How Maoism-hit landscape of Chhatisgarh changed this year

As recently as three years ago, no one would have imagined that one could enter Puvarti village of Sukma district without permission from the Maoists.

- Ritesh Mishra

RAIPUR: The reason: It was the village that was home to one of the deadliest Maoist commanders, Mandvi Hidma, and more than three dozen top cadres.

Even journalists were not allowed to enter the village as it was a war zone for the Maoists. However, on December 14 this year, children and the elderly in the village were seen eagerly watching TV for the first time since television came to India in the late 1950s.

"It is like a dream. No one had ever watched TV in my village. No one had seen solar lights and fans," said Banjam Madgu, a resident of Puvarti. It was because after four decades, Puvarti was connected to the world when on February 16, security forces managed to open a camp in the village.

There was no school, no hospital, not even a gram panchayat building back then, but now things have changed. A school is being built and other amenities are being provided by the district administration with the help of security forces. Puvarti is on the border of Sukma and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh's Bastar range, the arena of a deadly battle between security forces and the banned CPI (Maoist) - a battle once called India's gravest "internal security challenge" by PM Manmohan Singh in 2006, and the focus of every state and Centre since Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000.

In Bastar, where the violence has been most severe, all seven districts - Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Dantewada, Bijapur, and Sukma - are categorized as "left wing extremism" affected by the Union government.

Things have been changing in Bastar in the last one year as security forces are entering the deep forest which was the core area of the Maoists. Recently, we have opened a new camp in Golaguda, which is about 7km deeper than Puvarti into the jungles. These camps will give a significant boost to the government's campaign against left wing extremism (LWE)," said a senior police officer.