Home Minister promised Parliament that Naxalism would be eliminated by March 31, 2026. With 6 days to go, 5 Chhattisgarh districts still require heavy military deployments, proving that insurgencies respect PowerPoint deadlines about as much as they respect ceasefire requests.
In what may be the most ambitious calendar-based counterinsurgency strategy ever attempted, Union Home Minister Amit Shah assured Rajya Sabha that Naxalism would be completely eliminated from India by March 31, 2026. With the deadline now less than a week away, The Tribune reports that Chhattisgarh alone still accounts for five of eight districts requiring heavy security force deployments — Bijapur, Sukma, Narayanpur, Kanker, and Dantewada. The government has reported 287 extremists neutralised, nearly 1,000 arrested, and 837 surrendered in the past year, which is impressive progress by any measure except the measure of "complete elimination by a specific date announced on national television." The strategy of announcing deadlines for ending decades-old insurgencies is itself a proud Indian tradition, previously applied with equal success to poverty, corruption, and open defecation.