Linkages between development and spread of extremism

Story hook

It is March 2014. A team of Planning Commission researchers walks through Saranda forest in West Singhbhum, Jharkhand — 4,500 sq km of dense sal canopy, one of Asia's largest sal forests, and until 2011 the headquarters of the CPI (Maoist) Eastern Regional Bureau. The team is documenting the Saranda Action Plan, launched in 2011 after security forces cleared the area in Operation Anaconda (August 2011).

The findings are stark. 56 villages, 7,000+ households, 76% of children stunted, 64% of women anaemic, literacy 23% (vs national 74%). No primary health centre within 30 km. The nearest bank — 45 km. The only road, until 2012, was a Maoist-controlled mud track. Iron ore worth Rs. 22 lakh crore beneath their feet — the Bailadila-grade ore that feeds Tata + SAIL. Royalties paid: mostly to state, mostly diverted, mostly not seen by these villagers. Forest land "owned" by these adivasis under cultivation for generations — but title deeds: zero.

This is the development-extremism nexus in concrete form. The Expert Group on Development Challenges in Extremist-Affected Areas (D. Bandyopadhyay Committee, 2008), set up by the Planning Commission, had laid it out clearly: "LWE is fundamentally a movement of the underprivileged, with deep socio-economic causes — not an ideological aberration." The Committee identified 6 root drivers: land alienation, displacement, forest dispossession, governance vacuum, livelihood crisis, identity humiliation.

For UPSC, the linkage between development and extremism is the most analytical sub-topic of GS-III internal security. Examiners test whether you understand that security alone cannot end extremism — and that development without rights cannot either.

Why this matters for UPSC

This is a foundational analytical chapter for Mains GS-III — asked in 2013, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2022 in different framings. Prelims rarely asks direct questions but does test associated facts (Bandyopadhyay Committee 2008, Saranda Action Plan 2011, IAP 2010). Interview boards love this topic as it lets candidates show nuance — not just "security vs development" but the rights-based development angle.