June 28, 2025
A Sanhati report
Recent events in Raigarh district, Chhattisgarh, have once again illuminated the vicious intersection of ecological devastation, state violence, and capitalist exploitation. On June 26-27, the Adani Group, tasked with operating the Gare Palma Sector II coal mine for MAHAGENCO, oversaw the felling of more than 5,000 trees in the villages of Mudagaon and Saraitola, Tamnar block, under a deployment of over 2,000 police and security personnel.
Reports in The Wire have documented not only the devastation of unique forest ecosystems, but also the protest and repression faced by local Adivasi communities whose lands and livelihoods are at stake. Arrests, intimidation, and police presence have accompanied the drive to accelerate “development” in the region.
Despite ongoing petitions in the High Court and NGT, the authorities have pressed on. The Chhattisgarh Association for Justice and Equality (CAJE) reported at least seven illegal detentions, including local Congress MLA Vidyawati Sidar, writer-activist Rinchin, and three women. The Adani Group, which is constructing the mine for MAHAGENCO, plans to extract an estimated 655 million tonnes of coal from around 2,584 hectares of land, 215 hectares of which is dense forest. This mining push is the continuation of a long-term assault: in 2022-23 alone, nearly 137 hectares of forest, home to endangered species and river catchments, were cleared for projects like Parsa East and Kanta Basan (PEKB), also tied to Adani’s mining ambitions.
Yet conspicuously absent from much of this coverage is a sustained reckoning with the broader context of state violence – a context in which the strategic elimination of Maoist cadres and sympathizers has gone hand-in-hand with corporate expansion and resource plunder. The “deforestation crisis” is not merely an environmental tragedy, nor is it simply a matter of government mismanagement. It is the visible surface of a deeper war being waged on the poor and marginalized, a war in which the state’s paramilitary apparatus clears not just forests, but also the political obstacles posed by revolutionary opposition.
Operation Kagaar and the Machinery of Repression
Over the last few months, fresh reports have emerged almost daily of escalated operations by security forces in Chhattisgarh, resulting in the killing of numerous Adivasis. These killings are not isolated incidents, nor can they be understood solely in terms of “security” or “counter-insurgency.” Rather, they are part of a larger extermination campaign, most recently operating under the code name “Operation Kagaar.” This policy is openly pursued in the interest of both foreign and domestic corporates like Adani, Essar, ArcelorMittal, Jindal, POSCO, and others, who profit from access to land and minerals forcibly acquired at the expense of local populations.
In just a year and a half, numerous Adivasis, many accused of Maoist links, have been killed in “encounters,” their deaths justified as necessary for the cause of “development.” But the lived reality for the people of these regions is one of ongoing dispossession: access to education, housing, healthcare, employment, and dignity remain absent, even as the land is stripped bare for profit.
The Nexus of Corporate Power and State Violence
Mainstream commentary, even when sympathetic to the plight of Adivasi communities, seldom connect the dots between corporate-led deforestation, the forced removal of communities, and the systematic campaign to wipe out Maoist resistance. But for those living through these dual onslaughts, the link is painfully clear. The expansion of mining is only possible because the state has deployed extraordinary violence to pacify and control the population. “Security” operations serve not to protect the people, but to secure the extraction of resources for private gain.
This is not development for the many, but primitive accumulation in its most brutal contemporary form. What is termed “national growth” and “progress” is, for those at the receiving end, nothing less than the destruction of their world. As has been repeatedly documented, Operation Kagaar and similar campaigns have as their true objective the removal of any obstacle, human or ecological, to unbridled corporate exploitation.
Development as Dispossession
The language of “development” is used to justify not only the devastation of forests but also the bloodletting of hundreds of men and women labeled as Maoists. But who benefits from this development? For the majority in Chhattisgarh, it brings no tangible improvement in living standards. The only thing that grows is the wealth of the corporates and their political patrons. Meanwhile, the forests fall silent, the land grows barren, and the resistance, rooted in centuries of collective life and struggle, is met with ever-greater violence.
The latest assault is thus not only ecological, but fundamentally political. It is the latest chapter in a long history of dispossession and state violence, an episode that will be repeated until the link between “development” and organized violence is broken, and until those who resist are recognized not as “obstacles” but as defenders of a future worth fighting for
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