• Naxalism (also called Left-Wing Extremism, LWE) traces its origin to the 1967 peasant uprising at Naxalbari in West Bengal, led by radical CPI(M) cadres who broke away to pursue an armed, Maoist path to agrarian revolution.
• The movement splintered through the 1970s–90s before consolidating in 2004 with the merger of the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre of India into the CPI (Maoist), banned as a terrorist organisation under the UAPA.
• At its peak (2005–10), LWE violence spread across a contiguous “Red Corridor” running through Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh/Telangana and parts of West Bengal — then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it “the single biggest internal security challenge” facing India.
• Since 2015, a coordinated security-plus-development approach under the National Policy and Action Plan has steadily shrunk the movement’s geographic and operational footprint.

Ideological and Social Roots

• The movement draws its cadre base overwhelmingly from Adivasi (tribal) and other marginalised communities in mineral-rich, forested, and historically under-governed regions.
• Core grievances include land alienation, denial of rights over forest produce, displacement by mining and infrastructure projects without adequate rehabilitation, and the near-total absence of formal state institutions — schools, health centres, banks, courts — in affected areas.
• Maoist ideology frames these local grievances within a larger goal of overthrowing the Indian state through a “protracted people’s war,” combining guerrilla violence with parallel “Janatana Sarkar” governance structures in areas beyond state control.

• Residual violence is now concentrated in a handful of “worst-affected” districts — chiefly in the Bastar division of Chhattisgarh — where dense forest cover and difficult terrain continue to favour guerrilla tactics over conventional counter-insurgency.
• IED (landmine) attacks on security convoys remain the leading cause of security-force casualties, even as overall incident numbers decline.
• Allegations of human rights violations during anti-Naxal operations — including encounter killings and displacement of tribal villagers — have periodically drawn criticism from civil society and constrained the state’s moral authority in affected areas.
• An “Urban Naxal” network of ideological sympathisers, alleged to provide funding, legal cover and propaganda support from cities, complicates the security narrative and has become a contested political issue.
• Cadre attrition through security operations has not fully translated into durable peace — rehabilitation and last-mile livelihood support for surrendered cadre and affected villagers remain uneven across states.