India, Oct. 18 -- The Centre has set March 31, 2026, as the deadline to eliminate the Maoist movement. But the armed political insurgency that dates back to the late 1960s and presently, centred mainly in the forested areas of central India, may fizzle out even before that. Since CPI (Maoist) general secretary Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, was killed in a police action in Chhattisgarh in May, the political group has been in disarray. Many more have been killed in encounters with security forces, and a large number of cadres have surrendered. Close to 300 persons have laid down arms in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra in the past three days. The movement itself is divided, with a section advocating surrender. The collapse of the Maoist movement, described in 2009 by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the country's biggest internal security threat, is yet another example of a militaristic ideological force biting the dust. The Maoists, also called Naxalites, broke away from the CPM in 1967 and have been waging war against the Indian State since. It had survived the setbacks in West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Bihar between the 1970 and 1990s, to regroup as a potent force in central India in the 2000s. The leadership, under pressure from police in Andhra Pradesh, had moved deep into the jungles and built the party as a guerrilla force with cadres from the economically impoverished tribal communities. That phase is over, as the numbers reveal: Union home minister Amit Shah said Thursday that since January 2024, 2,100 Naxalites have surrendered, 1,785 have been arrested, and 477 have been eliminated. There are multiple reasons for the Maoists losing ground. One, the Indian State has extended its reach into areas that were once inaccessible because of poor physical infrastructure and ungoverned in the absence of public institutions. The underdevelopment, an outcome of the absent or weak State, had allowed rent-seeking by caste and other social elites, creating a large catchment for the Maoists to recruit from. Two, operations by the security forces have blunted the military edge that the Maoists had over local police, which also allowed them domain dominance. Three, pressure from security forces and the killing of senior leaders seems to have broken the will to continue the fight for an unrealisable Utopia. Four, a crisis of ideology, the result also of global politics, has left the movement politically impoverished and reduced it to a band of violent outlaws. The Maoists had no answers to a democratic order, imperfect in many ways, but willing to address social and economic grievances through the instruments of the State and backed by legitimate firepower. The collapse of the Maoist movement is a chronicle foretold. The success of the anti-Maoist campaign is also evidence of the robustness of India's constitutional democracy and the flexibility of its instruments such as affirmative action and welfare programmes. The inequities in the distribution of resources notwithstanding, successive governments have been successful in building a State that is reasonably responsive, representative, and inclusive. Much more can be, and needs to be, done, no doubt. The trust citizens harbour in electoral democracy is self-evident in the high polling recorded despite threats from the Maoists. Ideological blindness prevented the Maoists from recognising the liberatory potential in electoral democracy, and they are paying the price for it....