pc 15 dicembre - INDIA - Dalla parte delle masse Adivasi e delle popolazioni del Bastar - Fermare l'operazione Kagaar ORA!

 

 in via di traduzione

Solidarity Call to EndState Militarization and Extrajudicial Killings in Resource-RichAdivasi Regions in India

On 18 November 2025, the Indian State triumphantly declared the killing of Madvi Hidma, Indigenous Adivasi activist and Naxalite leader, along with his comrade and life partner, Madakam Raje, and eleven other people. With this military “victory,” the BJP Government reiterated it was successfully moving towards the Home Minister Amit Shah’s deadline of 31 March 2026 to end the Naxalite movement in India. This declaration is part of the BJP government’s repressive policies targeting Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, Christians and other marginalized communities, to facilitate the expropriation of land and natural resources by capitalists close to the government.

We, the undersigned, unequivocally stand with the Adivasi villagers and human rights defenders, and India’s civil society, who have strongly noted that Hidma and the others were captured unarmed and taken to the Maredumilli forests, Alluri Sitarama Raju District, Andhra Pradesh, where they were tortured and killed extrajudicially in two groups over two days.
Shortly before, Chhattisgarh’s Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister had “visited” Hidma’s village of Puvarti, Sukma District, Bastar Division. As a part of political performance and theatrics, they had food with his mother, Madvi Pojje, who then entreated Hidma to surrender.
Since January 2024, the Indian State has been conducting extrajudicial killings of its Adivasi peoples – both Naxalite cadres and villagers – under a rewards-for-killing policy for its militarized police. Villagers and civil society have repeatedly noted that these killings are often preceded by capture and torture, but are described by the state as an ‘exchange of fire’ or ‘encounter’ between security forces and insurgents. Of the over 550 people killed until September 2025, a significant proportion were killed in the eco-sensitive, biodiverse, mineral rich forested hills of the Bastar Division in south Chhattisgarh, home to numerous Indigenous Adivasi communities such as the Gonds and Mariyas.

The Bastar Police Action and Outcome Report 2024–2025 notes that in 2024 alone, while reported ‘encounters’ doubled from 68 in 2023 to 121 in 2024, killings increased tenfold, from 20 to 217. Many of the bodies of those killed extrajudicially have been left to decay and become infested with maggots, making identification by family members nearly impossible. Some bodies were forcibly burned to erase evidence of capture and torture and to prevent large numbers from attending public funerals. Madvi Hidma and Madakam Raje’s bodies were returned to Hidma’s village of Purvati in Sukma District, Bastar, for quick cremation, again erasing the evidence of torture and extrajudicial killing. Thousands of Adivasis still attended to pay their last respects.
By treating Naxalites domestically as non-state armed actors and not acknowledging the State’s counterinsurgency operations under international humanitarian law, India evades its obligations under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol II.
Instead, a domestic policy of unconditional surrender and ‘reintegration’, including the rearming of surrendered Naxalites as the ‘District Reserve Guard’, is openly promoted.
Although Bastar’s Naxalite movement is rooted in Indigenous socio-political exploitation, the Indian State continues to evade political settlement, because it would entail centring social justice, which is against the interests of the mining and industrial corporates who see Bastar as a site for resource extraction. Instead, the approach of ‘unconditional surrender’ or ‘be killed’ targets Adivasi communities as a whole, with the aim of isolating and drying up support for the insurgent movement that has resisted the entry of corporations.
Militarization now permeates every aspect of Adivasi lives and livelihoods in Bastar in the form of surveillance, restricted movement, fear and threats of arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence. Human rights violations by militarized security forces are compounded by the complicity of the executive, legislature, and judiciary, in which peace remains elusive even as the State reassures the people of its coming.
Over the past two decades, numerous corporations have entered into agreements with the Chhattisgarh government. The processes of tenders/allotment consistently violate constitutional and legal safeguards and international FPIC standards. Entire rivers, such as the Sheonath, have been sold to private companies. In 2022–2023, Chhattisgarh’s mineral revenue reached INR12,941 crores [USD153 million], with nearly half generated from Bastar’s Dantewada district. Yet, Chhattisgarh’s Adivasis remain among the most impoverished Indian peoples. Human development indicators, including literacy and health, in Bastar’s seven districts are among the lowest in the country.
It is in this context of increasing state-corporate wealth alongside diminishing Indigenous existential agency that Bastar continues to be a key site of Adivasi socio-political struggles against the ‘developmental violence’ approach that excludes any opportunity for justice-based peace. This includes the deliberate dismantling of youth-led mass mobilizations in Bastar that were demanding implementation of their constitutional rights and an end to the human rights violations in the region, sweeping arrests of Adivasi youth leaders/activists under charges of ‘terrorism,’ and the wholesale militarization of Adivasi-dominant regions.
In these ways, the Indian State is systematically erasing Adivasi land rights and human, civil, and political rights for capitalist interests. Over the last two decades, every government has violated the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution as well as India’s obligations under international laws and charters.
We urge people the world over to call on the Government of India to immediately:

• End all forms of violence, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and torture and end state militarization of Bastar;
• Institute an independent judicial inquiry into the circumstances of all the illegal killings carried out in the name of Operation Kagar, including Madvi Hidma and Madakam Raje; and hold State forces accountable for their actions;
• Initiate dialogue and political engagement with the Adivasi communities to genuinely address the demands for constitutionally guaranteed autonomy, land rights, and rights over natural resources.

1. Signatories
1. Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste – France
2. International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India)
3. Indian Alliance Paris
4. India Labour Solidarity (UK)
5. 12ummah.com
6. International Council of Indian Muslims, Switzerland
7. Indian Scheduled Caste Welfare Association UK
8. Indian Workers Association GB
9. AI, Germany
10. Revolutionary Students’ Front, WB, India
11. Sangrami Sramik Manch, WB, India
12. Solifonds, Switzerland
13. Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC)
14. Friends Of Indian Revolution, Canada
15. Telangana Vidyavanthula Vedika — North America
16. Nazariya Magazine, India
17. Boston South Asian Coalition, USA
18. Sangrami Krishak Manch, WB, India
19. Alliance Against Islamophobia, Australia
20. South Asia Solidarity Group, UK
21. Majdoor Adhikar Sangthan, Kundli, Sonipat
22. London Collective for Palestine, UK
23. Coalition Against Fascism in India (CAFI)
24. Forum Against Repression, Telangana
25. Indian Nationalists Movement, Warangal
26. The Humanism Project, Australia
27. Progressive South Asia Collective, Purdue University, USA
28. Other Indias
29. Resist US Led War SFSU, San Francisco
30. South Asian Diasporic Action Collective (SADAC), Canada
31. Insure Our Survival, UK
32. cBalance
33. Transform South Asia, India
34. Money Rebellion, UK
35. POSSIBLE FUTURES, Philippines, Brazil
36. Center for Environmental Concerns, Philippines
37. AMAN MALUKU, Indonesia
38. Rational Medicine Network, India
39. Calcutta AHEAD (Action on Health, Education & Development), Kolkata
40. Revolutionary Writers Association (VIRASAM)
41. Land Forum India, Sehore
42. International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation
    (IPMSDL)
43. Campaign to Defend Nature and People (CDNP), Pan-India
44. National Indigenous Women Forum (NIWF)
45. ROT Collective, UK
46. Justice For All Canada, Toronto, ON
47. Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch, Delhi, India
48. The Institute for Research & Advocacy of Borneo (Link-AR Borneo), Indonesia
49. Corner House, UK
50. International League of Peoples’ Struggle – UK Country Chapter
51. RJ Working, UK
52. Oxford South Asian Ambedkar Forum (OxSAAF), UK
53. Prisoners Voice Platform (TSP)
54. United for Climate Justice, Brussels
55. ATSIIEO (Australia), Australia
56. Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment, Philippines
57. Peoples Rising for Climate Justice
58. The RYSE, Stroud, UK
59. Maoist Internationalist Study Group, Sheffield
60. Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI), Philippines
61. Walsall Kobar Friendship Association, UK
62. Kings Heath United Against Racism, Birmingham UK
63. South Asia Justice Campaign
64. SALAM (South Asian Left), NYC, USA
65. Scientist Rebellion Perú
66. Scientist Rebellion India
67. Food Not Cops Birmingham, UK
68. Hindus for Human Rights UK
69. AVEG-KON – European Confederation of Oppressed Migrants, Europe based migrant
    organization
70. People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, Global
71. PCR del Uruguay Montevideo, Uruguay
72. Young Struggle Europe
73. Southern Illinois Democratic Socialists of America (SIDSA)
74. Global Majority Copwatch
75. Prolekult, West Midlands, UK
76. PCML de República Dominicana
77. Birmingham Queers for Palestine