Let’s Stop the Genocide Against the Adivasi People in India!

A large-scale repressive operation has been deployed in central India since early 2024, known as “Operation Kagaar.” This operation, under the pretext of ending the Naxalite insurgency and claiming to bring “peace” and “progress,” has allowed for massive militarization of the area, the denial of all fundamental democratic rights, numerous detentions, and the indiscriminate murders of the local population, the Adivasi people. All of this has one goal: to hand over the region’s mineral resources to large foreign and Indian corporations. Operation Kagaar began with its first fatality: a 6-month-old baby shot by paramilitaries while he was being breastfed.

All of this occurs in what major media outlets call “the world’s largest democracy,” which in reality is a country where different peoples and minorities are brutally repressed for the sake of the greater profit of large corporations. This is the case for the Adivasi people, primarily composed of indigenous peasants living mainly between the states of Chhattisgarh and Telangana, where there is a large concentration of mineral wealth.

In order to plunder these rich mineral resources and, in the process, expel Adivasi peasants from their ancestral lands, the Indian State has been deploying its police, paramilitary, and military power for years, building dozens of camps and deploying tens of thousands of troops. The list of crimes committed is endless: search and capture operations, murders, indiscriminate shootings, attempts to silence those who rise against these crimes and oppression; aerial drone bombings against the civilian population; multiple rapes of Adivasi women and even their murders; mass displacements of the local population and destruction of their means of livelihood. The crimes are carried out by police and paramilitaries, who, far from ensuring security or upholding the law, have become the spearhead in defense of corporations and their interests in the region. Only in 2024, more than 300 people were murdered, over 80 percent in Bastar. This was the bloodiest year in the area since the Bhumkal Rebellion of 1910.

Additionally the detentions and torture of numerous activists opposing corporate plunder. There are many cases of activists defending democratic rights, intellectuals, and journalists who, under detention by Indian authorities, have suffered torture, resulting in a significant deterioration of their health or even death. The most well-known case was that of the renowned intellectual G.N. Saibaba, who was held in solitary confinement for 10 years, denied all medical attention, and died due to the brutal mistreatment and negligence suffered in prison. In other words, he was murdered by the Indian State. This case was even protested by the United Nations (UN). There have also been murders under custody, such as those of Stan Swamy and Pandu Narote. These prisoners are political prisoners; they have committed no crime. Their only “crime” has been to stand up against oppression, injustice, and the impunity of corporations in their plunder, displacement, and massacre of the Adivasi people. Entire organizations have been banned, such as Moolvasi Bachao Manch, an Adivasi platform that denounces the crimes committed against their people, which was banned at the end of 2024.