For many years, the distance between Neganar village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar and the rest of India was measured not in kilometres but in the length of roads that could not be built and journeys to agricultural fields that could end in a landmine explosion; in the numbers of schools that could not function and mobile towers that were blown up.

On Saturday, as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas is celebrated with the theme of “Naxal Mukt Bharat”, many of those who have lived through those years of Left-wing Extremism (LWE) are beginning to look beyond merely surviving.

Among those who will be present at the celebrations – which began at the Statue of Unity at Ekta Nagar in Gujarat’s Narmada district on Friday – are Swapna Korsa, a 23-year-old sarpanch from Sukma, Chhattisgarh; Sitaram Hadmo, a village head in Bastar, also in Chhattisgarh; and Pramod Sahukar, a social worker and local reporter from Rayagada in Odisha.

Swapna and Sitaram will deliver short speeches at the event in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra…