In Bastar, Amit Shah's warning: 'Maoism will return in disguise, don't be misled'

📌 Summary:

• A day after declaring India "Maoist-free", Union Home Minister Amit Shah warned, at a Jagdalpur press conference in Chhattisgarh's Bastar, that Maoism "will return in disguise, with a new narrative and name" and urged tribals not to be misled

• He linked Naxalism to poverty and the region's development deficit — the conflict had kept Bastar behind in infrastructure, irrigation and railways

• Development roadmap announced: converting 70 police camps into one-stop centres for over 370 government schemes; a dairy cooperative network within six months; one cow and one buffalo per tribal family, skill development and milk sales via cooperative societies (modelled on Gujarat's Amul-style dairy model)

• Shah set 2031 as the deadline for a "developed Bastar", framing the goal as a journey "from security to trust, from development to prosperity, and finally to satisfaction"

• He stressed that "violence is not the solution" and that democratic values, mutual cooperation and development must be the foundation of progress

• The remarks came during his two-day Bastar visit, after he chaired the 26th meeting of the Central Zonal Council (Chhattisgarh, MP, UP, Uttarakhand)

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 — Left-Wing Extremism (LWE), the development-versus-security debate, and the strategy of governance penetration (camps-to-development-hubs) in former Maoist strongholds.

🔑 Key Term: Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) — armed insurgency by Maoist/Naxalite groups seeking to overthrow the state, concentrated historically in India's mineral-rich, forested, tribal-dominated "Red Corridor".