When we pay homage to those who sacrificed their lives in popular struggles, we usually sing a line: “Born somewhere, raised somewhere, went somewhere else and breathed their last.” But Hidma’s story is different. He was born there. He grew up there. He rose there. He made history there. And in the end, he merged with the very same soil. The soil of Bastar.
Six months ago, Namballa Keshav Rao—born in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, in Srikakulam district—shed his blood on this same Bastar land. And on November 18, 2025, Madvi Hidma—born in Bastar—breathed his last in the Eastern Ghats, in the Maredumilli region. Within a span of just six months, the Indian people’s war lost two of its most capable commanders.
Before we understand Hidma, we must understand Bastar—the land in which he was born and raised. In truth, Hidma was not the first warrior to rise from the soil of Bastar. Nor did the history of struggle in Bastar begin with Hidma or with the Maoist party he represented. Even if we go strictly by written records, as early as 1825—three decades before the First War of Independence—an Adivasi zamindar named Gend Singh first raised the banner of rebellion. He led the Paralkot Rebellion against the Maratha rulers who, with British support, had suppressed Adivasi rights. The rulers of the time hanged him.
Many small and large uprisings followed. But the Bhumkal Rebellion of 1910, led by Gunda Dhur, occupies a special place in history. He united many tribes—Koya, Dorla, Madia, Muria, Gond, Halba, Bhatra—and led a widespread, organized revolt against colonial exploitation and British laws.
After independence too, the chain of struggles continued. In the 1960s, Praveer Chandra Bhanj Deo, a king who raised his voice for Adivasi rights, was shot dead by Indira Gandhi’s government forces. His killing must also be seen as part of the long tradition of struggles for jal-jangal-jameen.
Today, debates—particularly in Telugu society—are common: whether long-term struggle has run its course, whether the armed path is viable anymore, whether one should follow the Chinese or Russian model. But even if we look only at documented history, Bastar has seen at least 200 years of long-term resistance. And the decision of whether a struggle took an armed or unarmed form was not made by the people alone. It was shaped by the conditions of the time—and, often, determined by their enemy.
Praveer Chandra Bhanj Deo did not take up arms. Even in 1989, when guerrilla leader Vijayabhaskar (Sukhdev) entered the Keshkal region of North Bastar, the local Gond Adivasis who began resisting bauxite mining in Kuve Mari did not carry guns. Sukhdev, though a guerrilla himself, did not tell them to take up arms. He showed them all the legal avenues, encouraged them to protest, march, and demonstrate. He himself wrote and sang the song “Sange Dakal… Baato Kuve Khadaan Tun Band Kiyaa La” to lead them forward. Long before some of the self-proclaimed champions of “democratic” and “constitutional” struggles began preaching, the people of Bastar were already well-versed in such forms of resistance. Sukhdev did take up arms—but he never said armed struggle was the only path. Neither did his party. To understand how armed struggle eventually became the principal form, we must go back even further in history.
In 1993, when the government attempted to seize Adivasi land in Mawalibhata for a steel plant, the people who united against it had no connection with the Maoist (then People’s War) party. When former Bastar collector B.D. Sharma marched with the villagers in Jagdalpur in support of this struggle, he was humiliated—garlanded with footwear and his face blackened. The people saw for themselves how their lawful, peaceful, constitutional struggle was met with brutal repression. They understood its limits.
In 2000, when land was seized again—this time in Nagarnar, defying even the Gram Sabha resolution—the Adivasis resisted with sticks and stones. They knew nothing about protracted people’s war. They knew nothing about Maoist ideology. They knew only one thing: if they did not resist, they would lose everything.
In 2005, when Tata sought land in Lohandiguda for yet another steel plant, the Maoists had no organizational presence there. Yet the people fought back, because losing their land meant becoming migrant labourers and living a life of destitution. At the same time, Salwa Judum was launched—not just as protection for corporate projects, but as an advance guarantee. As Judum squads massacred civilians, razed entire villages, and committed atrocities across west and south Bastar, the people of Lohandiguda sought guidance. They went downstream of Chitrakot falls, contacted Maoists, and built ties. This is not ancient history—just two decades old.
On this land with such a powerful legacy, Hidma was born in the late 1970s, in a remote village of south Bastar. His village, Puvarti, had little connection with the outside world then. His entire childhood unfolded amidst people’s struggles. First came struggles against the forest department’s exploitation. Then came land struggles led by the party against Adivasi landlords. By the time Hidma was growing up, nearly every village had gained land through these struggles. Forest-produce prices, fair wages for tendu leaf pluckers—these victories gave people a measure of freedom.
But the government launched the Jan Jagran Abhiyan in 1990–92 to protect declining landlord power and crush these movements. The movement defeated these campaigns as well. Hidma came of age during these turbulent times.
Around the same period, village cooperatives and later Revolutionary People’s Committes (Grama Rajya Committees) (later forming the organs of Janatana Sarkar, the people’s government) were established. The people, having defeated local class enemies, began shaping their own development—seed banks, cooperative farming, pond construction, fish breeding, vegetable cultivation, medical brigades, schools. People’s self-governance was taking root.
It was during this time, around 1996–97, that Hidma joined the guerrilla force—very naturally, just like many youths of that generation. He had some schooling and an insatiable curiosity to learn. While working in the Basaguda squad in his own region, he met Anuradha Gandhi—a noted revolutionary intellectual—who had come to Dandakaranya for field study and then joined the squad. Whenever she found a moment, he insisted she teach him English reading and writing. Not only English—science, math, and many aspects of the outside world. When the police once attacked the squad, Hidma was the trusted young comrade who ensured Anuradha’s safe evacuation.
The party later selected him for the first platoon formed in Dandakaranya. But an injured foot forced him to stay back. Instead, he was assigned to the technical wing dealing with weapon repair and manufacture. For a year or two he learned everything—from weapons and ammunition to their limitations and mechanical intricacies.
Later, he was moved back to organizational responsibilities in the South Bastar division, working in Jegurugonda and Kunta regions. In 2005, Salwa Judum erupted—changing the history of Bastar, the people’s war, and Hidma’s life forever. Between June 2005 and late 2006, Judum burned down over 640 villages and killed more than 1200 people, according to human rights estimates. Hundreds of Adivasi women testified to brutal sexual violence. From infants to elders, people of all ages were murdered. Thousands were herded into coercive “relief camps.” All this while the government presented Judum as a spontaneous Adivasi uprising against Maoist atrocities—silencing all news, imposing total media blackout, and carrying out unprecedented fascist repression.
In this context, the September 2007 Urpalmetta attack—where 24 CRPF jawans were killed—brought Hidma into the spotlight. When 200–300 security forces attacked Urpalmetta and nearby villages, burning homes and scattering villagers, Hidma and his 60–70-strong company ran 4–5 kilometers to encircle the forces. Many jawans fled, but 24 were trapped and killed.
This attack restored faith among the people. It gave confidence to Hidma, to the cadres, and to the party about advancing the people’s war.
The media—slavishly serving the government—now paints him as the “killer” behind the 76 jawans killed at Tadimetla. But was Hidma born a killer? Did he invade someone else’s land? What business did thousands of CRPF, Naga, and Mizo battalions have in those forests? On whose orders, under which laws, did they turn villages into charred wastelands? Why did they abduct women? Why did they kill everyone in sight?
In the Tadimetla battle of April 10, 2010—lasting four fierce hours—villagers themselves ran into the battlefield to give porridge to the exhausted guerrillas. They carried more than 20 injured fighters and 12 dead guerrillas on makeshift stretchers. Who were these fighters following Hidma into battle without fear? Almost all were people who had watched their huts burn in Judum’s arson. Nearly all had lost family members to Judum killings. War was not their desire—only a necessity. That is how they became fighters. And Hidma became their leader. It was a historically driven evolution.
Until 2005–06, guerrillas relied heavily on landmines. Gradually, they shifted toward surrounding the enemy and inflicting damage through gun battles. Hidma was one of the pioneers of this tactical shift. He planned many later attacks and led them from the front. He developed his own style of warfare—deeply rooted in the topography he knew intimately. He could gauge where which tactic would work. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of each comrade and deployed them accordingly. He knew which weapon to use where. He knew which communities he could rely upon and to what extent. He adapted Maoist people’s war theory precisely to local terrain and social foundations.
The people were Hidma’s strength. Hidma was theirs. That was his strength. That was why the people’s war in that period achieved repeated successes. It is no exaggeration to say the people themselves made Hidma. They served as his eyes, ears, legs, and hands. They saw in him the hero who could punish Judum marauders and state forces for burning their villages, raping their women, killing their children and elders. They saw in him the warrior who protected their villages, their lives, their forests, their rivers— their homeland.
After his death, many villagers and relatives told the media it was a fake encounter—that he had been captured and killed. Many of them may have never seen him in person. Their accusation reflects not suspicion of the police, but their belief that Hidma could not be killed in direct battle. Their conviction that no one could defeat him face-to-face.
But that very Hidma lost his life in his own land, caught in a web of betrayal. The forces that never dared confront him openly managed to capture him only when he was unarmed. They promised to spare him if he surrendered—not just the enemy, but even some turncoats who once walked beside him echoed this. But Hidma chose to die like a warrior. He chose to remain a fighter till his last breath.
Despite heavy restrictions and strict orders to finish the funeral within hours, hundreds of Adivasis reached Puvarti. Among the mourners beside the bodies of Hidma and his comrade Raje, the majority were women—perhaps because many men could not come due to the clampdown. Many of these women had probably never seen Hidma even once. They perhaps only knew his name, or heard tales of his military victories. Many walked holding infants on their hips. No one knows what these mothers told their crying children, what image formed in those tiny eyes, or which generation might one day rise again like Hidma’s. But one thing is certain: Hidma’s legacy will not end anytime soon. His history will never be erased.
Samita
