the late 2000s with almost 180 affected districts and has been on the decline since then due to the counter-insurgency actions and development plans formulated by the Indian government.

In May 1967, the Siliguri Kishan Sabha, of which Santhal was the president, declared their support for the movement initiated by Sanyal and their readiness to adopt an armed struggle to redistribute land to the landless.

[35] The group advocated initiation of armed struggle and in Naxalbari in West Bengal, the peasants fought when a sharecropper of tribal background, who had been given land by the courts under the tenancy laws, was attacked by the previous landlord's men.

[36][37][38] In November 1967, a group led by Sushital Ray Chowdhury organised the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR).

[39] The uprising led to the formation of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (CPI-ML) in April 1969, which was announced by Sanyal at a mass meeting in Calcutta.

He also declared an "annihilation line" and issued a dictum to assassinate individual "class enemies" such as landlords, businessmen, teachers, police officers, politicians and others.

[51][52] As a result of both external repression and a failure to maintain internal unity, the movement degenerated into extreme sectarianism and the original party fractured into more than 40 separate small groups.

The states established special laws that enabled police to capture and detain Naxalite cadres, fighters and presumed supporters.

[58] They invited additional central paramilitary forces, set up organisations to attract youth away from the Naxalites, started rehabilitation programs for those who surrendered.

[70] In August 2005, the government of Andhra Pradesh outlawed the CPI-Maoist party and other affiliated organisations and arrested suspected members and sympathizers of the group.

[68] The Indian government announced a nationwide initiative called the Integrated Action Plan for broad coordinated operations aimed at combatting and undermining support for the Naxalites in selected states.

[88][89] The Indian government launched a massive military offensive, code named Operation Green Hunt and planned to deploy nearly 50,000 soldiers over two years, with the objectives of eliminating Naxal insurgents and bringing stability to the regions.

[101] The Government of Madhya Pradesh claimed that the Naxal insurgency has reduced in the state and attributed its success to the rural development schemes.

[104][105] In early 2012, the Naxalites kidnapped foreign nationals and a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Odisha to force the government to release its cadres held as prisoners.

[133][134] As of the early 2020s, the Naxal activity is largely concentrated in two clusters, the first in and round the forested remote hilly areas of Dandakaranya spread across Chhattisgarh and Odisha and the second in the border region of Jharkhand-Bihar-West Bengal.

[140] In 2010, Home secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai acknowledged that there were legitimate grievances regarding the local people's access to the forest land and produce and the distribution of benefits from mining and hydropower developments.

[141] The Indian government launched three schemes–Special Central Assistance (SCA), Security Related Expenditure (SRE), and Special Infrastructure Scheme (SIS) for the economic development of the Naxal-affected areas.

Government of Madhya Pradesh aided 23,113 women self-help groups covering 274,000 families in the affected districts and established 18 industries that would employ 4000 people.

[151][152][153][154] According to the Institute of Peace and Conflict studies, while Naxal groups recruited children in different capacities and exposed them, the same accusation was levelled at Salwa Judum and the special police officers assisting the government security forces.

The commission, which had been appointed by the Supreme Court of India, determined that the Salwa Judum was a spontaneous reaction by tribals against Maoist atrocities perpetrated against them.

[159] As per the South Asia Terrorism portal, the conflict has resulted in the deaths of more than 11500 people including 4000 civilians, 2500 security force personnel and 4500 Naxalites since the 2000s.