Why legal experts, activists are critical of PM Modi’s call to ‘identify and isolate Dimagi Naxals’

Despite being dismissed as lacking ‘draw’ by the advocate, however, the phrase, ‘Dimagi Naxal’, has travelled far since being first used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech last weekend. It has acquired a three-point ministerial definition, been claimed by former Union Minister P Chidambaram as a badge of pride and inspired a satirical social party (à la the now wildly popular Cockroach Janata Party, which too was born as a social media movement).

Modi named no individual in his speech, saying only, “For years, people with Maoist thinking were there in public life, even in government committees; this thinking had affected various institutions and initiatives… We have succeeded in getting rid of armed Naxals in the forests. But the ‘Dimagi Naxals’ are looking for opportunities, looking for ways to [incite] violence, and trying to drag society down the wrong path. We need to identify these ‘Dimagi Naxals’, isolate them, and bring the youth together for a developed country.”

What legal experts, public policy commentators and activists find troubling, however, is that while the prevalence of armed Naxalism can be investigated against territory, incidents, arrests, surrenders and deaths, the tag of ‘Dimagi Naxals’ begins with a metaphor and ends with an instruction. The questions they raise include, “Who falls within the definition of ‘Dimagi Naxal’, who will identify that person and what does isolation mean in practice?”

Also read: Why Ramayana row, demand for pre-release preview raise questions over our engagement with our epics

“The statement given by our Prime Minister is quite perplexing,” admits human rights lawyer from Jagdalpur (Chhattisgarh), Shalini Gera. “Who are Dimagi Naxals? Naxals, we understand, had to be eliminated because they wanted to bring about regime change through violent and brutal means. But Dimagi Naxals are presumably those who are working towards the same goal without guns and hope to achieve their goals with their wit and intellect alone. Surely, we can’t be branding such people as criminals!”

A day after Modi’s coining of the term, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju offered a list on social media. “PM Narendra Modi ji didn’t say opposition leaders as Dimagi Naxals,” he wrote. “Only following are Dimagi Naxals: 1. Who support Maoists and reject Indian Constitution. 2. Who stand with separatists & support Article 370. 4. Who want to cut chicken neck [Siliguri Corridor] to separate North-East from India.” (Sic)

The explanation did little to reassure either the Opposition or activists.

“For PM Modi, a Dimagi Naxal is anyone who believes in the Constitutional values of liberty, fraternity and equality. How do they [the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre] combat people who refuse to be hegemonised?” alleges Chittaroopa Palit, a social activist based in Bhopal.

Interestingly, the second category in Rijiju’s definition of the term puts in the same sentence, separatism and support for Article 370 of the Constitution — which had made special provisions for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and which was scrapped by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre in 2019 while bifurcating the state of J&K into the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh. And says nothing about whether peaceful advocacy for restoring the provision, without support for separatism or violence, was also intended to attract the label.

The timing of Modi’s coinage of the term is significant.

On 29 July, the Union Home Ministry told Parliament: “At present, no district is categorised as LWE (Left-Wing Extremism) affected.” The number had fallen from 126 in 2015 to zero by April 2026. The ministry retained 37 “Legacy & Thrust” districts and one “District of Concern”, saying that “security surveillance and developmental interventions are to be continued for some more time” to prevent a relapse. Zero was an administrative classification, not the literal disappearance of every violent remnant.

The reply also counted 15,189 km of roads, 9,497 mobile towers, 6,025 post offices with banking services and 179 functional Eklavya residential schools (established under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs) in the erstwhile LWE-affected areas (often with large trial population). These figures support a conclusion central to the Maoism story: force was only part of the explanation for its retreat. The state also became present through roads, communication and public services.

But, as the measurable insurgency contracted, the PM’s speech expanded the label from an organisation and its acts to something said to reside in a person’s mind.

The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act already creates offences concerning terrorist acts, recruitment, harbouring, membership, support and fundraising. The Act’s First Schedule lists the CPI (Maoist), including its formations and front organisations, as a terrorist organisation.

According to data cited by the Home Ministry’s Left-Wing Extremism Division, Left-Wing Extremists killed 8,956 people between 2004 and November 20, 2025, with Adivasis forming the majority of civilian victims. (The Home Ministry’s July reply in Parliament recorded 33 incidents of Maoist violence and 11 deaths this year, till July 21).

The ministry’s account of the ideological network is blunt: “Many well-meaning liberal intellectuals fall prey to the Maoist propaganda without understanding the true nature of Maoist insurgency doctrine which glorifies violence.” The ministry includes “recruitment of ‘professional revolutionaries’, raising funds for the insurgency, creating urban shelters for underground cadres, providing legal assistance to arrested cadres and mass-mobilisation” as important functions of Maoist front organisations. Recruitment, funds, shelters and assistance are allegations about conduct and organisational links. They can be investigated and tested in court. “Legal assistance” complicates the list: a lawyer representing an accused person performs a constitutional role unless evidence establishes something more.

The problem with “Dimagi Naxal” too is not whether urban support networks can exist. It is the phrase’s missing threshold. Does it mean a recruiter, a courier or a fundraiser? Does it also cover an ideological sympathiser who rejects violence? Could it include a lawyer representing an accused person, a researcher documenting an alleged encounter, or a citizen opposing a mine or security camp?

When Parliament asked in March 2020 whether “Urban Naxals” had been identified, the Home Ministry reportedly replied: “The phrase ‘Urban Naxals’ is not used by the Ministry of Home Affairs”. It added that the national policy addressed the “urban activities of CPI (Maoist)”. No official or legal definition of the new expression has appeared.

Now, the PM has added another tag to the system’s increasing vocabulary of ‘anti-national’ bogeys.

Also read: Why online trolling of Gen Z women dissenters is yet another proof of growing digital misogyny

"Usage of this phrase [Dimagi Naxal] shows total negation of constitutional ethos. It reflects negation of free and critical thinking and scientific temperament. It questions the freedom of thought and expression which every Indian holds close to her heart,” says senior advocate Kaleeswaram Raj. Supreme Court advocate-on-record Prashant Padmanabhan puts it in softer words, saying, “Though in the context of containing Maoist violence and crimes, the use of the term Dimagi Naxal by the Prime Minister of the most diverse nation on earth is susceptible to differential interpretation and therefore worrying. Today, as the largest democracy on Earth, India has to demonstrate that it is not cowed down by any idea.”

The word “Naxal” began with Naxalbari, the West Bengal village associated with the 1967 armed peasant uprising. “Urban Naxal” moved suspicion from the forest to the city. “Dimagi Naxal” moves it from location to presumed thought.

“Without legislative support, the use of this metaphor is an abuse of democratic procedures and the position the Prime Minister is holding,” says Supreme Court advocate MP Raju. “It is contra-constitutional and may even be construed as a violation of the oath which he took as the PM, because any limit contemplated on the freedom of expression, which is not mentioned in the Constitution itself, is something not consistent with upholding the Constitution.”

Sociologist Nandini Sundar, one of the petitioners in the 2011 Supreme Court challenge to the counterinsurgency militia Salwa Judum, deployed in Chhattisgarh in 2005, questions the assumption that researchers and activists are the natural conduits of material support.

“Most of those who help materially are contractors and politicians. In Chhattisgarh, there was an inquiry against a BJP politician,” she recalls, referring to Jagat Pujari, then a BJP district vice-president in Dantewada, whom police arrested in 2020 for allegedly helping to buy a tractor for a Maoist leader. The allegation was not a finding of guilt.

“Activists and researchers are convenient to target, not because they support Naxalites, but because they threaten the state and defend the Constitution against state excesses,” Sundar alleges.

She cites the Moolvasi Bachao Manch, an Adivasi youth platform that protested against security camps and alleged rights violations in Bastar. The Chhattisgarh government banned it in October 2024. The NIA later arrested its leader Raghu Midiyami, alleging that he distributed funds for CPI (Maoist)-led protests. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties disputed the allegation and described the movement as peaceful and constitutional.

“The Moolvasi Bachao Manch youth are being investigated by the NIA [National Investigation Agency] even though, in my view, the movement was entirely peaceful and constitutional,” says Sundar. “The government is more afraid of organised youth power than of armed Maoists because it wants to take control of all the resources.”

She further alleges: “As for ‘identifying and isolating’, they are already identifying all sorts of people and filing FIRs against them: stand-up comedians, people who post on Facebook or Instagram, and people who protest. Someone should count the number of such FIRs across the country.”

The Centre’s own policy against Maoist insurgency leaves room for a different answer. It calls its approach “a multi-pronged strategy involving security-related measures, development interventions, ensuring rights and entitlements of local communities”. The July reply also records 21,26,268 forest-rights titles, including 1,06,000 community titles, and says the post-LWE focus includes “strengthening local self-governance” and “preservation of tribal identity and culture”.

The constitutional machinery for that task already exists. The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, says every gram sabha “shall be competent to safeguard and preserve” cultural identity and community resources. It requires consultation before land acquisition in Scheduled Areas and a mandatory recommendation before a prospecting licence or mining lease for minor minerals. Under the Forest Rights Rules, the gram sabha initiates the determination of forest rights, hears claims and passes resolutions on them. These are not decorative provisions. They are constitutional channels through which a community can say no.

Cultural scholar GN Devy places the current controversy in a longer cycle of naming. “French sociologist Émile Durkheim argued that even in a society of saints, some people would still be treated as criminals, perhaps merely for wearing white shirts. That is the important point,” he tells The Federal. “The issue is not this particular label. It may serve its purpose for a while, but once it is overused and loses its meaning, another label will be invented to brand those who oppose the regime. That is why this particular label is not worth reacting to.”

Reaction has already altered it, however. Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik produced a playful counter-etymology in a social media post, turning “Naxal” into Bengal’s kaash grass and “Naxali” into the deity Kartikeya, son of Shiva, born among the reeds. Social scientist-politician Yogendra Yadav shared it and asked: “In fighting the Dimagi Naxals, has Modi perhaps ended up insulting Shiva’s tradition?”

Some people have since pointed out that the name ‘Naxal grass’ has no botanical backing; it may have mythological roots, or simply a local association with Naxalbari — where the movement originated and where the river reed better known as kaash in Bengal can be found in plenty.

Whatever the source of Pattanaik’s interpretation, it shows how an insult can thus be reclaimed or laughed away. An instruction to “identify and isolate” is harder to dismiss. The unanswered questions are about evidence and power: what conduct brings a person within the category, who makes that finding, and what follows from it?

The government says it has defeated armed Maoism and achieved state presence in areas it once struggled to reach. Whether it preserves trust will depend partly on whether “Dimagi Naxal” remains a passing political insult, or becomes a shortcut for treating disagreement as evidence.