NEW DELHI: For years, the fight against the naxals was described as a battle of boots in the jungle encounters, ambushes, and cordon-and-search operations. What has received far less attention is the parallel war waged quietly by Indian security agencies to dismantle the movement’s external arteries: the arms pipelines, cross-border brokers, and foreign-linked supply chains that kept Maoist violence alive long after its ideological appeal had waned. The current collapse of Maoist operational capacity is not just the result of eliminating commanders like Madvi Hidma. It is the outcome of a coordinated, multi-front strategy that combined internal military pressure with the systematic disruption of every external support mechanism.
Indian security planning evolved from reactive counter-insurgency to a definitive two-pronged doctrine. The first prong, internal domination, focused on breaking Maoist control over territory, leadership, and finance through saturation deployment, permanent camps, intelligence-led strikes, and command decapitation. The second prong, external isolation, aimed at severing the flow of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and training that entered Maoist zones through transnational and inter-group corridors. It is this second prong that fundamentally altered the balance.
For over two decades, Maoist access to sophisticated weaponry did not come solely from local seizures. A more critical stream flowed through a complex web of intermediaries which agencies have now mapped and dismantled. These included North-east insurgent groups operating as brokers, smuggling corridors via Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Nepal, arms markets along the China-Myanmar border, and third-party networks with suspected Pakistan-linked militant interfaces. In November 2010, the then Chhattisgarh police chief, Vishwa Ranjan had stated that Lashkar-e-Taiba members were engaging with the naxals and claimed that two of its members had physically attended meetings inside the forest of Dandakaranya, which at that time was a no go for police.
Indian intelligence agencies gradually shifted focus from merely intercepting weapons to systematically identifying source regions, transit points, handlers, and financial conduits. A key operational breakthrough came from weakening the very conduits through which Maoists sourced modern arms. Peace accords, counter-insurgency offensives, and the neutralisation of leadership within groups such as ULFA and NSCN factions effectively destroyed their capacity to function as arms suppliers for the CPI (Maoist). As these groups lost dominance over smuggling corridors — particularly those feeding into central India — Maoists found themselves cut off from their most consistent external weapon stream.
Simultaneously, India intensified surveillance and border management to flip the risk calculus for arms traffickers. The government implemented enhanced monitoring of the Myanmar frontier, surveillance of Bangladesh transit corridors, and deeper intelligence penetration of Nepal-based Maoist linkages. What was once a narrative trade now carried heightened interception risks, leading to a sharp drop in high-grade weapon inflows. While the Indian government has avoided publicly naming direct foreign state sponsorship , agencies have long tracked suspect linkages involving Chinese-origin arms and Pakistan-linked militant networks. Rather than waiting for incontrovertible diplomatic proof, security planners focused on functional disruption: intercepting shipments, monitoring finances, and dismantling nodes regardless of their geopolitical origin. This pragmatic approach ensured that even indirect pipelines — whether routed through China-based suppliers, shadow LeT interfaces, or Bangladeshi intermediaries — steadily lost operational viability.
The impact of this multi-front strategy now manifests in stark battlefield details. When top Maoist commander Madvi Hidma was killed, he was reportedly found carrying only 35 rounds for his AK-47 — an extraordinary shortage for a figure known for commanding large-scale ambushes. This logistical starvation is further evidenced by intelligence assessments from around 2020, which reported Maoist attempts to develop indigenous rocket launchers and crude heavy weapons. This was a clear signal that access to factory-made launchers and external ammunitions had been choked off. Recent encounters increasingly reveal a force in desperation, characterized by limited ammunition stockpiles found on fallen cadres, poor weapon consistency, a heavy dependence on improvised systems rather than standard-issue arms, and significantly shorter engagement durations during firefights.
What has unfolded is not merely the weakening of an insurgent group, but the dismantling of a trans-regional supply ecosystem that once nourished it. Indian security agencies have effectively achieved what classic counter-insurgency theory defines as strategic isolation: a militant movement severed from its external lifelines, unable to regenerate force, refine capability, or sustain prolonged conflict. Encounters draw headlines, but it is this quieter, methodical strangulation of external support — coordinated across borders, agencies, and intelligence theatres — that may prove to be the most decisive blow against Maoism in modern India. The story of Maoism’s decline is not just about the fall of commanders ; it is a case study in how a state learned to fight insurgency not only on its soil, but across the hidden geography of supply, finance, and influence that kept it alive
