Red Fade

The surrender of Mallojula Venugopal Rao, known by his nom de guerre of Bhupathi, marks a symbolic end to an era. Once the military chief of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army and one of the last surviving architects of India’s Maoist insurgency, Bhupathi’s capitulation alongside 60 cadres in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli is more than a victory for law enforcement. It is a milestone in the Modi government’s systematic effort to dismantle both the armed and ideological fronts of left-wing extremism.

For decades, Maoism represented India’s most enduring internal security challenge that claimed thousands of lives, drained development funds, and terrorised some of the poorest regions of the country. But over the past decade, through a calibrated mix of force, dialogue and rehabilitation, the state has turned the tide. The Maoist strongholds in Chhattisgarh’s Abujmarh, Odisha’s Malkangiri and Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli have been hollowed out. Security operations under Home Minister Amit Shah have been relentless yet strategic, combining modern surveillance with offers of amnesty and livelihood.

Bhupathi’s surrender illustrates how this twin-pronged strategy works: pressure from sustained operations in the forests, and persuasion through rehabilitation. His decision follows the surrender of several other senior Maoist leaders this year. It signals that the once-feared guerrilla network is now fracturing under its own ideological weight.

Yet while the guns may have fallen silent, the battle of ideas continues in seminar halls, television studios and op-ed pages of metropolitan India. For every rifle surrendered in Gadchiroli, there remains a pen in Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata romanticising ‘revolution.’ This ‘cultural Maoism’ thrives among a small but vocal fraternity of so-called intellectuals, journalists and academics who, under the guise of human rights or dissent, legitimise anti-state narratives and glorify armed resistance.

These ‘champagne revolutionaries,’ safely ensconced in universities and media houses, have long acted as ideological oxygen for the insurgency. Their rhetoric has often blurred the line between critique and complicity, portraying India’s democratic state as the aggressor and its armed rebels as victims of injustice. Some of them have never visited the villages they claim to speak for. But their influence in shaping opinion, teaching young minds and defending the indefensible is far from benign.

India’s war on Maoism is not merely territorial but cultural, psychological and institutional. For far too long, India tolerated those who preached freedom but excused violence, who demanded rights but denied responsibility. The fall of Mallojula Venugopal Rao symbolises the exhaustion of an ideology that failed to evolve in the face of democracy and development.

The challenge now is to ensure that Maoism’s twilight in the forests is not replaced by its afterglow in varsities. India’s future lies in the progress of its villages that make rebellion obsolete. The government’s campaign against left-wing extremism has begun reclaiming the idea of India from those who mistake cynicism for dissent and subversion for intellect.

The jungle has fallen silent. It is time the echo chambers did too.