Even a year ago, former Naxal women walking the ramp charismatically in handloom sarees would have been unimaginable, bordering on the fictitious. But on 7 August, observed as National Handloom Day, this illustration came to life.
For decades, the story of Chhattisgarh’s Naxal conflict has been defined by dense forests, guns, and an armed challenge to the Indian state. But after the Modi government declared India “Naxal-free” on 31 March, that imagery is undergoing a slow makeover.
The video of surrendered Naxal women walking the ramp cannot be dismissed as just a fashion event.
The applause they received was for more than their clothes or confidence. It was, in many ways, an acknowledgement of a much larger journey: from insurgency to surrender, from isolation to integration, and from a life defined by violence to one built around dignity and livelihood.
Women dressed in Kosa silk and handwoven garments drew applause as they showcased Chhattisgarh’s rich textile heritage.
“From Lenin to Linen,” wrote an X user. Another wrote: “From camps to the Ramp.”
There are few internal security conflicts in the world where the State has attempted to bring former insurgents so visibly into the mainstream. In the last two years, intense security operations were undertaken to eradicate Naxalism, resulting in hundreds of Naxals surrendering and many being neutralised.
The perception that haunted Bastar for decades is now changing.
“We are working to transform the region from once a red corridor to a green corridor. Bastar is Naxal-free now,” Chhattisgarh CM Vishnu Deo Sai told ThePrint earlier.
That is what makes Chhattisgarh’s rehabilitation story unusual.
Also read: From guns to the grind, Chhattisgarh’s surrendered Naxals are working as baristas, plumbers, tailors
What the spotlight offers
The Naxal conflict has largely been discussed in the language of security operations—encounters, area domination, surrenders, weapons, and casualties.
But the real test of defeating an insurgency does not end when a cadre puts down a gun. It begins when that person can imagine a life after the gun.
During my visit to Bastar last week, I met several surrendered Naxals in Jagdalpur and Dantewada, who came into the mainstream after surrendering and trying to start a new life. A few run the Pandum Cafe in Jagdalpur, while others are undergoing skill-training at the Dantewada Livelihood College.
Among the surrendered Naxal women was 23-year-old Faguni, who laid down her weapons last year after serving five years with the Maoists, and was one of the first employees at the cafe. Another completed a tailoring course, bought a sewing machine, and now earns by stitching clothes in her village.
This transition carries another layer, particularly for women. Many entered the insurgency young, lived for years in forests, and were defined by an identity imposed by the conflict. But now they are rebuilding an identity outside the movement.
A ramp walk, therefore, becomes symbolic. The woman, who once moved through forests under the shadow of an armed conflict, is now looking straight into the public eye.
There is something profoundly powerful about this transformation.
Rehabilitation is often measured in numbers—how many surrendered, how many weapons were deposited, how many received financial assistance or training. But its success is ultimately visible in smaller, more human moments: someone learning a trade, earning a salary, travelling to a city, sitting in a classroom, or, in this case, confidently walking a ramp.
The applause matters because it tells former insurgents that surrender does not have to mean merely the end of a war. It can also mean the beginning of a different life.
Alongside the security response, the State is increasingly trying to create another pathway: from insurgent to citizen. And perhaps that is the more consequential victory.
The most enduring defeat of an insurgency is not when its fighters disappear into prisons or forests. It is when they become citizens again—earning, participating, being seen, and proudly representing their indigenous culture. In Raipur, a ramp became a platform for this transformation.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)