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India has, over the past 12 years, dismantled two of its most enduring armed security challenges, collapsing a Naxal (Maoist) insurgency that once spanned more than 100 districts and reducing terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir to its lowest operational levels in over a decade. For decades, these insurgencies operated on a model built around geography, organization, and distance from the state. By April 2026, that model has been systematically dismantled across two distinct theatres.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP-led government came to power in May 2014, the baseline was stark. Left Wing Extremism affected 126 districts, forming a continuous arc from the Nepal border through Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha into parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The decade preceding 2014 had seen more than 16,000 incidents of Naxal violence, with roughly 4,700 civilians and over 1,800 security personnel killed.
In core areas such as south Bastar, including Abujhmarh, the insurgency had created conditions of parallel authority, with structures like the Janatana Sarkar functioning as local governance systems, collecting levies, adjudicating disputes, and regulating movement in areas where the state’s physical presence was thin. In several pockets, the state was not absent by law, but it was absent in practice. The insurgents had replaced governance with coercion.
On the other hand, in Jammu and Kashmir, around 200 incidents were recorded in 2014, with active terrorists estimated at roughly 150 to 200. The system was sustained less by local depth and more by external inputs, particularly infiltration across the Line of Control by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. A senior intelligence officer, who served in the region during those times, said, “Unlike Maoism, Kashmir terrorism was externally fuelled. The centre of gravity was across the border, even if the effects were local.”
In the early 2010s, the Jammu and Kashmir tourism sector operated within a ceiling defined by the prevailing security environment. In 2012, the state recorded approximately 1.25 crore total visitors, with the Kashmir Valley accounting for about 13 lakh. This declined in 2013 to roughly 1.09 crore total visitors and around 11 lakh in the Valley, before dropping further to approximately 95 lakh in 2014, following the Septemtotal ber floods.
A d e – cade later, the trajectory shifted sharply. In 2022, the Union Territory recorded over 1.88 crore tourists, with the Kashmir Valley alone seeing around 26 lakh visitors. This rose to over 2.11 crore in 2023, aided by the G20 Tourism Working Group meeting in Srinagar, and reached approximately 2.36 crore in 2024. The Valley’s footfall expanded from the 10-lakh ceiling of 2012 to a 95-lakh-plus ecosystem, signalling a transition into a mainstream tourism economy. According to a now retired bureaucrat, tourism is not just an economic indicator, it reflects a perception of normalcy, which was missing from the state for more than three decades.
RESTRUCTURING OF STATE RESPONSE
What followed after May 2014 was not a single intervention but a layered restructuring of state response, built around continuous presence, infrastructure penetration, intelligence integration, financial disruption, and technological expansion. The first shift was territorial. In 2014, the state’s presence in areas like Abujhmarh or the Sopore hinterland was episodic, with forces entering, engaging, and withdrawing. This was replaced by a model of saturation. Forward operating bases and fortified police stations were pushed into interiors that had historically remained outside routine administrative reach, converting insurgent safe zones into contested and then controlled spaces. A CRPF commandant whose initial posting was in Chhattisgarh, recalled that post 2014, the way of working went through significant changes. “The change was simple in concept but difficult in execution. We stopped visiting these areas. We started staying there.”
Infrastructure reinforced this shift. In 2011-12, only about 1,084 km of roads were constructed annually in Naxal affected areas, while telecom connectivity remained limited, with just 363 mobile towers providing basic 2G services across more than 2,000 identified locations. By April 2026, the road network expanded to over 12,000 km, while more than 8,500 mobile towers, largely providing 4G and 5G coverage, were operational. This reduced physical and informational isolation, eroding the insurgency’s terrain advantage. Roads and telecom did what decades of operations alone could not. They removed distance as a shield that the Naxals had been using to assert control and dominance.
Operational capability evolved alongside. Units such as CoBRA battalions and specialized state forces were deployed with greater coordination, supported by improved inter-state intelligence sharing. The lag between actionable intelligence and response narrowed, shifting operations from reactive engagements to sustained targeting of leadership, logistics, and movement corridors.
As per officials, earlier, intelligence aged by the time they could be acted upon. Post 2014, intelligence and action were happening simultaneously.
Financial networks were disrupted in parallel. Naxal operations long depended on levies extracted from contractors, mining activity, and local economic flows. Post-2014, enforcement and financial intelligence constrained these channels, limiting the insurgency’s ability to sustain cadres, procure materials, and maintain operational depth. According to the official quoted above, once the money flow was hit, the operational capability began to shrink and the Naxals for the first time were faced with the issue of financing.
The surrender framework also transformed. In 2012, approximately 445 Naxals surrendered, reflecting limited trust in state mechanisms. By 2025, surrenders rose to around 2,300, with over 630 additional cadres laying down arms in the first three months of 2026. Supported by enhanced incentives, vocational training across more than 90 Skill Development Centres, and improved security guarantees, the program contributed to over 10,000 surrenders since 2014.
After Amit Shah assumed the role of the Home Minister, he gave a clear message that surrender policy should not be just about laying down arms, but should also offer a credible alternative to violence. This, officials say, encouraged more and more Naxals, especially the young cadre, to lay down their arms.
Technology acted as a force multiplier. In Naxal areas, unmanned aerial vehicles improved surveillance across dense forest cover.
The cumulative effect is reflected in the data. Districts affected by Naxal violence declined from around 126 in 2014 to about 38 by the mid-2020s, and further into single-digit core pockets by 2025-26. Incidents and fatalities dropped by more than half compared to the preceding decade, with significant reductions in both civilian and security force casualties. The continuous Red Corridor ceased to exist as an operational reality, replaced by fragmented and isolated pockets. In Bastar, areas that had remained outside administrative reach saw the establishment of roads, camps, and civilian infrastructure, with authorities now reporting most of the region as free from Naxal influence. In Maharashtra, districts such as Gadchiroli have seen the insurgency reduced to residual presence.
THE TRAJECTORY IN J&K
Similarly, in Jammu and Kashmir, expanded technical intelligence, real-time communication intercepts, database integration, facial recognition tools, and biometric-linked systems improved tracking and reduced anonymity for terrorists and over-ground networks. A senior intelligence official, now retired, who was posted in Srinagar in 2018, said that anonymity was the oxygen of terrorism and once identity and movement became traceable, that oxygen reduced sharply.
Covert operations were carried out where intelligence officials and military officers joined terror groups, climbed up the ladder, became close to the terrorists and then eliminated them. Subsequently, such officials were honoured by the government.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the trajectory followed a different path before converging towards a similar structural outcome. The period between 2016 and 2019 marked the final surge of the earlier insurgency model, triggered by events such as the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani and culminating in the Pulwama attack. Active terrorist numbers rose to over 300 during this phase, with increased recruitment and sustained street mobilization. Post-2019, the approach shifted to sustained ecosystem disruption. Operations became more intelligence-driven, leadership targeting intensified, and financial networks linked to separatist and cross-border groups were disrupted. Overground worker networks faced sustained pressure, constraining logistics and local support. The lifespan of active terrorists shortened, and the system’s ability to regenerate weakened. Technology reinforced this shift, with expanded surveillance, data integration, and tracking improving monitoring of communication, movement, and financial flows.
“We began publicly declaring the remaining lifespan of identified terrorists in days. In most cases, they were neutralised or captured before those timelines expired. This created a sustained psychological deterrent within their ranks and discouraged fresh recruitment,” an Army officer said.
Current estimates reflect the change. From peak levels of over 300 terrorists around 2018-19, numbers have declined to the low hundreds or below. Large-scale attacks have become infrequent, replaced by sporadic incidents involving smaller groups or individuals. Street mobilization has ended, removing a critical layer of operational cover.
What has emerged over the past decade is a shift from event-based counterinsurgency to system-based disruption. Intelligence, technology and financial tracking have reduced both depth and regeneration capacity across networks. As one senior official put it, “The objective was never just to eliminate individuals, but to collapse the system that produces them, and we have achieved it.”
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