From Guns to the Ramp: The Former Naxalites Learning to Walk a Different Walk

For six days, they learnt a new way to walk. The forests of Bastar, the weapons and the commanders belonged to another life. Here in Raipur, nine surrendered women were learning to walk down a fashion-show ramp.

Nine women from Sukma recently travelled to Raipur for an experience that would have been almost unimaginable during their years inside the Naxalite movement. They trained with professionals who, according to one of the women, had come from Mumbai. They dressed in handloom outfits. They stepped under the lights at a Swadeshi fashion show organised around National Handloom Day.

And then they walked. For one of the women, the memory is remarkably simple. “It was the first time we did something like that...we enjoyed it.”

Behind that sentence sit nine very different journeys out of one of India's longest-running insurgencies. One of them had joined in 2007 Poonam Devi can put precise dates to the two ends of her Naxalite life. She joined in November 2007. She surrendered on July 12, 2025. That is nearly 18 years between entering the movement and leaving it. “I liked the programme...we were trained for it,” she said of the fashion show.

Another participant had worked with the Pamed Area Committee before surrendering in 2026. “We went to Raipur recently. There, we were trained by people who had come from Bombay...prominent ministers also came. The training was of six days,” she recalled. Then came the line that perhaps says more than the official description of the rehabilitation programme ever could. “It was the first time we did something like that.”

Before the handloom outfits, there were weapons

The nine women did not all perform the same roles inside the Naxalite organisation. According to Sukma Superintendent of Police Mayank Gurjar, some worked with the Pamed Area Committee. Others had been gunners for senior Naxalite commanders in Battalion Number 1. One had worked as a teacher. At least one had carried an INSAS rifle.

Those details change the way the photographs from Raipur look. The women on the ramp weren't professional models drafted into a government event. Some had spent years inside an armed movement in one of the country's most deeply Naxal-affected regions. Now they were being taught posture, presentation and how to showcase handloom clothes before an audience. The contrast is striking. The harder question is what happens after the applause stops.

Surrender is an event. Rehabilitation takes longer

The Raipur appearance was organised as part of the rehabilitation process available to surrendered Naxalites under policies of the Centre and the Chhattisgarh government.

Gurjar said the government was providing former Naxalites with different benefits and opportunities after their surrender, and described the fashion show as one example of tribal residents from conflict-affected areas being exposed to lives and experiences beyond those they had previously known.

The women also promoted Swadeshi products and, according to Gurjar, were being encouraged to develop their artistic skills. For the administration, their appearance on the ramp is evidence of growing confidence in the rehabilitation programme. For the women themselves, the transition is considerably more personal.

Leaving an armed organisation does not instantly create another life. There is livelihood to find. Skills to learn. Families and communities to return to. Identities formed over years, sometimes decades, to rebuild. And occasionally, there is something as unexpected as being sent to Raipur and told that for the next six days, you are going to learn how to walk a ramp.

Poonam Devi spent nearly 18 years in the Naxalite movement. Another woman once carried an INSAS rifle. Some guarded commanders. Then, for one evening in Raipur, nine surrendered women wore handloom clothes and walked towards an audience instead. “We enjoyed it,” one of them said. Four words. And an extraordinary distance travelled.

(With inputs from ANI)