They gave their lives so Bastar could know peace — and on Saturday, 17 October 2026, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai ensured the state did not forget them. At a solemn Shouryanjali (tribute-to-valour) ceremony held in Raipur, Sai paid homage to security personnel who laid down their lives fighting left-wing extremism across the state, and personally honoured the families they left behind.

The event was organised under the Seva Sankalp Abhiyan — a campaign marking 25 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public service, counting from his tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister beginning in 2001 through to his years leading the nation. Posting on X, CM Sai wrote: 'The sacrifice of our brave soldiers who laid down their lives to establish peace in Bastar and across Chhattisgarh will always be remembered. We offered reverent tributes to the martyrs and expressed gratitude by honouring their families.'

Bastar's Long War and the Cost in Lives

Bastar, the vast forested division in southern Chhattisgarh, sits at the heart of what was once called the Red Corridor — a swathe of central and eastern India where Maoist insurgents ran a parallel government through intimidation and violence for decades. Chhattisgarh's security forces, alongside central paramilitary units, absorbed some of the heaviest casualties of any theatre in the counter-Naxal campaign, making the state's martyrs a recurring subject of both grief and state commemoration.

Counter-insurgency efforts in the region have combined sustained security operations with development pushes in tribal districts, a dual-track approach that intensified after 2014 under the NDA government's integrated Left Wing Extremism strategy. CM Sai's remark that 'decisive success against Naxalism has been achieved through the indomitable courage and valour of our security forces' reflects the official position that the insurgency's operational capacity has been significantly degraded.

Seva Sankalp Abhiyan: Tribute Wrapped in a Silver Jubilee

The Seva Sankalp Abhiyan frames Modi's 25-year public service milestone as a national occasion for service and remembrance, with state governments rolling out events across the country. The Raipur Shouryanjali weds the political commemorative campaign to a solemn act of state: publicly recognising the families of fallen security personnel — a gesture that carries weight in communities where a son or husband in uniform was often the household's primary earner and pride.

Chief Minister Sai's personal presence at the ceremony, and his direct engagement with martyrs' families, signals the Chhattisgarh government's intent to keep the counter-insurgency narrative — and the human cost behind it — visible in public consciousness even as reported violence levels decline.

The soldiers of Bastar wrote their part of this story in silence and sacrifice. The least the living can do is say their names out loud — and mean it.