Decades of bloodshed, displacement, and loss — and now, a country standing at what its leaders are calling the edge of a historic finish line. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday, November 9, 2026, took to X to mark what he described as a moment of 'great joy and happiness for each and every Indian' as the central government signals that Left-Wing Extremism has been brought to the brink of elimination.

A milestone decades in the making

The Naxalite insurgency — rooted in the 1967 peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal — spread over the following five decades across a swath of central and eastern India sometimes called the 'Red Corridor', spanning Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Telangana, and several other states. At its peak, the movement affected hundreds of districts, claiming thousands of lives — civilians, security personnel, and insurgents alike. The scale of the challenge made any talk of elimination seem distant.

CM Sarma specifically credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 'strong leadership' and the personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) — the primary paramilitary force deployed in anti-Naxal theatres — for their 'courage and sacrifices.' His post asked the question plainly: 'Who could have imagined that Naxalism would be brought to the brink of elimination so quickly?'

The CRPF's grinding campaign in the Red Corridor

The CRPF has borne the sharpest edge of counter-insurgency in Naxal-affected zones, conducting thousands of area-domination operations, intelligence-based strikes, and jungle warfare engagements over successive years. Ministry of Home Affairs annual reports have documented a consistent, year-on-year decline in Naxal-related violence incidents, fatalities, and the number of districts classified as 'affected' since 2014. Infrastructure push — roads into previously inaccessible forest belts, banking access, mobile connectivity — ran alongside security operations as the dual-track strategy the central government championed.

The human cost on the security-forces side has been steep. CRPF jawans have lost colleagues in ambushes, IED blasts, and firefights across difficult terrain for years. CM Sarma's tribute to their 'sacrifices' gestures at that accumulated toll — a toll that now, in his framing, has helped purchase something historically significant.

Modi government's internal-security ledger

Counter-Left-Wing Extremism has been a consistent headline in the BJP-led government's internal-security narrative since 2014. Successive Home Ministers have cited shrinking 'affected-district' counts as evidence of a governance model that pairs hard security operations with welfare delivery. CM Sarma, as convenor of the North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) and one of the BJP's most prominent regional voices, amplifying this moment is both a political and a symbolic act — connecting the Northeast's own insurgency-to-peace arc to the broader national counter-extremism story.

The next official benchmark to watch: the Ministry of Home Affairs' annual report on Left-Wing Extremism statistics and any formal government declaration on the residual number of Naxal-affected districts still on the map.