At first sight, Konda Madhukar Rao sounds like a Maoist. "I might die but our revolution won't," the thickset, bearded man says as he relaxes in the thatched yard of a shop that sells petrol and diesel in Bisleri bottles.

But the 45-year-old former schoolteacher is one of rebels' biggest bugbears in Chhattisgarh. Which is why he has been living under state protection these past seven years in Kutru town, 500km south of state capital Raipur.

Rao was the brains behind the Salwa Judum, the notorious anti-Maoist militia accused of a six-year reign of terror in Bastar's villages before being disbanded in 2011 on the Supreme Court's orders.

The "revolution" he is talking about relates to the latest effort to launch a fresh "people's movement" against the rebels in Chhattisgarh - an initiative by the son of the man who was the face of the Judum.

That man was Congress leader Mahendra Karma, killed in the Maoist ambush of a party convoy on May 25, 2013, that almost wiped out the Congress's state leadership.

But Rao had been the first to challenge the guerrillas in their own den. It was his intense campaign at Ambeli, a village near Kutru where he wielded enormous influence as a schoolteacher, which helped launch the Judum on June 4, 2005.

Karma, who joined later, became its mascot because of his stature as leader of the state Opposition and because his participation gave the ruling BJP a buffer against Opposition criticism of the vigilante group.

Now Karma's son Chhabindra, the Congress president of the civic body in Dantewada town, about 100km from Kutru, is trying to float a new "apolitical" and "unarmed" anti-Maoist platform, the Vikas Sangharsh Samiti.

He needs Rao's help and had invited him to the Karmas' native village of Faraspal, 20km from Dantewada, for the inaugural meeting on May 25, the second anniversary of his father's assassination.

Battling the Maoists is Rao's life's mission - he himself tried unsuccessfully to launch a similar movement in 2011, months after the Judum's disbandment - yet he didn't go.

Therein lie the complexities of any "popular" anti-Maoist initiative in post-Judum Chhattisgarh, with questions raised about everything from its "apolitical" character, the claims of being "unarmed", and the credentials of its putative leadership.

Much like the bottles in the shop behind Rao, the label on these movements may belie their content. Or so the sceptics feel.

In 2011, Rao had launched a Shanti Sangharsh Samiti along with two others but had to abort it when the rebels retaliated by shooting dead his two friends. But the dream of a Maoist-free Chhattisgarh springs eternal among Bastar's upper crust of the educated, relatively well-to-do and landowning classes, and is kept alive by the security establishment.

So, when Chhabindra on May 9 announced plans for the Vikas Sangharsh Samiti and invited like-minded people - members of the intelligentsia and politicians - Rao took note.

The idea had the support of the BJP government and the police brass, who are desperate for a citizen's front against Maoists. For, the security forces cannot alone establish a communication channel with the tribal population or win hearts and minds in areas where it's not immediately obvious who's a Maoist supporter and who isn't.

But serial disappointments have taught Rao a lesson. He tells The Telegraph he would rather wait and watch how the Samiti evolves, who steers it and how well, and what its plans and programmes are.

Even he insists: "We can't have another Salwa Judum."

Front that failed

The Judum was born about a decade after the Jan Jagran Abhiyan, a citizens' anti-Maoist public awareness programme, had fizzled out after the rebels murdered many of its young tribal activists. Karma had been part of the Jagran and was convinced about the need for a more militant approach.

The Salwa Judum, whose name means "peace march" or "purification hunt" in the local Goendi tongue, began as a spontaneous movement of tribals in a cluster of villagers tired of constant harassment by policemen who came looking for the insurgents. So, the villages decided to hunt the rebels out themselves.

The vigilantes went from village to village, protected by a cordon of security personnel, asking people to join them - often forcing them to. The state government provided funds to set up camps for villagers coaxed or coerced by the Judum to join up.

For two years, the government provided free ration and medical facilities to everyone at the camps, which at one point housed 70,000 to 80,000 people.

Most of these were ordinary, unarmed tribals some of whom acted as intelligence gatherers. The rest were seen as Judum supporters, the facilities ensuring they wouldn't switch sides.

Only some 5,000 tribal youths chosen from the camps were trained as special police officers (SPOs) to help security forces track and fight the Maoists. The state paid them Rs 1,500 a month and armed them with self-loading rifles. For a time, the SPOs - known locally as "Koya Commandos" - helped push the rebels on the back foot in Bastar.

But the idea of arming tribal against tribal was fraught with risks from the outset. The militia was accused of looting and torturing villagers who wanted to stay neutral, raping women and extorting money out of local contractors.

Rights organisations and political parties raised an outcry and the Supreme Court ordered the "unconstitutional" vigilante group disbanded in July 2011.

The camps were closed and some of the SPOs recruited as police regulars. Many of the rest slid into oblivion or were killed by the Maoists.

Unwashed stain

The stigma attaching to the Judum meant that when Chhabindra announced his May 9 plans, rights activists raised an outcry. The state Congress publicly distanced itself from the move.

For, the biggest problem for these "civil society" anti-Maoist platforms is that they can never shrug off the tag of being stooges of the government and its police.

For one thing, they cannot go into the villages to campaign without being swathed in police "protection" - which translates into dozens of armed escorts. This can only reopen old wounds, local political workers say.

"Leave it to the forces," is Chhattisgarh Congress president Bhupesh Baghel's advice for those looking to regroup against the Maoists. "It's not your job."

A Congress veteran, pleading anonymity, said: "How can people join such a group if it's a puppet of the police?"

The presence of the inspector-general of police, Bastar Range, S.R.P. Kalluri, at the May 25 meeting in Faraspal would only have reinforced this impression.

Perhaps that's why most of the invitees didn't turn up, deciding like Rao to wait and watch.

"How can we tour the villages without protection?" Chhabindra asks. "I'm on the Maoists' hit list; so are my brothers and sisters."

The rebels have killed 93 of the Karmas' near and distant relatives in the past decade, Chhabindra said.

Ninety-three memorials - or menhirs - are arrayed on Faraspal's fringes, along the stretch of the road to Dantewada where Karma was cremated. The tallest menhir is for Karma.

Fear and anxiety

The mood was sombre at the May 25 meeting, attended mostly by clan members who garlanded a large statue of Karma. Just the day before, the Maoists had killed two relatives of the Karmas.

At the meeting, Chhabindra sounded bitter at the thin attendance.

"I never said we would launch a Judum again; we want peace and development in the region and the new platform will work towards that goal," he said.

"We had invited people from across Bastar to have a free discussion on how we can go ahead with our struggle," he later told a news conference. Now, a second meeting will be called, he added.

After the May 9 announcement, the Maoists had circulated pamphlets warning against a "Salwa Judum II".

Across Bastar, Chhabindra's declaration has spread anxiety and fear, reviving memories of the bloody past. The tribals know the rebels can retaliate at will, and that the government can instigate the villagers and then back off as public pressure builds.

Many suspect that Chhabindra is merely trying to launch himself politically by milking the respect his late father commands among the tribal population.

"He lacks the stature or political maturity to steer a movement," one of Karma's former aides told this newspaper at the death anniversary lunch.

Party sources said Chhabindra's mother Devti Karma, the Congress MLA from Dantewada, was unhappy at his latest project and had asked her sons to lie low.

But Rao, lying low for seven years, will not give up hope.

He describes how he escaped death "by a whisker" a few months ago when a couple of Maoists came looking for him in the local market. He was there but they failed to identify him.

"I go out sometime," he says, looking at his two bodyguards - SPOs with self-loading rifles slung across their shoulders. They are local tribals who know the forests inside out.

"I may be killed but 10 others will take my place," Rao signs off, sounding like a Maoist till the end.