India is pouring thousands of paramilitary forces into its Maoist-infested heartland against an insurgency which has seen the rebels reach the outskirts of Delhi.
With violence by the Naxalite rebels on the increase, the government has resolved to take them on in their own territory in the hope of crushing an uprising which has the support of large numbers of its poorest citizens.
Government forces made the first forays in the offensive, dubbed Operation Green Hunt, on Friday, but met no resistance. The rebels, forewarned by weeks of preparations and public statements of intent, appeared to have dispersed into the forests.
An estimated 6,000 people have died in the insurgency in the past 20 years, prompting India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, to describe it as the gravest threat to India's internal security. The Naxalites claim to be fighting for the poor, mainly tribal people of the country against those seeking to deprive them of the land they rely on. Naxalites are believed to have a strong presence in at least 180 of India's 626 districts and are considered a major threat to security in the so-called Red Corridor, which runs through eight states from Bihar in the north-east down to Andhra Pradesh in the south.
In recent weeks there has been an upsurge in violence, including a spate of attacks on school buildings, many of which have been taken over by security forces. In some places lessons have continued, with children obliged to share their building with heavily armed men.
Hundreds of schools have been destroyed by Naxalites in recent years. In the Naxalite stronghold of Bastar alone, in the state of Chhattisgarh, an estimated 247 schools have been blown up. A week ago, in the state of Bihar, about 200 armed Naxalites surrounded two primary school buildings in the Gaya district and blew them up with dynamite.
Last week five school buildings were blown up in the Palamau district of Jharkhand state. The attack followed the destruction of another school in Dumri village a week earlier. In all, more than 30 school buildings have been blown up in Jharkhand state in the past five years.
Meanwhile, in West Bengal, a school teacher in Purulia district was killed by suspected Naxalites on 26 November. Human rights groups have urged the rebels to abandon attacks on schools, warning that they are hurting the very people they took up arms to defend.
"The Maoists have been committing crimes that will eventually hurt the very people they claim to speak for," said Meenakshi Ganguly, from Human Rights Watch. "Destroying infrastructure like roads, communication towers or school buildings might seem like an attack on the evil state, but for the villager, already denied most benefits of development, it simply means a longer time to get to crucial health or other services."
In the past month more than 3,000 members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force have been moved from the state of Jammu and Kashmir to Chhattisgarh as the government beefs up its forces. Some security force members are also understood to have been receiving specialist training for the campaign at the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College in Chhattisgarh.
But Human Rights Watch has urged both sides to consider those who are likely to be caught in the crossfire.
"Government and Maoist claims to be acting on behalf of India's poor can be undermined by the atrocities by both sides against these very same people," said Ganguly. "Local people are at risk of being caught in the middle – killed, wounded, abducted, forced to take sides and then risk retribution."
The Naxalite problem has sparked intense debate within India in recent months, with a tacit admission from the government that the failure to protect the rights of tribal people has helped fuel the insurgency. Manmohan Singh has acknowledged the "systematic exploitation and social and economic abuse" in tribal areas. "More could be done; more should be done," he said, before stressing that the government remained determined to tackle the rebel threat.
Last month a leaked security document revealed that the Naxalite presence now extends to the outskirts of Delhi, with some rebels present in the city of Faridabad, 15 miles south of the capital. The document questioned the capability of the Naxalites to mount a serious attack in Delhi, but it noted that the Special Protection Group, which guards the prime minister and other senior figures, had been alerted.
Earlier this year the Observer highlighted how large swaths of the country are now no-go areas for the security forces. Rahul Sharma, superintendent of police for Dantewada district, – one of the key areas expected to be targeted by Green Hunt – acknowledged that 40% of his area was in Naxalite hands. "It is a full-blown war and the Naxalites are migrating from guerrillas to a conventional army," he said.
Despite the seriousness of the threat, the government has ruled out using the army, which is known to be reluctant to get involved in an internal conflict when it is heavily committed to defending the borders with China and Pakistan. Nevertheless, the home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, has indicated that special forces may be sent to carry out specific operations. He also said last week that he was prepared to sit down for talks with Naxalite leaders within 72 hours of their renunciation of violence.
The Naxalites take their name from an uprising in the Naxalbari area of West Bengal in 1967. They have garnered considerable support through their tactic of redistributing the wealth of landowners to the rural power and their opposition to industrialisation in tribal areas where people rely on the forests for their livelihood.
An earlier attempt to tackle the Naxalite problem with the use of the state-backed Salwa Judum militia in 2005 backfired dramatically, leading to an upsurge in violence.
With exquisite timing, the Chhattisgarh government last month sent its tourism minister to London to the World Travel Market to promote the Naxalite-infested Bastar region as a major tourist destination. The state is home to the Chitrakot waterfall, the largest in India.