Hidma falls, govt must address address Bastar tribals’ issues now
The Tribune Editorial: The top Maoist commander's rise from a local foot soldier in Bastar embodied the insurgency’s capacity to recruit, indoctrinate and weaponise disenfranchised youth.
THE killing of top Maoist commander Madvi Hidma marks one of the most decisive breakthroughs in India’s decades-long fight against Left wing extremism (LWE). For nearly three decades, Hidma operated as the elusive ‘ghost of Bastar’, orchestrating some of the deadliest attacks on security forces and civilians. His elimination by Andhra Pradesh’s Greyhounds in the Maredumilli forests — along with his wife and several Maoists — signals the erosion of the CPI (Maoist)’s operational structure and a significant victory for India’s counterinsurgency apparatus. Hidma’s rise from a local foot soldier in Bastar to the commander of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army’s Battalion 1 embodied the insurgency’s capacity to recruit, indoctrinate and weaponise disenfranchised youth. He engineered attacks such as the 2010 Chintalnar massacre, the 2013 Jhiram Ghati ambush and numerous high-casualty assaults in Sukma. These operations reshaped India’s security calculus.
