The Cure: What the State Has Tried

And the limit the Court imposed. In Nandini Sundar the appointment of barely trained tribal youth as Special Police Officers for counter-insurgency was held unconstitutional under articles 14 and 21, the Union was ordered to stop funding their recruitment for that purpose, firearms were ordered recalled, and the State was ordered to prevent the operation of any group, including Salwa Judum and the Koya Commandos, that takes the law into private hands. Security that arms a militia is not a cure; it is a second insurgency.

Development

Roads. The Road Requirement Plan for the affected districts and the later Road Connectivity Project for Left Wing Extremism Affected Areas, both administered through the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and the Ministry of Rural Development.

Communications. The mobile tower project for the affected districts, executed in phases, on the reasoning that a district with no telephone signal has no functioning administration either.

Education. Eklavya Model Residential Schools under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, and the expansion of schooling in the affected blocks.

Skills and employment. The Ministry of Rural Development's skill development scheme for youth of the affected districts, known as ROSHNI, alongside the general rural livelihood missions.

Financial inclusion. Bank branches, post office accounts, ATMs and banking correspondents in blocks that had none, so that wages and entitlements do not have to pass through a contractor.

Governance. The Aspirational Districts Programme of NITI Aayog, from 2018, which measures a set of districts, many of them affected, against health, education, agriculture, infrastructure and financial inclusion indicators.

The caution to state. Every one of these is delivered by the same administration whose absence was the grievance, and roads and towers are also a security asset. A student should note the ambiguity rather than list the schemes as a settled answer.

Rights and entitlements

The two statutes. PESA 1996 and the Forest Rights Act 2006, described in [Land, Forest and the Gram Sabha's Consent]. Implemented properly, they are the cure that goes to the cause, because they restore the resource rather than compensate for its loss.

Minor forest produce. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs' mechanism for marketing minor forest produce through a minimum support price and development of the value chain, from 2013, with procurement agencies and later the Van Dhan Vikas Kendras for local value addition. It is the direct answer to the terms-of-trade cause.

Land restoration. Restoration proceedings under the State Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulations, which after Samatha bind the Government too.

Rehabilitation on displacement. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, with its consent requirement, its social impact assessment, its definition of an affected family that includes those dependent on the land, and its requirement of prior consent of the gram sabha or panchayats in the Scheduled Areas.

Why this prong is the important one. It is the only prong that changes the facts on which the movement recruits. The other three manage the consequence.

Surrender and rehabilitation

What the policies provide. Every affected State has a surrender-and-rehabilitation policy, and the Union supports them through the Security Related Expenditure scheme. The usual contents are an immediate grant, a monthly stipend during a stipulated period, vocational training, housing or land, an incentive for surrendered weapons, and in some States assistance with employment.

The reintegration problem. A person who surrenders is a target for the organisation left behind and is often distrusted by the village. Protection is part of the package, and Nandini Sundar ordered the State of Chhattisgarh to provide it to former Special Police Officers for exactly that reason.

The design criticism. Where the incentives are weighted to weapons surrendered and intelligence given, the policy operates as a counter-insurgency instrument rather than as reintegration, and where the grant is paid and nothing follows, the person is back where they started with a record.

Restorative justice, which MU asked about in 2025

What restorative justice is. A response to wrongdoing that asks who was harmed, what they need, and whose obligation it is to repair, rather than asking only which rule was broken and what punishment follows. It works through inclusive processes in which those affected, including the community, participate in deciding the reparation.

Why the question is a fair one here. Because the harm in these districts runs in two directions and over a long period: violence by the insurgency, violence by the State's forces and militias, and, before both, a dispossession that the Forest Rights Act itself calls a HISTORICAL INJUSTICE. A purely punitive frame can address only the first.

What a restorative model would contain.

Acknowledgment. A statement by the State that the dispossession happened and was wrong. Parliament has already made it, in the preamble to the 2006 Act; the value of an acknowledgment is that it converts a demand into an admitted claim.

Restitution before compensation. Recognition of forest and land rights under sections 3 and 4 of the 2006 Act, and restoration of alienated land, in preference to a payment for its loss.

A community forum. The gram sabha, which under section 4(d) of PESA is already competent to preserve the customary mode of dispute resolution, and under section 6 of the Forest Rights Act already determines claims. Restorative processes need a forum with standing in the community, and the statute has supplied one.

Local adjudication and legal aid. Gram Nyayalayas under the Act of 2008, Lok Adalats and legal aid under the Legal Services Authorities Act 1987, worked in [Gram Nyayalayas], [Lok Adalat] and [Legal Aid]. Where the nearest court is a day away, a remedy that does not exist locally does not exist.

Reintegration rather than surrender. Treating the person who leaves the movement as a member of the community to be restored to it, with the community involved in the terms, rather than as an intelligence asset.

Truth-telling and accountability on both sides. The complaints in Nandini Sundar concerned the conduct of State-supported groups, and the Court ordered investigation, first information reports and diligent prosecution of previously uninvestigated allegations. Restoration that exempts the State is not restoration.

The honest limits. Restorative processes presuppose a party willing to participate; they cannot be conducted with an organisation that rejects the constitutional order; they do not answer the question of what to do about grave crimes; and a gram sabha under pressure from an armed group is not a free forum. Say this in an answer. MU asked how restorative models CAN address the root causes, and the mature reply is that they address the dispossession, not the insurgency.

What has not worked

Salwa Judum and the Special Police Officers. Held unconstitutional in Nandini Sundar, and the clearest example of a method that produced the harm it was answering.

Treating it as a law and order problem. The Expert Group in 2008 and the Court in 2011 both said this in terms.

Clearance before claims. Granting a project clearance while forest rights claims are pending, which is the sequencing failure worked in [Land, Forest and the Gram Sabha's Consent].

Consultation without consent. Section 4(i) of PESA is satisfied by a consultation that is recorded and ignored.

And detention as an answer to a political claim. Prolonged undertrial detention of persons from the affected districts, on which see [The Prisoner's Rights] and, for the machinery, [The Human Rights Commissions].

A worked example

A district has had no incident for three years. The State asks what to do next.

The security answer. Reduce force presence gradually, retain the fortified stations, keep the specialised unit trained. Necessary, and it stabilises nothing by itself.

The development answer. Complete the road and the tower, staff the school and the health centre, open the bank branch. Necessary, and it is delivered by the administration whose absence was the grievance.

The rights answer. Settle every pending forest rights claim, recognise the community forest resource, enforce the minimum support price for tendu leaf, restore alienated land, and make no new acquisition until the claims are decided. This is the one that changes the underlying facts.

The restorative answer. Convene the gram sabhas on the claims, provide legal aid and a local forum for the disputes that follow, reintegrate those who have left the movement on terms the community agrees, and prosecute the outstanding allegations against the State's own forces.

The order matters. If the rights prong is left until last it is never reached, because the security and development prongs always have a more urgent claim on the budget. That sentence is the argument of this chapter.

What this does NOT mean

It does not mean security has no place. The State has a duty to protect life, and article 355 obliges the Union to protect a State against internal disturbance.

It does not mean the schemes are cosmetic. Roads, schools and bank accounts are real, and the fall in violence over the last decade is real too.

It does not mean restorative justice is a substitute for the criminal law. It is a complement, and grave crimes remain triable.

And it does not mean the cure is only for the State to deliver. A movement that rejects the constitutional order is a party to the problem, and no framework here binds it.

Quick revision

National Policy and Action Plan 2015: security, development, rights and entitlements, governance, public perception. Police and public order are State subjects, entry 2 of the State List; the Union supplements. Security: Central Armed Police Forces and CoBRA; the Greyhounds of Andhra Pradesh from 1989, effective in combination with surrender and development; the Security Related Expenditure scheme, 83 districts in nine States as recorded in Nandini Sundar; the Special Infrastructure Scheme and fortified police stations. LIMIT: Nandini Sundar, Special Police Officers in counter-insurgency unconstitutional under articles 14 and 21, funding stopped, firearms recalled, private armies to be prevented.

Development: road plans for the affected districts, the mobile tower project, Eklavya Model Residential Schools, the ROSHNI skill scheme, financial inclusion, and the Aspirational Districts Programme from 2018. Rights: PESA, the Forest Rights Act, the minimum support price mechanism for minor forest produce from 2013 with Van Dhan Vikas Kendras, restoration under the Land Transfer Regulations, and rehabilitation under the 2013 acquisition Act. Surrender and rehabilitation: grant, stipend, training, housing, weapon incentive, protection. Restorative justice: acknowledgment, restitution before compensation, the gram sabha as forum, Gram Nyayalayas and legal aid, reintegration rather than surrender, and accountability on both sides, with the honest limits stated. What has not worked: Salwa Judum, the law and order frame, clearance before claims, consultation without consent, and detention as an answer.

Test yourself

1. Name the five prongs of the National Policy and Action Plan of 2015. Security measures, development interventions, ensuring the rights and entitlements of local communities, improvement in governance, and public perception management.

2. What limit did the Supreme Court place on the security prong? In Nandini Sundar it held the appointment of Special Police Officers to perform the duties of regular police officers in counter-insurgency unconstitutional under articles 14 and 21, ordered the State to cease using them and to recall their firearms, ordered the Union to stop funding their recruitment for that purpose, and ordered the State to prevent the operation of any group, including Salwa Judum and the Koya Commandos, that takes the law into private hands.

3. Why is the rights prong different in kind from the other three? Because it changes the facts on which the movement recruits. Recognition of forest and land rights, ownership of minor forest produce and restoration of alienated land restore the resource whose loss was the grievance; security, development spending and rehabilitation manage the consequences of that loss.

4. Outline a restorative justice model for the affected districts. Acknowledgment by the State of the historical injustice, which the preamble to the Forest Rights Act 2006 already makes; restitution of land and forest rights under sections 3 and 4 in preference to compensation; the gram sabha as the forum, which section 4(d) of PESA and section 6 of the 2006 Act already constitute; Gram Nyayalayas, Lok Adalats and legal aid for the disputes that follow; reintegration of those leaving the movement on terms the community agrees; and investigation and prosecution of outstanding allegations against the State's own forces.

5. State two honest limits of restorative approaches here. They presuppose a party willing to participate and cannot be conducted with an organisation that rejects the constitutional order; and a gram sabha under armed pressure is not a free forum. They address the dispossession that is the root cause, not the insurgency itself.