It’s been 20 years since Madivi Hiresh left Rampuram village in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma due to the escalating confrontation between Maoists and the now-outlawed militia Salwa Judum. Since then, he’s built a new life in Yerraboru village in Telangana’s Bhadradri Kothagudem — it’s where his family is and it’s the place where his three children were born. But Hiresh is still fighting to call the place home.
“Like me there are 27 families who have migrated from Chhattisgarh. But we are not recognised as tribals as we do not have a caste certificate and so do not get any tribal benefits,” he says.
Hiresh’s predicament reverberates throughout Bastar, where the decades-old conflict has displaced thousands. As the Centre’s March 2026 deadline to root out Leftwing extremism looms and security forces in Chhattisgarh push on with their counterinsurgency operations, activists fear there is a demographic that could be entirely neglected – the thousands of people displaced by the violence. They say several of these people fled to the neighbouring Telangana and Andhra Pradesh but have no land rights.
“We fear that once this is over, these victims will be forgotten forever,” activist Shubranshu Choudhary tells The Indian Express. In 2019, Choudhary petitioned the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) seeking a survey of Chhattisgarh’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). During a hearing of that petition on September 8 this year, the Chhattisgarh government put the number of IDPs at 13,000.
As the Centre deadline looms, both displaced tribals and activists are seeking rehabilitation for this group. According to Choudhary, these victims should “first be recognised as victims of a conflict that is now almost over”. “For example, the Central Home Ministry rehabilitated Bru tribals from Mizoram who were in similar situations in Tripura in 2019-20. These Gond tribals can be rehabilitated like them after making a special rehabilitation plan. The Centre can also use clauses in the Forest Rights Act to regularise forest land they are occupying in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in exchange of their vacated forest land in Chhattisgarh,” he says.
According to activists, many IDPs from Chhattisgarh fled their homes in the 2000s — when counterinsurgency operations that also involved the Salwa Judum were at its peak in Chhattisgarh. The militia was disbanded after the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 2011. During a hearing in February 2025, the NCST asked the governments of Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha to conduct surveys to determine the IDPs in these states.
It also asked the Chhattisgarh government to re-evaluate its figure of IDPs, calling its then-stated figure of 10,000 “unacceptably low” and that it had failed to account for a large portion of the displaced tribal population. This came three years after an association of such IDPs approached the Commission in March 2022 alleging that the governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were “taking away their lands” in the states’ forest areas.
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In response to a letter from the NCST concerning one such group of IDPs in September 2023, the Bhadradri Kothagudem district collector said that “the migrants” were encroaching on forest land. The collector also denied they were entitled to forest rights, stating they were not recognised as STs in Telangana. However, during a hearing in November 2024, the NCST noted that “at least 75 such (IDP) settlements have been taken away”. “The struggles of these IDPs highlight the urgent need for a comprehensive policy response that addresses their rights to land and livelihood, ensuring they are not further marginalised in a system that should protect their interest,” NCST member Hussain Nayak Hussain noted in the hearing.
The IDPs that The Indian Express spoke to also said that this process is ongoing. For many of these displaced tribals, the loss of land pushes them back into instability. They are now seeking land rights from the Telangana government and compensation from the Chhattisgarh dispensation.
“I began growing cotton, moong dal and rice on eight acres of land after coming to Patagundalpad village in Bhadradri Kothagudem district in 2005. In 2023, the government said a survey of the land will be done later, the forest department said that I had encroached on their land and
they would take it away,” Katam Kosa, the 48-year-old president of the displaced tribal organisation, says.
