House numbers, drones, family registers: Bastar villages under web of surveillance

Nearly every house in Chutvahi village bears a number – painted on the wall by the security forces in bold English letters.

“These numbers are used to identify us,” said Bhima Kosa, a resident of the village deep inside Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district.

“I’m from number 12,” he added, with a laugh, prompting chuckles from others around him. “I am from 36,” joined in another as the laughter grew louder.

The laughter faded as the conversation moved to the purpose of the house-numbering exercise.

“If a villager is stopped in the forest or at the market [by the security forces], they are asked to spell out their number,” Kosa said. “If they can’t remember – especially old people – they are taken to the [security] camp.”

Over the last two years, as Scroll has reported previously, security camps manned by central paramilitary forces have mushroomed in the forested blocks of Bijapur and Sukma districts. Considered the last strongholds of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), these areas are now slipping into the state’s control as security forces race to meet the March 31 deadline set by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to end the Maoist insurgency.

The security offensive has come with heightened surveillance, say the Adivasi people living in forest villages like Chutvahi and neighbouring Bhattiguda.

“Each house is marked, numbered, and photographed,” said a resident of Bhattiguda. “A photograph of each member [of a family], including that of the children, has been taken to keep a record in the camp.”

Adivasi residents said a person detained for not being able to recall their house number was held at the nearest security camp until a family member or someone from the village confirmed the number. The name was checked against a list before the villager was released.

The process “usually takes about an hour”, said Madvi Kosa, part of the group of Chutvahi residents who had gathered under a mahua tree to speak to me.

But why were the numbers painted in such large lettering, I asked, as I looked upon a house wall bearing the number 35.

“D-rone se dikhna chahiye na” – it should be visible from the drone – a man offered an explanation.

With security drones routinely flying over the village from morning until evening, many residents believe their homes are being closely monitored – particularly to track their movements as well as those of their visitors. Often, said the residents of Chutvahi, security personnel show up at their doorstep shortly after they have visitors, asking questions about who came and why.

Almost on cue, my conversation with the villagers was disrupted – a contingent of CRPF personnel showed up in Chutvahi, asking me to identify myself. After I did so, the personnel left.

Chutwahi camp commandant, Inspector S R Patel, who I spoke to later, denied that individual houses were being surveilled through drones. “Only numbers written on the roof of a house can be seen [by drone cameras], not those written on the walls,” he said.

The police superintendent of Bijapur district, Dr Jitendra Yadav, however, said that “close surveillance of interior villages” like Chutvahi was necessary. Many of these villages, which were located along Talperu river in Bijapur’s Usur block, had been under the Maoist shadow for four decades, he said. Police intelligence reports had confirmed the movement of Maoist cadres in some of these villages, necessitating vigil, he added.

Legal experts questioned this. “Mass and indiscriminate surveillance of a civilian population would amount to an infringement on the right to privacy, which has been recognised by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right,” noted Shalini Gera, an advocate at Chhattisgarh High Court.

The lawyer who is also associated with People’s Union for Civil Liberties commented that the police will need “cogent and strong reasons to do so, usually with judicial or legislative oversight”.

“Treating everyone as a suspect upturns the principle of presumed innocence, which is the cornerstone of our criminal jurisprudence,” Gera said.

Drones in the air

Chutvahi is not the only village where residents fear drone surveillance.

Rakesh Madvi from Raigudam village in Sukma district, who had come to meet his cousin in Chutvahi, after dodging several security camps, said: “Our entire village of 104 houses have been boldly numbered for drones to capture and identify the houses.”

One morning, he said, they were shocked to find security personnel in the village, asking for their smartphones, and questioning them about what they had been watching the previous evening. “Koi Naxali video dekh rahe the” – you were watching Maoist video content – Madvi recalled the personnel telling them.

“Drone surveillance is now a new normal,” Madvi concluded.

Not far from Chutvahi, in Tumirguda village, Joga Madvi said the surveillance has made it harder for them to visit friends and relatives.

Months ago, when he visited his sister in Perampalli village, also in Usur block, he woke up to CRPF personnel at the doorstep asking about who he was and why he was visiting her.

He showed them his Aadhaar card. But they were not convinced. He then got the security personnel to speak on phone with a doctor from a field hospital, run by the CRPF. The doctor, who had treated him a few weeks ago, confirmed that he was from Tumirguda.

Once the CRPF personnel left, Joga returned to his village immediately.

“Our family is spread across all of Bastar,” he said. Earlier, they could visit anyone, anytime. “But now, if a family member from another village comes to our home, we have to inform the camp.”

Mudam Pale, another resident of Chutvahi, said: “If there is a wedding at home, we must inform the camp in advance and provide a list of guests who will be attending.”

Pale added that the security forces had warned them against “moving from one place to another, especially after sunset.”

Fifty-five-year-old Sodi Raja was busy pounding seasonal torra seeds when one of the village residents pointed at him and said he had been slapped twice by security personnel – simply for walking past their camp drunk.

In one of these instances, Raja had been returning from a wedding in Manjapara in Chutvahi around 8 pm, his young son explained.

Did the camp personnel call out to him, I asked.

“They said something in Hindi – I couldn’t understand,” said Sodi Raja in Gondi, lifting his head briefly from his work before returning to pounding the torra seeds.

Not just weddings, all social events – births and deaths – that bring people from nearby hamlets or villages must also be notified to the camp, residents said. The restrictions extended to even emergencies.

“If someone falls ill, we call the gunia [healer] from a nearby hamlet, especially for snake bites and insect stings,” said Kosa. “How can they stop even that? What if someone dies?”

Festivals, work trips under scrutiny

Caught in the security net, residents added, were local festivals, integral to Adivasi community life.

Even though Chutvahi is now administratively part of Tarrem gram panchayat, its residents continue to hold their annual fair or karsad in Gundam, where their devgudi or village shrine is located. The administrative shift made no difference to the fair.

However, ever since the security camps have been established, the village residents have had to notify their pandums or agricultural festivals by submitting information on the number of people assembling in the village, as well as the list of extended family members coming from other hamlets and villages.

Every year, the village celebrates four major pandums – the first in April, just before mahua flowers blossom, the second in May before sorting seeds for the monsoon crop, the third in August before sowing the seeds, and finally, in October-November, after the crop is harvested.

Each festival brings the entire village together in an open ground – to cook and feast, to dance through the night, with mahua liquor flowing freely. Young boys and girls dance and sing in chorus, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, swaying in rhythm. The celebrations continue until the first light of dawn, marking a collective moment of joy.

The village residents clarified that the security forces do not disturb them during the festivals. “But they stand at a distance observing us,” Linga said.

This, itself, feels like an intrusion, they said.

Restrictions under the Maoists

In contrast, the villagers pointed out that the Maoists allowed them full freedom for cultural and social events, including community hunting.

They did, however, face some restrictions under the Maoists, the village residents were quick to add.

They could not go from one village to another without a stated purpose – if they did, they were viewed with suspicion, they said.

Villagers in Chutvahi recalled that in May 2024, two months after a security camp was established nearby, the Maoists abducted and killed two brothers – Joga Madvi and Hunga Madvi – on the suspicion that they were providing information to the police. No jan adalat – people’s court – was held. Neither did their family file a complaint with the police.

While the Maoists had not barred children from enrolling in government schools and colleges in nearby towns, they were expected to stay back in the village during their annual holidays.

“I lost one whole year of my education as one Maoist leader banned my visits outside the village,” said a young man resentfully who recently passed out of high school.

The Maoists had also placed restrictions on the use of mobile phones – presumably to prevent information leaking to the police. They also regulated the number of days that villagers could go to Andhra and Telangana for seasonal labour.

With the paddy harvest done, the residents of Chutvahi and other forest villages told me that they were preparing to go to neighbouring Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for “coolie” work or seasonal manual labour – like they do every year. Typically, villagers head out in groups which can be anywhere between 20- and 90-people strong.

However, the difference was that now they had been asked to register at the nearest security camp before leaving for their work destinations.

Manish Asam, the sarpanch of Kondapalli, said the practice began in 2024, when a security camp was established near their village. It was the responsibility of the village head to share the details of those heading out for coolie work, as well as informing the camp once they had returned, he added.

Such restrictions were inhibiting Adivasi life, said Prakash Thakur, the president of Sarva Adivasi Samaj, a community organisation in Bastar. “The Adivasi way of life is communitarian,” he said. “The use of security camps to monitor our villages amounts to a curtailment of our freedom and an infringement of our fundamental rights.”

“It is almost like all village residents are being declared to be Maoist,” he added.

All photographs by Malini Subramaniam.