Naxalism may have more or less ended by Union home minister Amit Shah’s March 31 deadline with the vast majority of Maoist leaders and armed cadre surrendering, but the question of who is accountable for two decades of killings, displacement and impunity remains unanswered.The last two years have seen intensive killings and extensive inducements aimed at getting Communist Party of India (Maoist) fighters to cross over to the government side. By official estimates, between 2024 and 2026, “a total of 706 Naxalites were killed in encounters, 2,218 were arrested, while 4,839 surrendered.” Barely a hundred or so cadres remain, and even these are either surrendering in dribs or drabs or being encountered, like Rupi, a woman Maoist who was killed in Kanker mid-April 2026. The surrendered Maoists are paraded before the media, dutifully saying they will now work within the ambit of the constitution, but it is clear that the constitution is the last thing on anyone’s minds, especially the government’s. The manner in which the Union government and their satellite state governments have gone about defeating the Naxalites in fact signifies the end of accountability. Armed Struggle may come and go in the life of a nation, but the disappearance of respect for the constitution and rule of law by an elected government is far more consequential. The lack of accountability is evident in two immediate ways. First, in the refusal to reckon with the heinous human rights violations of the past two decades. Second, in the integration of former Maoists into the security forces – first as District Reserve Guard (DRG), and now, we are told, into the regular police. The latter is a militarist and localised version of the BJP’s great white-washing machine, applied to electoral opponents who switch over to the BJP’s ranks. Before they joined the security forces, the DRG were ‘wanted Maoists’ with cases and rewards against their names. While the cases are not dropped, in part to hold a sword over their heads, they will now have the power to police others. Had there been a proper re-integration process of surrendered Maoists into the security forces, as has happened in other post-conflict situations around the world, this problem could have been addressed. However, we now have a situation where the police force officially has a significant section of people labelled criminals in its ranks. Also read: Acquitted After Six Years’ Jail, Tribal Woman Walks Out Only to Be Taken By Police; No Notice GivenImpunity for human rights abuses In the triumphalism that currently prevails, no one is being held responsible for the thousands killed in the last 20 years, mostly by the security forces, but also by the Maoists; the women raped, the hundreds of villages burnt, or the thousands of people displaced in Bastar due to Salwa Judum. These violations are detailed in the depositions collected by constitutional bodies like the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and submitted to the Supreme Court. Judicial enquiries have found that the security personnel killed unarmed civilians. To cite a few examples: 17 villagers were killed in Sarkeguda in 2012, eight were killed in Edesemetta in 2013. But there has been no prosecution of security personnel, and no fixing of any command responsibility on the security, administrative or political heads for these and other civilian deaths. Instead, police officers, whether retired or serving, are busy claiming that allegations of human rights violations were only psyops meant to demoralise the forces. The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) estimates, based on news reports, that 4,138 civilians, 2,723 security forces and 5,069 Maoists, i.e. a total of 12,182 persons, were killed between 2000 and 2026. This is clearly an underestimate. Apart from the peak of Salwa Judum (2005-7), 2024-26 have been the worst years for deaths. The Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh (CPJC) has noted the sharp rise in the average number of people killed per encounter (from 0.29 in 2023 to 1.79 in 2024), showing that killings were preferred over arrests and surrenders. Several of those killed were actually civilians. Section 8.8 of the Chhattisgarh 2025 surrender and rehabilitation policy offers rewards in lakhs for Maoists ‘dead or alive’. This obviously incentivises killing people and showing them as ‘wanted Maoists’. There is no prior public list of ‘wanted Maoists’ against whom names can be checked, and no public accounting for the ‘rewards’ given – whether to surrendered Maoists themselves or to those who captured, killed or turned them in. Many low-level cadre who were told they would get money if they surrendered have said that they did not get anything at all. The Maoists, for their part, are responsible for killing hundreds of suspected ‘informers’ over the years. Many of these killings were not reported due to fear of the Maoists; and many of those that were reported were actually killings by state forces. The payment of official compensation to the victims of Naxalites while denying compensation to victims of state forces – despite repeated Supreme Court orders – has also skewed the record of fatalities. But whatever the official data, these deaths will not be forgotten in the villages where they occurred. Just as Special Police Officers and their families who have committed human rights abuses have found it hard to return to their villages, returning Maoist cadre involved in killing ‘informers’ may also face the anger of the latter’s families. The surrendered Maoist leaders are still mostly in police lines. It is unclear when they will be released, and what will happen to the cases against them. Even if the government allows these cases to languish, they are still in the legal system. ADGP (Intelligence) Mahesh Chandra Laddha with other officials shows recovered arms and ammunitions during a press conference, in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, Wednesday, November 19, 2025. Photo: PTIBut beyond the legal question, there is also the issue of accountability to the public. It is true that the BJP regime did not afford the CPI (Maoist) the possibility of intra-party consultation and a more orderly and negotiated process of coming overground. But once the security camps started flooding Bastar from 2012 onwards, paid informers proliferated and food became harder to come by, the writing was on the wall. Had the Maoists come overground earlier – for instance in response to some of the appeals by civil society – they might have been in a position to negotiate some demands for Adivasis, and not just their own individual survival. The Maoists have sacrificed their lives for Adivasis, but their refusal to read the political economy tea leaves accurately has cost not just them but also the people they claimed to be fighting for. Competing for credit for constitutional violations On March 30, speaking in Parliament, Amit Shah took credit for ending Naxalism, blamed the Congress for encouraging it, dismissed the Parliamentary Left as agents of foreign powers, attacked civil liberties activists, and accused Justice Sudarshan Reddy of being responsible for prolonging Naxalism and thereby causing hundreds of deaths through his 2011 Salwa Judum judgment. Listening to Shah, one might forget that there was anything like a constitution or a penal code, which requires all deaths to be accounted for, and that he as home minister is responsible for upholding the rule of law. For its part, the Congress is jealous that the end did not come on their watch, despite the fact they had laid the groundwork for it, with their successive ‘Operations’, their security camps, and their specialised anti-Naxal forces. Whether UPA or NDA, Ajit Doval has been a key player in the anti-Naxal operations, and fundamentally, there has been little difference in their policies. The disastrous Salwa Judum, which he initiated as Intelligence Bureau Chief in 2004-5, actually gave a fillip to the Maoists, by leaving villagers whose homes had been burnt or relatives killed by state forces, little choice but to join them. The judiciary is asking no questions either – allowing the unwarranted attack on Justice Reddy to stay on parliamentary record. In abusing Justice Reddy, Amit Shah is actually showing contempt for the entire Supreme Court. Between 2007 when the petitions against Salwa Judum were filed, and 2025 when they were disposed of, the matter came before 24 different judges of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justices. Every single bench was aware of the scale of the problem, and directed the registration of FIRs and compensation. Even in their 15 May 2025 judgement, Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Satish Sharma reiterated the 2011 order and directed: “We note that it is duty of the State of Chhattisgarh as well as the Union of India, … to take adequate steps for bringing about peace and rehabilitation to the residents of State of Chhattisgarh who have been affected by the violence from whatever quarter it may have arisen (para 13, italics mine).” In fact, the greatest beneficiaries of the 2011 judgment banning the Salwa Judum were not the Maoists, but the surrendered cadre who were appointed Special Police Officers (SPOs), and later, the DRG, who received higher salaries and more sophisticated weapons. Given the widespread allegations of abuses by the SPOs, the court had banned their use in counterinsurgency operations and directed that they be used for traffic policing and other duties. Even this was to take place only after those who had been accused of human rights violations had been weeded out. This never happened. Instead, Chhattisgarh enacted the Auxiliary Armed Police Forces Act 2011, to circumvent the order. In an affidavit that on the face of it should have invited charges of perjury, the Government of Chhattisgarh claimed it had disarmed the SPOs and were not using them in counterinsurgency operations. The very name of the Act betrayed this lie – since it refers to them as Auxiliary Armed Forces, while the purpose of the Act states that they were to be used “to aid and assist the security forces in…preventing, controlling and combatting Maoist violence and insurgency” (4.1). The irony of prisoners and those who have ‘surrendered’Among the many ironies of this confused and legally directionless ‘end of Naxalism’, is the fate of those arrested on charges of being Maoist sympathisers. At one end, we have the human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling who has been in jail since 2018, along with the rest of the BK 16 who are out on bail but still suffer from a protracted trial despite ample proof that police ‘evidence’ was fabricated. At the other end, the youth leaders of the Moolvasi Bachao Manch in Bastar, like Raghu Midiyami, Suneeta Pottam and others, have been jailed for over two years under UAPA, along with some other 40 activists at different times. Even simple rights like an operation to fix Raghu Midiyami’s broken finger are being resisted by the NIA. The MBM waged an entirely constitutional struggle, invoking the 5th Schedule of the Constitution and PESA to defend their lands. Evidently a peaceful movement of locals, in the face of an intensified mining push, is now a greater threat to the national security state than even the Maoists. Hundreds of other innocent Adivasis continue to languish in jail, going through the tortuous legal system. Stan Swamy was targeted because his PIL in the Jharkhand High Court, based on interviews with 102 undertrials, showed that 97% of those arrested on charges of being Maoist actually had no relation to them.For villagers, ‘surrendering’ is an anomalous legal phenomenon. Take for example, the case of a well-known sarpanch in Sukma. He was charged falsely of involvement in the 2010 Tadmetla attack in which 76 CRPF personnel died. He went underground to evade arrest, but was captured in 2017, tortured and forced to say before the High Court that he had actually surrendered. He then worked with the police for a while, before returning to his village. In 2024, he was arrested, under charges that pre-dated his ‘surrender’ in 2017. After two years in jail, he was finally acquitted of all charges. ‘Surrendering’ is meaningless when cases linger on, and can be invoked at any time convenient to the police. Pathways to a constitutional peaceWhile the government and Maoists may come to terms with each other outside the ambit of the constitution, civil society must demand the rule of law. At the very minimum, the government must fast track the release of all those arrested on trumped-up Naxal offences, and ensure the dropping of old charges. The courts should order a full public enquiry recording all the deaths since 2000, and compensate those affected, including the victims of rape and arson. The reports in the Sarkeguda and Edesmetta judicial enquiries must be made publicly available. Now that almost all the districts have been declared ‘LWE free’, the government must remove the ugly barbed-wire-fenced security camps that have sprouted every 2-5 km in Bastar and restore these lands to the villagers from whom they were taken. There may be peace now, but it is a peace without justice. Nandini Sundar is the author of ‘The Burning Forest: India’s War Against the Maoists’ (Juggernaut, 2016, Verso 2019).