New Delhi, Aug. 15 -- For nearly six decades, the forests of central India carried a sound that no Independence Day parade could drown out -- the sound of gunfire. It echoed through the sal and teak forests of Chhattisgarh's Bastar, through the hills of Bijapur, through villages that appeared on no tourist map and, for years, barely appeared on the map of the Indian state at all. Here, in a region the world came to know only through headlines of ambushes and encounters, the Tricolour was, for entire generations, a rumour more than a right.

This Independence Day, something changed. As the nation marked its 80th year of freedom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood at the ramparts of the Red Fort and made an announcement that would once have...