Source: The post Road development brings peace in conflict regions has been created, based on the article “To build roads is to build peace” published in “The Hindu” on 11 September 2025. Road development brings peace in conflict regions.
UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper- 3 Infrastructure
Context: In Maoist-affected tribal regions, roads mark the first arrival of governance. They connect isolated settlements to services and lawful authority, shrinking space for parallel control. The article shows how connectivity weakens extralegal power, why formal institutions matter, and which safeguards keep infrastructure inclusive and legitimate.
Why do roads matter in conflict-hit tribal regions?
- Emissaries of the state: A road in remote forests and hills carries the state into places marked by marginalisation and neglect. Where formal institutions are barely visible, a new road becomes the first sign of governance.
- Stabilising effects in the Red Corridor: Research from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Odisha links rural roads with better electricity, employment, and security. Connectivity stabilises daily life and reduces the appeal of insurgent control.
- Reclaiming governance from isolation: Non-state actors flourish where the state is absent. Roads reduce isolation, enable service delivery, and weaken insurgent monopolies over order.
How do insurgents build parallel authority?
- Filling governance gaps: When formal governance is undersupplied, others imitate it. Classic research on organised crime shows that withdrawal of the state invites extralegal conflict resolution and taxation by non-state actors.
- Services as strategy, not charity: Fieldwork from 2018 and a 2009 rights report note that Naxalites sometimes provide rudimentary health aid and welfare. Studies of insurgent rule explain these as tools to build legitimacy, backed by coercion.
- Coercion and extralegal justice: Jan adalats have issued summary punishments, including executions, without due process. This is justice without appeal or accountability.
What does infrastructure change in rule of law?
- Infrastructure as political precondition: Infrastructure is political. A 2023 rural India study links road connectivity with lower crime and better service access. A 2020 international analysis finds higher violence in poorly connected areas..
- Formal institutions and accountability: Formal institutions operate within laws shaped by democratic consensus. Roads enable schools, clinics, police stations, and courts to reach conflict zones with procedures accountable to citizens.
- Contrast with informal norms: Informal justice often reflects entrenched hierarchies and patriarchal codes. It can produce vigilante action and collective punishment, including reprisals against those accused of collaborating with security forces.
What strategy and safeguards are needed?
- Sequencing the state’s return: In Chhattisgarh, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam (then a senior State official, now NITI Aayog CEO) led a strategy placing roads first, then schools, clinics, and law enforcement. Each road signalled that the state had arrived and would stay.
- Building with the village: Infrastructure alone cannot resolve conflict. Without justice mechanisms, health access, and community consultation, roads risk symbolising control rather than inclusion. They must be built within the village.
- Towards belonging and peace: Development should replace insurgent authority with pluralistic, rights-based governance rooted in constitutional values. As India invests in southern Chhattisgarh, the goal is dignity, opportunity, and belonging. To build roads is to build peace.
Question for practice:
- Discuss how road development in Maoist-affected tribal regions strengthens formal governance and what safeguards are needed to ensure inclusion.
