Dimagi Naxal Frames The Mind As Enemy Territory

Naxalism has historically referred to an armed insurgency — an organised political movement that used violence against the Indian state. So what exactly does Narendra Modi mean when he uses the phrase “dimagi Naxal”? The traditional Naxal lived in the forests, carried a gun, and challenged the state through violence. The Prime Minister now appears to have relocated the idea of Naxalism from the forest to the ordinary spaces of democratic life.

As BJP MP and former UP DGP Brij Lal puts it, “dimagi Naxals” are people who use their brains — professors, teachers, intellectuals, activists, poets and writers.

By that definition, the defining characteristic of a Naxal is no longer the gun, but the uncomfortable question. And by that logic, everyone who isn’t an andhbhakt is a “dimagi Naxal”.

The state has a legitimate duty to confront armed violence, protect civilians and enforce the law. But what exactly are these citizens doing to be singled out, on Independence Day, as an internal enemy?

Thoughtcrimes is a term famously associated with George Orwell’s novel 1984, where the authoritarian state treats independent or politically unacceptable thinking as a crime. In broader political usage, it is a metaphor for a society or government treating dissenting ideas as inherently dangerous or punishable. And if the defining characteristic of a “dimagi Naxal” is that they use their brains rather than carry guns, then perhaps the offence is the thought itself — and the willingness to turn that thought into an uncomfortable question for those in power. The question becomes the crime. The person asking it becomes a threat.

Perhaps the “dimaagi Naxal” is simply someone who looks at the vast sums of money and state capacity devoted to constructing the image of a leader, and asks: If the great man is so extraordinary, why does he need ₹1.5 crore a day to maintain that image? Or: Is image-building still part of the job — or has it become the entire job?

Perhaps the “dimagi Naxal” watches Modi embrace Trump, Putin, Xi and asks whether spectacle should be mistaken for statesmanship. Perhaps they read the growing body of commentary on Modi’s India and see not ideology, but an argument about the country India might have been — richer, freer, more equal and less corrupt. Perhaps they pay attention to the growing reports of corruption in sacred temples and watch the PM drag his feet when it comes to answering for such theft. And perhaps the ghor apradh – the cardinal sin — of the “dimagi Naxal” is simply refusing to applaud on command. The crime is not rebellion, but independent judgment.

For years, Modi’s political persona has been built around a series of extraordinary claims: Master strategist, scholar, civilisational thinker, decisive statesman, saviour, a man of exceptional destiny. But political mythology eventually encounters reality. “Unserious diplomacy”. “Image over substance”. “Can’t take a joke”. “Hollow rhetoric”. These may begin as political attacks. But when they acquire the force of public perception, they become harder to dismiss. And perhaps this is Modi’s vulnerability. He has lived inside an echo chamber of admiration. It is difficult for a political leader accustomed to controlling the narrative to discover that the audience is no longer accepting the script. He thrives on choreographed reels, and now watches the youth of India mock him. He mocked the “shehzada” — and now watches Rahul Gandhi generate attention and enthusiasm organically.

“Dimagi Naxal” is the rhetorical response of a political establishment confronted by citizens whose respect cannot be manufactured through propaganda. A confident leader says: “Here is my record. Judge it.” An insecure leader asks: “Why are you judging me at all?”

This is ultimately the tragicomedy of the “dimagi Naxal”. A PM who has built his political identity around intelligence, decisiveness and exceptionalism now appears threatened by the most ordinary exercise of intelligence: Thinking independently. The dissenting mind is presented as a contaminant. The question becomes suspicious. The critic becomes pathological. The citizen becomes the problem.

Yet democracy was never designed to produce unanimous applause. A healthy republic needs universities that question, journalists who investigate, courts that scrutinise, civil society that challenges, opposition parties that disagree and citizens who refuse to accept political mythology as fact. The answer to an uncomfortable question cannot be to criminalise the questioner. The real threat to democracy is not the mind that asks questions. It is the political power that begins to fear them.

And perhaps that is what “dimagi Naxal” ultimately reveals: Not the dangerous mind of the citizen, but the growing insecurity of a government that has begun to realise that its days are numbered.

The writer is chairman, media and publicity department, All India Congress Committee