The only tribal to reach the top Maoist command
Madavi Hidma was killed in an alleged encounter with security forces on November 18 in Alluri Sitarama Raju district of Andhra Pradesh. Hidma’s wife Madakam Raje alias Rajakka was also killed. Recently, after the death or surrender of many big leaders, he was considered the backbone of the movement. When the bodies of Hidma and Raje reached their village Purvati, thousands of people from the villages gathered. Both were cremated on the same pyre.
He grew up in the 1980s when the Andhra-based party CPI (ML-People’s War) or PW began to establish its roots in Bastar. There they formed armed squads to raid the houses of powerful and influential people, organized large movements through the main organization and formed ‘Jantana Sarkars’ or people’s governments for local administration in those densely forested areas.
Hidma was associated with PW in the 1990s. He was not the first person from his village to join the Maoists, but he joined deeper than others. In 1997, he became a full-time worker of PW and went underground. First in the Basaguda squad working in Bijapur-Sukma border areas. Later he came back to work in the Armory Manufacturing Department in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra and then in Bastar.
At that time the armed forces were expanding rapidly. In 1995, PW formed its first platoon in Dandakaranya area by combining several squads. On 2 December 2000, the PW formed its own army, the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA). Hidma was then just a squad leader. PLGA’s strength increased after PW merged with Maoist Communist Center of India (MCCI) in 2004, which subsequently formed CPI (Maoist).
As the Maoists converted platoons into company formations, he became the platoon commander in their Company 2. From 2006 to 2009, he became commander and secretary of Company 3, and in 2009 he assumed full charge as commander of Battalion 1, formed the previous year.
He became the battalion secretary in 2011, the same year he was also included in the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist), one of the most important committees of the party. Hidma was the first local tribal to become a part of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee. The rest were all non-tribals, who had come from Andhra and had created a movement there.
Battalion 1 was subsequently blamed for most of the deadly attacks the Maoists carried out on security forces and some senior leaders of mainstream parties. This is the reason why Hidma became more famous than many other Maoist commanders. In 2018, Hidma’s responsibilities in PLGA increased further after CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Ganapathy stepped down due to age-related issues and Central Military Commission Chief Baravaraj replaced Ganapathy. For this reason, the end of Hidma was coming closer, because the security forces were now considering him as the last major threat.