Loksparsh News Network
Editorial by Omprakash Chunarkar,
Fresh blood has been spilled on the red soil of Pedakorma in Chhattisgarh. Thirteen-year-old Anil Madvi, a seventh-grade student, is no more. In the name of revolution, behind the mask of struggle, guns have dug the grave of an innocent face. What was Anil’s crime? He wasn’t grabbing anyone’s land, he wasn’t a spy — he was just a student. But the bullets of Naxalism no longer wait for proof. Suspicion is enough. And suspicion equals death. Death handed out not by law, but by tyranny.
The Naxalite movement once promised to fight for the rights of Adivasis. But now, that dream is clouded with the smoke of executions. The forests, the land, the soil — for which they claim to fight — are now soaked in the blood of a child. If firing bullets in the name of revolution and killing innocents is the new direction of change, then this is not a direction — it’s a dangerous delusion.
The state simply “condemns” this murder. The district administration remains silent. The local MLA’s tour conveniently steered away from the village. A thirteen-year-old boy has been murdered, yet not a single journey was disrupted. It’s as if this killing never happened. Until these corpses start winning votes, they will remain nothing more than numbers.
Anil didn’t just die — he was killed. This murder is not an “incident” anymore; it’s become a systemic pattern. Tomorrow, another Anil will be killed, and again, the same empty response, the same blanket of silence. We are all committing a grave collective crime — the crime of staying silent in the face of injustice. And this crime is being written with every drop of innocent blood.
The question isn’t just about the Naxals. The question is about us, too. We are rapidly slipping into a society where children get no justice, where their deaths only trigger press releases and hollow condemnation. If we don’t rise up for Anil, we lose the right to speak up for any other killing.
Today, an Anil died in Pedakorma. Tomorrow, whose home will it be? Yours? Mine? Or another stranger’s — whose blood we’ll mourn with token grief?
And finally… The bullets fired from the guns of Naxalism are no longer piercing ideologies — they are tearing apart our very future. And if we choose to stay silent, one day, those bullets will come knocking at our own doors.