Basavaraju or Namballa Keshava Rao

Harsh Thakor

Namballa Keshava Rao, General Secretary of CPI (Maoist), was mercilessly murdered in the encounter in which 27 Maoist cadres were also killed by security forces in the forest of Abujhmad in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on Wednesday (May 21) morning. The Communist Party of India (CPI) condemned the cold-blooded killing of the senior-most Maoist leader along with several Adivasis in Chhattisgarh. The CPI demanded an independent judicial inquiry into the killing field of suspected Maoists. A statement issued by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Politburo said: “Ignoring repeated appeals from the Maoists for talks, the central and the BJP-led Chhattisgarh state governments have chosen not to pursue a solution through dialogue. Instead, they are following an inhuman policy of killings and annihilation”. The CPI(ML)-Liberation also condemned the cold-blooded extra-judicial killing of the General Secretary of CPI-Maoist and other Maoist activists and Adivasis in Narayanpur-Bijapur.

It is yet another instance of extra-judicial action carried out under the guise of counterinsurgency. The party said that the repeated use of lethal force instead of lawful arrest raises concerns about the government’s commitment to democratic norms and the rule of law.

With this, more than 185 suspected Maoists have been killed or seriously injured in the gunfights this year. In 2024, 217 suspected Maoists were killed by security forces. Malini Subramaniam of Scroll reported that while many of those killed in Bastar region in Chhattisgarh in 2024 were declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists. The families, however, claimed that the persons were civilians. So far 54 suspected Maoists were arrested and 84 surrendered during the current ‘wipe out naxals’ campaign. This operation comes in the wake of another operation on the Karregutta Hills of Chhattisgarh, subsequently named “Operation Black Forest”.

This is the first time in the over-four-decade-old history of the Maoist party that its top-most leader or secretary was killed in an encounter.

The martyrdom of Basavaraju, General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist) is an irreparable loss for the people of India and the exploited and oppressed throughout the world. He unwaveringly rendered service to the people’s cause and gave able leadership to the Maoist movement.

Basavaraju, who, with unflinching resilience for five decades uninterruptedly waved the banner of revolutionary struggle for liberation, will win a permanent place in the hearts of the oppressed.

Namballa Keshava Rao is the second General Secretary after Charu Mazumdar to be martyred at the hands of the police. Without doubt, he has carved a permanent niche amongst the greatest Maoist leaders ever from India.

Keshava Rao’s life voyage showcased or symbolised how a Marxist revolutionary remains undeterred amidst the harshest perils or most torturous roots. It illustrated how revolutionary upheaval breeds a revolutionary and the spiritual transformation undergone within a Revolutionary. Exploring and experimenting were habitual features of his life, equipping him to resurrect revolutionary upsurge from the deepest depths of despair.

With untold mastery, he preserved the fulcrum or base of the revolutionary movements and structures. Few Communist leaders played such a pivotal role in transpiring the Dandakaranya movements or as assiduously established seeds of revolutionary democracy. Each part of his life was similar to a fresh chapter in an epic with the narration of his evolution and voyage from an embryonic stage to a great Maoist leader.

This genocide is certainly a mortal blow for the new democratic revolution, but somehow will crystallise the beginning of a new episode, where the ongoing fight will be intensify, standing on one side are the greatest children of India who are sacrificing all their might to protect the country’s water-forest-land and on the other there are some cowardly paper tigers who are executing their country’s citizens on the behest of the Ruling Party and foreign corporates.

Son of a school teacher, Keshava Rao hailed from Jiyyannapeta village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. Keshava Rao began his early education in his native village and completed his high school in Talagam (his grandfather’s village in Tekkali revenue block) and pursued Intermediate at Tekkali Junior College.

His revolutionary journey began its transition in his second year of undergraduate studies in REC (Regional Engineering College) during 1973-74, being one of the founder members of the Revolutionary Students Union (RSU). He definitely organised combat to isolate the ABVP’s hooliganism and communal politics. He was instrumental in giving REC a reputation as the “Radical Engineering College.” With repression on revolutionaries escalating during the Emergency, he chose to go underground and never resurfaced.

He was a talented sports person in his college days, excelling in Kabaddi, Volleyball, and cricket.

While living underground in Warangal, he worked as a hamali (porter) for a few months to enable him to organise the local labourers.

Keshava Rao displayed mastery as a strategist in Maoist operations and was adept at orchestrating guerrilla warfare.

In 1980, when the party decided to send squads into the forests, he was deputed as the commander of the first squad to East Godavari district under the name “Ganganna.” Gradually, he became part and parcel of the Dandakaranya movement. He was first elected to the Forest Liaison Committee and later to the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee. For several years, he served as the secretary of the Dandakaranya committee under the name Ganganna. In 1986, while he was waiting for an appointment in Visakhapattanam, STF sleuth tried to arrest him, but he escaped after retaliating physically and then firing at them. From then on, until the May 21 encounter in which he was martyred, he was never trapped by the police.

He played a pivotal part in forming higher-level military formations in 1995, planting the People’s Guerrilla Army in 2000, and the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in 2004. As commander of the PLGA, he personally trained squads across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Dandakaranya, and was a direct participant in military actions.

Rao became the party’s General Secretary at the age of 65 when the revolutionary movement was undergoing a crisis. He led the party during this tenure of crisis and relentlessly fought until his last breath. He served as the General Secretary of the party for seven years, from 2018 until his death. Prior to that, since the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the erstwhile People’s War Party was formed in 2001, Rao was the charge of it. When the CPI (Maoist) was formed in 2004, he contributed as a leader in both the CMC and the Politburo, playing a major role in leading the revolutionary movement.

For one thing, Keshava Rao was unable to formulate a coherent linking or bonding of mass movements with military actions and exhibited tendencies of replacing the mass line with a military approach or militaristic orientation.

In crucial junctures, he overestimated the military capabilities of the Maoist party and army, unable to make an accurate assessment of the subjective factors. He was unable to initiate a comprehensive review of the grave setbacks faced by his party in recent years.

He did not give due respect to the contradiction between the party and the People’s Army or the overall reorganisation of the party.

[Harsh Thakor is a freelance Journalist. Thanks to Ravi Narla and Ajith (Murali), and Swarnava Bhattacharya for information.]

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 51, June 15 - 21, 2025