From Arms to Alphabets: Bastar Liberated from Naxal Indoctrination Camps as Mainstream Education Returns
"These schools were the training ground of Bal Sangham, the child wing of Maoists and the major sources of recruitments of local cadres to run extremism”: A Police officer
RAIPUR: The waning of the Leftwing Extremism in Chhattisgarh has liberated education in the remote pockets of south Bastar in the state from the reds with the closure of Maoist schools.
More than two dozen schools had been run by the Jantana Sarkar, the parallel government run by the Maoists in the border areas of districts of Sukma, Bijapur and Narayanpur in south Bastar, considered the Naxal stronghold, where the local tribal children had been indoctrinated with violent Naxal ideology after being provided basic learning such as alphabets in Gondi language.
The children were taught how to handle arms and the art of spying on the security forces in these schools, a senior police officer said on Monday.
“These schools were the training ground of Bal Sangham, the child wing of Maoists and the major sources of recruitments of local cadres to run extremism”, the police officer said, unwilling to be quoted.
The Maoist schools were usually run in the makeshift houses without walls.
Some students in these schools were the children of Maoist parents who were killed in encounters with security forces, the police officer said.
Security forces had seized books and other learning materials while raiding many such schools on the Sukma- Bijapur border, the police officer said.
The reading materials seized were found to be common for the students and cadres, a police officer said.
Midday meal arrangements used to be made in these schools with forced contribution from the local villagers, the police officer said.
Maoists with at least primary education used to be appointed as teachers in these schools.
Often, Maoists who were incapacitated in the encounters were rehabilitated in the post of teachers in these schools, the police officer said.
All the Maoist schools were shut down a year ago as security forces have breached the length and breadth of Maoist stronghold in Bastar, the police officer said.
The current students of these schools have now been relocated to different government schools in the nearby areas, which were closed down for over a decade by Maoists but reopened now.
According to official data, as many as 35 schools- 28 in Bijapur, five in Sukma, and two in Narayanpur- which were closed by the Maoists for over a decade, were reopened in 2024-25.
The state government has appointed teachers, majority of them are part timers, in all these schools.
The teachers have virtually been running door-to-door in the villages to bring back the students, dropped out of the schools, to the classrooms.
