The Legal Machinery Behind India’s Campaign Against Maoist Insurgents

The Legal Machinery Behind India’s Campaign Against Maoist Insurgents The Legal Machinery Behind India’s Campaign Against Maoist Insurgents Executive Summary: - India has made use of legal measures—such as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967 (UAPA)—to disrupt Maoist insurgent networks, target financing, and criminalize association with banned groups. - The legal framework also incentivizes surrenders by offering a rehabilitation structure that can fast-track trials or withdraw prosecutions on a case-by-case basis. - These measures remain controversial despite degrading the Maoist threat, drawing criticism for infringing on civil liberties, targeting peaceful activists, and deploying surrendered Maoists into armed combat roles. On May 5, a special court in Mumbai refused to discharge several members of an electric employees’ union accused of raising funds for the banned Communist (Maoist) Party of India (CPI) (Indian Express, May 6). The men therefore remained subject to charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967 (UAPA) for allegedly raising funds for a declared terrorist organization. Through the UAPA and related anti-terrorism laws, India’s central and state governments have used legal tools to advance strategic objectives in the fight against domestic insurgencies that might otherwise be pursued primarily through military or police coercion—a phenomenon often described as “lawfare.” [1] The intersection of law and counterinsurgency is especially acute in India’s campaign against Maoist insurgents across the so-called “Red Corridor.” [2] India has used legal measures to ban associated organizations, prosecute support networks, disrupt terrorist financing, and create incentives for surrender. With the central government declaring that the Maoist threat is nearing its end, attention has largely focused on the security operations that have degraded the insurgency (Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, March 30). Less examined, however, is the role that law has played in Maoism’s decline in India. Yet, it is clear the law has played an equally significant, though controversial, role in that decline. The Law as Stick India’s anti-terrorist legal framework punishes acts of Maoist violence while also targeting the support networks that sustain the insurgency. The UAPA in particular defines terrorist acts and penalties, maintains a schedule of banned organizations, and criminalizes support, financing, and association with proscribed groups. In 2019, Parliament amended the UAPA to allow individuals, in addition to organizations, to be designated as terrorists under the Act (PRS India, July 8, 2019). Designation under the UAPA does not itself amount to conviction. It can, however, serve as a basis for property seizure, financial restrictions, and other coercive measures under Section 51A (National Investigation Agency, September 8, 2020). Since the CPI was banned under the UAPA in 2009, the Act has been used not only against armed Maoist cadres, but also against alleged spokespeople (Business Standard, July 19, 2016; National Investigation Agency, December 1, 2023). Sympathizers can also be convicted under the Act (Indian Express, May 1, 2012). State laws have created similar tools. The Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, for example, allows the state to declare organizations unlawful, restrict their activities, and criminalize membership or support (India Code, January 1, 2005). This broad-based approach has, however, drawn criticism from civil society groups. These groups argue that expansive security laws risk sweeping genuine activists and local community members into the same framework as members of terrorist organizations (Human Rights Watch, September 1, 2025). The Law as Carrot The possibility of staying or withdrawing prosecutions under the terrorism laws has also been used as an incentive for Maoists to surrender and reintegrate. This logic is reflected in the federal government’s National Policy and Action Plan. It pairs security operations and development reforms with a surrender-cum-rehabilitation framework (Government of India, January 1, 2015). Under the rehabilitation guidelines, states may continue trials for serious crimes, but can withdraw prosecutions on a case-by-case basis (Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, January 10, 2023). The guidelines also provide for plea bargaining in minor cases, legal aid, and fast-tracked trials to reduce the burden on defendants. Prosecution—or the possibility of avoiding it—thus becomes part of a broader incentive structure: it raises the cost of remaining in the Maoist movement while lowering the cost of leaving it. Risks arise, however, when rehabilitated militants are folded back into armed counterinsurgency operations. Chhattisgarh’s District Reserve Guard (DRG) is a recent example. The state first ordered the recruitment of DRG personnel in Sukma, Bijapur, and Dantewada in May 2015, drawing primarily from former Maoists (Indian Express, July 22, 2025). This practice sits uneasily with the Indian Supreme Court’s earlier condemnation of Chhattisgarh’s use of tribal youth and surrendered Maoists as Special Police Officers to assist in anti-Maoist operations. The Court held that such practices violated constitutional guarantees of equality and life because the state placed barely literate and poorly trained tribal youth in counterinsurgency roles they were not equipped to perform (Supreme Court of India, July 5, 2011). [3] Decorated Indian Police Service officer Sajid Shapoo has likewise argued that while using former cadres in counterinsurgency operations may be tempting, such individuals often become targets of their former colleagues and may themselves engage in abuses. [4] Conclusion With Maoism in retreat, India’s campaign demonstrates the power and limits of lawfare. Legal tools helped weaken the Red Corridor by criminalizing Maoist organizations, disrupting support networks, and incentivizing surrender. The challenge now is to ensure that this legal architecture neither outlives its purpose nor expands beyond it within India’s constitutional system. Notes: [1] Orde F. Kittrie, Lawfare: Law as a Weapon of War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. [2] The Red Corridor is an area that stretches across eastern, central, and southern India where Maoist insurgent groups have historically had significant influence and carried out armed rebellion against the state: see Jagannath Panda, “The Geopolitical Importance of India’s Shrinking ‘Red Corridor,’” The Diplomat, April 17, 2026, https://thediplomat.com/2026/04/the-geopolitical-importance-of-indias-shrinking-red-corridor/. [3] Nandini Sundar & Ors. v. State of Chhattisgarh (2011) 7 SCC 547 [47]. [4] Sajid F. Shapoo, “Enticing the Maoist Guerrilla: India’s COIN Strategy and Evolving Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy,” Journal of South Asian Studies 7, no. 3 (2019): 95–109.