Central India’s forests are home to tigers, leopards, sloth bears, and the last significant populations of Indian wildlife outside the Himalayas. They’re also home to Maoist insurgents known as Naxalites, ongoing conflicts between tribal communities and the Indian state, and a security situation that makes wildlife watching secondary to not getting caught in an ambush.
This is not information that appears prominently in tourism brochures.
I planned a motorcycle route through Chhattisgarh and southern Maharashtra, connecting several tiger reserves and wildlife sanctuaries. The route looked perfect on Google Maps – remote forests, minimal traffic, adventurous riding. Then I started researching accommodation and discovered that several towns on my route were described as “sensitive areas,” which is Indian bureaucratic language for “maybe don’t go there.”
Further research revealed that “sensitive areas” meant Naxal-affected regions. These are forests where Maoist insurgent groups operate, generally in support of tribal communities who’ve been displaced by mining operations, forest conservation projects, or government development schemes. The conflict has been ongoing since the 1960s, with varying intensity depending on government policy and insurgent activity.
The current situation is complex. The insurgency has weakened significantly over the past decade due to aggressive government counter-insurgency operations. But it hasn’t ended. There are still areas where Naxalite groups maintain presence, where Indian paramilitary forces conduct operations, where the line between government control and insurgent territory is blurred.
And I wanted to ride a motorcycle through this to see leopards.
The responsible thing would be to abandon the route and choose a safer option. The adventurous thing would be to proceed with caution and proper research. The stupid thing would be to ignore the warnings entirely. I did some combination of the second and third.
I contacted local guides and hotel operators. The responses were uniformly careful: “The situation has improved.” “There is security.” “Most areas are safe during daytime.” “Please check with police before traveling.” These reassurances were reassuring right up until I noticed what they weren’t saying – that it was completely safe, that there was no risk, that tourists were welcome.
What I learned: the forests of central India exist in a state of negotiated coexistence between multiple groups with conflicting interests. The forest department wants to protect wildlife. Mining companies want to extract resources. Tribal communities want to maintain traditional livelihoods. Conservation NGOs want to implement protection schemes. The Indian state wants to assert control. And Naxalite groups want to resist that control and support tribal rights.
All of this is happening in the same forests where tourists show up hoping to see a tiger.
The resulting situation is that some areas are genuinely tourist-friendly – the major tiger reserves like Tadoba and Pench are well-secured and well-visited. But the roads between these reserves, especially the remote routes through lesser-known forests, pass through regions where security is uncertain.
I rode through one such route between Tadoba and Pench. The road was empty – unusually empty for an Indian highway. The forest pressed close on both sides. There were no villages, no shops, no people visible. Just forest and road and an unsettling quiet.
After an hour, I reached a forest checkpoint – not a tourism checkpoint, but a paramilitary checkpoint with armed guards and barriers. They checked my identification, asked where I was going, confirmed I was just passing through. The interaction was polite but serious in a way that made it clear this wasn’t tourism infrastructure; this was security infrastructure that tourists happened to use.
The guard asked if I’d seen anyone on the road. I hadn’t. He advised me to continue to the next town without stopping. Not aggressive advice – just clear guidance that stopping in the forest was not recommended. I asked why. He said, “Sometimes there are problems.”
Problems. Another euphemism in a landscape built on euphemisms.
I continued. The forest remained beautiful – sal trees, bamboo thickets, occasional wildlife crossing. And underneath that beauty was the knowledge that this forest was contested space, that people had died here in conflicts I only vaguely understood, that my presence as a tourist was possible because of security arrangements I couldn’t see.
The dark humor of this situation is that I was more worried about Naxalites than tigers, despite tigers being objectively more likely to kill a lone motorcyclist than insurgents. The statistical risk from wildlife was higher. But the psychological impact of human threat overwhelms wildlife threat. We’re wired to fear other humans more than we fear animals.
What struck me most was how this reality was compartmentalized in tourism narratives. The tiger reserves present themselves as nature sanctuaries, places of conservation and wildlife wonder. They don’t mention that they exist within broader political conflicts, that some of these reserves were created by displacing tribal communities, that the “man-eater” tiger stories sometimes involve tigers attacking people who’ve been pushed into forest margins by conservation policies.
The Naxalite insurgency is, in part, a response to these displacements. The forests are being protected, but protected for whom? Wildlife, certainly. Tourists, definitely. But tribal communities who’ve lived in and around these forests for generations are being excluded to create “pristine” wildlife habitat.
This is the uncomfortable truth: my wildlife tourism experience was enabled by security forces fighting an insurgency that exists partly because of wildlife conservation displacing local communities. The leopard I wanted to see was protected by policies that hurt people. The forest checkpoint wasn’t there for tourists; it was there because the state needed to maintain control in a disputed area.
I didn’t see Naxalites. I didn’t see any evidence of conflict beyond the checkpoints and the warnings and the unusually empty roads. The “sensitive areas” were mostly just quiet. But the awareness of the conflict changed how I experienced the forest. Every empty stretch of road carried a low-level anxiety. Every checkpoint was a reminder that this landscape had meaning beyond tourism.
I also didn’t see a leopard, which was statistically predictable.
By the time I exited the region and reached more populated areas, the relief was significant. I’d ridden through without incident, which is what happens to almost everyone who travels these routes. The risk was low, the warnings were probably excessive, and the actual experience was mostly just riding through beautiful forest.
But the knowledge remained: central India’s forests are not just wildlife habitat. They’re political space, contested territory, home to people and conflicts that predate and exceed tourism. The wildlife viewing is happening within that context, whether tourists acknowledge it or not.
What I learned is that seeking wildlife in its “natural” habitat means entering landscapes that are anything but simple nature. These forests have histories, politics, ongoing conflicts. The tigers and leopards exist within those contexts. You can’t separate the wildlife from the human conflicts surrounding it.
The checkpoints are there. The warnings are real. The forests are beautiful and complex and dangerous in ways that have nothing to do with predators. And sometimes, the most honest travel experience is the one that makes you uncomfortable, that reveals the gaps between tourism narratives and ground reality.
Central India’s forests are worth visiting. The wildlife is spectacular when you can find it. But go with open eyes. Understand that the beauty comes with context, that conservation has costs, and that the quiet forest road might be quiet for reasons that have nothing to do with nature.
Also, check with the police before traveling. They know things that Google Maps doesn’t.
