This chapter shows how grassroots civic associations that grew in the gray zone of state-insurgency interface in the South became sites of incubation of informal exit networks, which facilitate safe passage of Maoists from insurgency to democracy in Telangana. Based on the rebels’ account of the protracted process of retirement, this chapter also highlights, both empirically and theoretically, the various actors and processes in rebel retirement, including the operation of the two mechanisms of trust and side payment that help resolve the problem of credible commitment locally. This chapter shows that the militant mass mobilization by the Maoists in the South created conditions for vibrant associational life in the gray zones of the South, which allowed various actors and processes of rebel retirement to function and proliferate.
