Why Aren't Peace Talks With Maoists an Option?

The government of India – particularly Union home minister Amit Shah – has been setting deadlines to make India "Maoist-free" by March 2026. But exactly a year before the cut-off date, Abhay, the spokesperson of the central committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), had announced that they were “always ready for peace talks” and proposed that the Union and state governments usher in a “conducive atmosphere.” He had also urged the government “to stop the massacre and genocide in the name of Operation Kagar” and to suspend the setting up of new camps of armed forces.

Subsequent to this March 28 overture, Rupesh, spokesperson of the North West Sub-Zonal Bureau of the party, released at least three statements on April 8, April 17, and April 25 in addition to giving an hour-long interview to the YouTube channel Bastar Talkies.

Another statement in the name of Abhay, dated May 10, appeared in the press, but doubts about its authenticity, due to several internal inconsistencies, have not yet been settled. The essence of all these statements was the call for a ceasefire and the creation of a conducive atmosphere for talks.

On the other hand, Amit Shah's direction to security personnel seems to be that Maoists should be killed, although he has referred to Maoists as “brothers” and “requested” them to surrender. Vijay Sharma, deputy chief minister and home minister of Chhattisgarh, has also asked the Maoists to surrender, without any reference to a ceasefire or peace talks.

These points and counterpoints arose in the context of security forces – numbering between 7,000 and 24,000 (both official figures, from various sources and times) – encircling a reportedly 300-square-kilometre area of thick forest and difficult hilly terrain called Karreguttalu (literally “black hills”) on the borders of Chhattisgarh and Telangana. This operation, featuring high-tech drone surveillance, bombing, and machine-gun fire from helicopters, and claiming two or three hills out of the 30 in the range and hoisting the tricolour, was officially ended, at least from the Central Reserve Police Force’s point of view, in the second week of May, with the reported withdrawal of 9,000 central forces. Chhattisgarh forces continue combing operations.

According to a Press Information Bureau summary released on May 17, “…[I]n one of the biggest anti-Naxal operations in the country’s history, security forces achieved a major breakthrough in the fight against Left Wing Extremism along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border. Between April 21 and May 11, 2025, a massive operation was carried out in the Karreguttalu Hill (KGH) region, a known stronghold of Maoist groups. Coordinated efforts by the CRPF, Special Task Force (STF), District Reserve Guard (DRG), and state police forces resulted in the neutralisation of 31 Maoists, including 16 women, with no casualties reported among security personnel…”

However, the government brief glossed over the hospitalisation of scores of security personnel due to sunstroke and fatigue resulting from the difficult terrain. It also did not mention the killing of three personnel from the Greyhounds, Telangana’s elite police force. Although initial reports claimed that the personnel died in an IED blast or Maoist firing, local media later reported that a lack of coordination and a consequent exchange of fire between central and state forces were the actual causes of their deaths.

Amid heavy shelling and fears of large-scale loss of life, the ideas of a ceasefire and peace talks gained traction in Telangana, which shares Karreguttalu on the border with Chhattisgarh. A Peace Dialogue Committee was formed under the leadership of retired Justice Chandra Kumar a few days before the first statement from the Maoists. A number of civil society organisations, including the Telangana Civil Liberties Committee, Adivasi Hakkula Porata Sanghibhava Samithi, and Nirbandha Vyatireka Vedika, took up the cause and have been organising demonstrations, processions, and meetings. There has been a deluge of news, information, and analyses in Telugu media, including on social media platforms.

A team headed by professor G. Haragopal met Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy and asked him to reciprocate the ceasefire and initiate peace talks at the state level, as well as to use his good offices to pressure the Union government. He agreed that there should be no killings from either side and asked the Union government to stop the operation. However, regarding his own position, he shifted the responsibility onto the high command.

Within two hours of the chief minister’s announcement, opposition leader K. Chandrasekhar Rao addressed a mammoth public meeting marking the silver jubilee of his party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi. In the meeting, he used sharp language to condemn the BJP government’s “massacre of Adivasis” and demanded that it immediately halt the killings and begin peace talks. He encouraged the audience to echo his call, and a few hundred thousand people seconded his ideas with thunderous applause. He assured them that the party would send a resolution from the meeting to the central government.

Also read: The False War in Bastar

Bharat Bachao, a civil society organisation, held a public meeting involving all political parties to make the same demands. Ten Left parties, including the CPI and the CPI (M), held a joint press conference and a public meeting two days later to call on the Union government to stop the killings and initiate peace talks. At least three other political parties also made similar demands. For the past four weeks, media have been covering multiple events on this issue daily. Social media has been abuzz with demands voiced by numerous Adivasi and other people’s organisations, as well as ordinary citizens. In brief, the call for an immediate halt to killings in the name of Operation Kagar and the initiation of peace talks is widespread.

History of talks

In this context, it is interesting to examine the history of talks between “insurgents” and the government in India.

The government has initiated negotiations with insurgents in the Northeast, such as the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the Mizo National Front, the National Liberation Front of Tripura, and the All Tripura Tiger Force, hundreds of times (by one account, the government of India held at least 600 rounds of talks over 27 years with Naga rebels) and has declared and adhered to ceasefires on several occasions. Even when insurgents demanded a separate flag, constitution, or secession from the country, the government extended an olive branch – something it has not done with armed Marxist rebels, despite their not seeking secession.

Clearly, the Union government does not treat Northeast rebels and Marxist rebels the same – perhaps for a number of valid or questionable reasons. However, in both cases, the state has responded with extrajudicial means, aiming to eliminate them through killings euphemistically referred to as “encounters.” Yet the long history of encounter killings has occasionally been punctuated by negotiations far more frequently in the Northeast than with the Naxalites.

In tracing the history of negotiations with Marxist guerrillas, the 1951 experience must be considered the first failed attempt in post-1947 India. The first-ever armed peasant struggle under the leadership of the Communist Party of India was raging in the Telangana districts when the Union Army entered Hyderabad under the name of "police action." The CPI continued the struggle for three more years after the transfer of power from the Nizam to the Union Army on September 17, 1948. At that time, there were a few civil society attempts in Hyderabad to bring communist guerrillas and the government to the negotiating table, but they did not materialise. Then A. K. Gopalan, Muzaffar Ahmed, and Jyoti Basu tried to meet the prime minister to negotiate for peace, but Nehru declined to meet them. Instead, the Union home ministry sent a letter to this delegation stating that there was no scope for talks unless the communists renounced armed struggle. In such a non-conducive atmosphere, the leadership had to lay down arms and announce the “withdrawal of armed struggle” on October 20, 1951.

Also read: Why Indian Democracy Feels No Shame About the Bastar Killings

Sixteen years later, armed struggle was revived in Naxalbari in 1967 by a section of the communist movement, which would become the CPI (ML) two years later, with Andhra Pradesh as one of the early followers. In the subsequent 58 years, the party could not remain united; but even as it splintered into countless factions, some continued to adhere to armed struggle while others renounced it. Among those committed to armed struggle, the CPI (ML) (People’s War) had become a formidable force by the 1980s, and thus, by the 1990s, a proposal for talks between the government and People’s War emerged.

In July 1996, Justice M. N. Rao of the Andhra Pradesh high court, delivering a judgment in a case under the TADA involving Maoists, observed that “while left-wing extremism is viewed as a problem by the administration, it is increasingly being perceived as a solution to their problems by the alienated masses.” In the same breath, he made a suggestion:

“A peace commission with representative character inspiring confidence in all sections of society, including the Naxalites and the police, and backed by state power and consent, we believe, can bring about immediate cessation of police encounters and violence by Naxalites. And then only, in the resultant peaceful atmosphere, a meaningful search for a permanent solution is possible.”

Drawing inspiration from this verdict, highly respected and influential people such as former civil servant S. R. Sankaran, senior editor Potturi Venkateswara Rao, civil libertarian K. G. Kannabiran, academics K. Jayasankar, G. Haragopal, and D. Narsimha Reddy, among others, formed the Committee of Concerned Citizens (CCC) to mediate the peace process. Around the same time, on the occasion of Republic Day in 1997, both Governor Krishna Kant and high court Chief Justice Prabha Shankar Mishra expressed their concern and suggested to the government that it negotiate a peaceful settlement.

The CCC visited all affected districts to study the prevailing ground reality and began corresponding with People’s War on one hand and the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) on the other. This correspondence culminated in the CCC holding discussions with Central Committee members of People’s War (despite the ban on the organisation) in January 1998, and with the GoAP in April 1998.

After four years of ups and downs and many twists and turns, including last-minute backtracking in 2000 and 2001, some significant movement occurred between January and June 2002. People’s War announced a ceasefire and proposed poet Varavara Rao and balladeer Gaddar as emissaries to finalise modalities. Once the modalities were set, they themselves would join. The government, for its part, deputed ministers T. Seetharam and K. Vijayarama Rao to represent the state but remained silent on the ceasefire. On the morning of the proposed meeting of the emissaries, July 8, the police conducted another fake encounter, prompting People’s War emissaries to boycott the meeting in protest of the government’s insincerity. Nevertheless, the incident sparked a huge debate in the newspapers, with hundreds of people participating and offering diverse suggestions. The atmosphere became so surreal that the People’s War emissaries were able to hold a press conference in the official chambers of the state secretariat to talk about the party’s ideas – openly defying the ban on it.

Consequently, the situation worsened, with many more “encounters” as well as the infamous, failed assassination attempt on chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in Tirupati on October 1, 2003. Naidu immediately opted to dissolve the assembly and call for a midterm poll, hoping the sympathy wave would return him to power, as his defeat seemed imminent. During the April 2004 election campaign, one of the ruling TDP’s three major slogans was to root out Maoists. In contrast, the opposition Congress, led by Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, promised peace talks with the Maoists if elected. In May, the Congress formed the government, and in June reciprocated the ceasefire and began the process of peace talks.

The 2004 talks represent a key chapter in the histories of Andhra Pradesh and the Maoist movement. After four months of preparatory conversations involving the government, the CCC, the Peace Initiative Committee, and emissaries from both sides, the actual talks were scheduled to begin on October 15. Meanwhile, the CPI (ML) (People’s War) brought CPI (ML) (Janashakti) along, prompting the government to extend invitations to both parties. In a widely attended media event, a five-member delegation from the two revolutionary parties, accompanied by about thirty guards, handed over their weapons to comrades who remained behind and emerged from the Nallamala forest on October 11. They proceeded to Gutthikonda Bilam in Guntur District to inaugurate a memorial statue at a historical site visited by Charu Mazumdar in 1969. After the event, they traveled to Hyderabad to stay at a government guest house for a week, receiving enthusiastic welcomes from thousands along the way.

A day before the actual talks were to begin, the People’s War team held a press conference announcing that their party had merged with the Maoist Communist Centre of India to form the CPI (Maoist), and that they would henceforth participate under the new name.

Both sides agreed upon an 11-point agenda, which included: steps the government should take to establish a minimally democratic atmosphere, land distribution and agricultural development, World Bank policies and self-reliance, democratic rights, concerns of various social groups like Dalits, women, Adivasis, and minorities, separate statehood for Telangana, backwardness in Rayalaseema and North Coastal Andhra, prohibition, education, health, and people’s welfare.

Negotiations between home minister K. Jana Reddy, heading the government’s team, and Akkiraju Haragopal (Ramakrishna), a Central Committee member and Andhra Pradesh State Committee secretary leading the Naxalite delegation, took place from October 15 to 18, with only the first three issues discussed. Representatives of the CCC, the Peace Initiative Committee, and emissaries from both sides were also present. To address land issues, the government agreed to set up a commission. Regarding police atrocities, false cases, and the lack of democracy, the government promised to address the concerns. On October 18, both sides agreed to continue the talks in a second round, though no specific date was set.

In hindsight, one may conclude that the talks achieved little. However, the Maoists gained significant popularity, with contemporary newspapers noting that more people visited them than visited the chief minister’s office.

Also read: As Families Camped Outside Hospital, Police Cremated 'Unclaimed' Bodies of Killed Maoists

Visitors submitted hundreds, if not thousands, of petitions, addressing issues ranging from domestic disputes to major concerns involving land, the environment, and the development model. Observers also noted that the underground party, despite limited access to the outside world, came well prepared – with detailed notes, supporting documents, and persuasive arguments – while the government, despite its vast resources, had not done sufficient homework.

After this first round, a second round never took place. By January 2005, government forces resumed “encounters” on a daily basis, defying the ceasefire. The Maoists declared that they, too, were forced to abandon the agreement and resumed armed action. The police onslaught intensified, and by 2007, the Maoists had withdrawn all armed cadres from the Nallamala forests.

After all these efforts, the 2007 Unity Congress of the CPI (Maoist) effectively opposed the talks. “The issue of talks with the AP government was discussed at length, and by a majority vote it was felt that, given the situation then prevailing in AP, it was not preferable, under those circumstances, to have gone for talks” (People’s March, April 2007, p. 6). That marked a blunt closure. There was no further discussion, let alone recollection of the talks, except for occasional reminiscences by CCC members or journalists.

Despite the party’s official disowning of talks, another attempt emerged in 2010, initiated by Swami Agnivesh, who sought to mediate between home minister P. Chidambaram and the Maoists. In an interview published in The Hindu on April 14, 2010, Azad (Cherukuri Rajkumar), a Central Committee member and spokesperson of the CPI (Maoist), stated: “As far as the issue of talks is concerned, our party will pursue the guidelines given by our Unity Congress held in early 2007,” suggesting that there was no scope for talks.

Swami Agnivesh, however, persisted. Azad was killed in an “encounter” on July 2, 2010, in Adilabad. It was presumed that Azad, along with journalist Hemchandra Pandey, was on his way to Dandakaranya to discuss Swami Agnivesh’s proposal when he was intercepted in Nagpur and killed in cold blood. The Supreme Court famously stated, “It cannot allow the republic killing its own children,” when the case came before it.

In the next decade and a half, the republic’s killing spree continued, particularly with Operation Kagar, which began on January 1, 2024, and has since killed more than 500 people, including at least 200 unarmed, noncombatant Adivasis. Among the victims were a six-month-old infant, schoolchildren, a deaf and mute girl, and people collecting tendu leaves, working in fields, or sleeping at home. The operation continued unabated, reaching the encirclement of Karreguttalu, where a few hundred Maoists and Adivasis are suspected to be holed up amid 24,000 security forces. The current proposal for peace talks – from Maoists, democratic organisations, and concerned individuals – seems aimed at preventing imminent, avoidable bloodshed and unimaginable tragedy. Those advocating for a ceasefire and peace strongly feel that no lives – whether of Adivasis, Maoists, or security forces – should be lost.

Whether this concern will be received favourably by those in power remains a million-dollar question. Given the 30-year history of ceasefire and peace talks, the prevailing social, economic, and political realities have changed significantly. The state has become more powerful and rigid; social movements, including the Maoist armed struggle, have relatively declined. The current political dispensation, driven by an ideology that treats communists as one of its three principal enemies, is resolutely hostile. Consequently, the perspectives of the government, armed opposition, and concerned civil society have also changed.

In these circumstances, whither ceasefire and whither peace talks?

At the very least, past peace talks brought real issues into public discourse, expanding people’s awareness and participation. Is that possible today? Unless the people rise to demand strict adherence to Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees that no one shall be deprived of life or personal liberty except according to the procedure established by law, the government’s insistence on extrajudicial killings and setting deadlines to eliminate people without legal process may not be meaningfully challenged.

N. Venugopal is a poet, literary critic, columnist and journalist. He has been the editor of Veekshanam, a Telugu monthly that focuses on society and political economy.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.