Karma, 62, who was killed along with 27 others in the Jhiram Ghati attack, was one of the foremost tribal voices against Maoists in Chhattisgarh. He was also the face behind the Salwa Judum, a force of civilians who were made Special Police Officers (SPOs) and armed to fight the Maoists, and later ran into controversy.
Salwa Judum members were accused of human rights abuses, even as its members themselves became targets of Maoist attacks and were forced to move into secure “camps”. Within six years of its founding, the Salwa Judum was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2011, saying it was unconstitutional and violated fundamental rights to equality and protection of life.
But if the Salwa Judum initiative came under a cloud, Karma’s resolve to take on the Maoists at the height of their powers in Chhattisgarh is not doubted by even his rivals. He had survived several attempts on his life before the Jhiram Ghati blast.
The Maoists described his killing as a “historic success”.
Karma’s son, Chhavindra, 44, said that many of his supporters were also killed by the Maoists later. Karma’s three sons and wife are under Z-plus cover, given by the Central government.
“Maoists murdered over 95 people connected to our family… My father was their oldest enemy, and they took decades to kill him. But we will continue to oppose their ideology,” he said, adding that the BJP government may claim to have ended the Maoist movement, but it is too early to say so.
While Karma and his 15 siblings had a difficult childhood, after losing their parents early, he became a lawyer while one of his elder brothers, Laxman Karma, joined politics and was a Congress MP (1980-1984).
Karma emerged as a rare anti-Maoist tribal voice in Bastar around the end 1970s, with his supporters calling him the “Bastar Tiger”. He stood up against the Maoists first through the Jan Jagran Abhiyan of the 1990s and then the Danteshwari Samiti in the 2000s – both movements seeking to build public opinion against the Maoists.
Calling the Danteshwari Samiti “a soft precursor to Salwa Judum” in some ways, journalist-turned-activist Shubranshu Choudhary said Karma’s role in the history of the anti-Maoist fight in Chhattisgarh can’t be ignored.
The special anti-Naxal District Reserve Guard (DRG), which took the lead eventually in the final push against the Maoists, is “part of Karma’s controversial legacy”, he pointed out. “Its roots lie in the SPOs who emerged during the Salwa Judum period.”
Karma’s former CPI colleague-turned-rival Manish Kunjam said Karma was aware of the long shadow cast by the Salwa Judum and feared that it would continue to haunt his image after his death.
Talking about how they fell out, Kunjam added: “The CPI was demanding the Sixth Schedule (granting legislative, judicial, executive, and financial powers to tribal councils) for protecting tribals in Bastar, but Karma was opposed to it… I met him before the Jhiram Ghati attack and he spoke about the Sixth Schedule and Salwa Judum. I felt he realised he had made a mistake with the Salwa Judum.”
After Karma’s death, his wife Devti contested from the Dantewada Assembly seat the same year and won, but in 2018, lost to the BJP’s Bhima Mandavi. A year later, Mandavi was killed in an IED blast, and Devti won the bypoll against Mandavi’s wife Ojaswi.
In 2023, the Congress fielded Chhavindra, who lost the seat to the BJP’s Chaitram Atami, who had incidentally been a Salwa Judum member.
Apart from Chhavindra, three other of Karma’s nine children joined politics. While Deepak passed away in 2021, Tulika, Chhavindra and Sulochna are part of the Congress and have been winning panchayat-level elections.
Chhavindra said justice has not been done to Karma. “The Jhiram Ghati attack was not a Naxal attack but a political conspiracy. Top police officials and BJP leaders (the BJP was in power in the state at the time) need to be questioned… to find out the larger conspiracy. The NIA never spoke with anyone from our family to know what we had to say.”
Former Congress chief minister Bhupesh Baghel has also said that the BJP never wanted the political conspiracy to be probed. Under his government, a second FIR was registered in 2020 and a SIT formed to probe this alleged conspiracy, but after the BJP returned to power, the investigation went cold.
Tulika said she hoped Karma would also be remembered for all the things he did for Bastar. “My father fought to bring the Nagarnar steel plant to Bastar so that people could get jobs. He envisioned a medical college in Dantewada, which is a reality today. He was deeply rooted in tribal culture,” she said.
However, the Salwa Judum hangs over it all. After it was struck down, its members came under attack by Maoists. Later, the state government inducted some of them as well as surrendered Maoists into another anti-Naxal force, the DRG.
Congress general secretary Malkeet Singh Gaidu said Karma is wrongly blamed for all that happened with the Salwa Judum. “It was a people’s movement led by him, in which tribals stood peacefully against the Maoists. But the then BJP government recruited them as SPOs and, without giving them proper training, armed them with weapons to fight the Maoists. Due to this the matter went to the Supreme Court. After it was struck down, the Maoists became stronger in Bastar,” Gaidu said.
As per Chaudhary, “Around 32,000 people were displaced due to the movement. Very few were able to return (to their homes).”
