‘Dimagi Naxals’ and the relevance of Gandhi

“He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the writing of those particular words was not more dangerous than the initial act of opening the diary, but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and abandon the enterprise altogether. He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference.

The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed – would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper – the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”-George Orwell, 1984.

In Orwell’s novel 1984, thoughtcrime does not mean merely committing a forbidden act; thinking in a way the ruler dislikes is the crime itself. Orwell portrayed a system that seeks to control not only what people write or say, but even what they think in private. Our country today is certainly not Orwell’s fictional Oceania. Yet when political language in a democracy begins to mark thought, questions, and protest with dangerous identities, remembering Orwell is hardly irrelevant.

In his 2026 Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that armed Naxalism was nearing its end, but that “Dimagi Naxals” still remained. According to him, such people look for opportunities to create unrest and violence and therefore should be identified and separated from society. Preventing armed insurgency, violent extremism, and incitement to violence is unquestionably a responsibility of the state. The problem, however, is that “Dimagi Naxal” has no clear legal or scientific definition.

The speech did not clarify whom the term includes or where its boundaries lie. Union minister Kiren Rijiju later said that the Prime Minister was not referring to opposition leaders, but to people who support Maoism, reject the Constitution, or advocate separatism. Even so, the social use of a powerful yet ambiguous label uttered by a prime minister rarely remains confined to the limits of an official explanation.

Responding to the remark, CJP chief spokesperson Saurav Das asked how educated young people who question the government could be branded as Naxals. He said, “Dimagi Naxal or whatever is not going to work, Prime Minister. Bells are ringing. The awakening is here!” In another message, he argued that a generation taught to remain silent had found its voice and that a new era of peaceful protest had begun.

The Prime Minister did not directly call CJP members “Dimagi Naxals” in his speech. CJP’s concern, however, is that such an imprecise political label can eventually be applied to any citizen who questions the government. That concern should not be dismissed as exaggerated, because political language has real consequences. Psychology and sociology have examined the process of labelling extensively. First, people are given a particular name; the name is then linked to a frightening stereotype; a division emerges between “us” and “them”; and, finally, the marked group loses status and faces discrimination. The expression “Dimagi Naxal” can follow the same path: instead of answering a questioner’s argument, one dismisses the person as a violent insurgent.

A second consequence is self-censorship. If people believe that expressing an opinion may endanger their job, social standing, legal security, or personal relationships, many will choose not to voice it. According to the “spiral of silence” theory, people remain quiet because they fear isolation; that silence is then mistaken for support for the majority. The dominant position consequently appears stronger, while dissent becomes less visible. When punishment or a social cost seems possible, silence often becomes a strategy of self-protection.

Third, this kind of language can intensify affective polarization. People begin not merely to regard an opposing view as mistaken, but to distrust or hate the person who expresses it. Research suggests that when politicians speak respectfully about their opponents, hostility and social distance among citizens can decline. Leaders’ language can therefore deepen division, but it can also reduce it.

Derogatory labels can also provoke the opposite response. When people feel that independent thought is being suppressed, some adopt the insult itself as an identity of resistance. The rapid rise of a satirical social-media page called the “Dimagi Naxal Party” illustrates this dynamic. This is where Gandhi becomes relevant. Gandhi did not hate his opponents. The term “Dimagi Naxal” sounds derogatory and dismissive, and suppressing contrary thought is not democratic. Yet Gandhian teaching is not only for governments; it also applies to protesters. One may oppose unjust government policy in the strongest terms, but hating Narendra Modi, the BJP, or their supporters as subhuman enemies is not Gandhi’s path. Nor is it to brand protesting young people as enemies of the country. Even while leading the fiercest movements against British rule, Gandhi distinguished between individuals and an unjust system. An excerpt from one of his letters is especially relevant here:

Second Letter to Every Englishman in India

“You Are Slaves Just as We Are”

“Dear friend,

This is the second time I venture to address you. I know that most of you detest non-co-operation. But I would invite you to isolate two of my activities from the rest if you can give me credit for honesty.

I cannot prove my honesty if you do not feel it. Some of my Indian friends charge me with camouflage when I say we need not hate Englishmen whilst we may hate the system they have established. I am trying to show them that one may detest the wickedness of a brother without hating him. Jesus denounced the wickedness of the Scribes and the Pharisees, but he did not hate them. He did not enunciate this law of love for the man and hate for the evil in him for himself only, but he taught the doctrine for universal practice. Indeed, I find it in all the scriptures of the world.

I claim to be a fairly accurate student of human nature and vivisector of my own failings. I have discovered that man is superior to the system he propounds. And so I feel that you as an individual are infinitely better than the system you have evolved as a corporation. Each one of my countrymen in Amritsar on that fateful 10th of April was better than the crowd of which he was a member. He as a man would have declined to kill those innocent English bank managers. But in that crowd, many a man forgot himself.

Hence it is that an Englishman in office is different from an Englishman outside. Similarly, an Englishman in India is different from an Englishman in England. Here in India you belong to a system that is vile beyond description. It is possible therefore for me to condemn the system in the strongest terms without considering you to be bad and without imputing bad motives to every Englishman. You are as much slaves of the system as we are. I want you therefore to reciprocate and not impute to me motives which you cannot read in the written word.

I give you the whole of my motive when I tell you that I am impatient to end or mend a system which has made India subservient to a handful of you and which has made Englishmen feel secure only in the shadow of the forts and the guns that obtrude themselves on one’s notice in India. It is a degrading spectacle for you and for us. Our corporate life is based on mutual distrust and fear. This you will admit is unmanly.

A system that is responsible for such a state of things is necessarily satanic. You should be able to live in India as an integral part of its people and not always as foreign exploiters. One thousand Indian lives against one English life is a doctrine of dark despair, and yet believe me, it was enunciated in 1919 by the highest of you in the land.

I almost feel tempted to invite you to join me in destroying a system that has dragged both you and us down. But I feel I cannot as yet do so. We have not shown ourselves earnest, self-sacrificing and self-restrained enough for that consummation. But I do ask you to help us in the boycott of foreign cloth and in the anti-drink campaign.

The Lancashire cloth, as English historians have shown, was forced upon India and her own world-famed manufactures were deliberately and systematically ruined. India is therefore at the mercy not only of Lancashire but also of Japan, France and America. Just see what this has meant to India. We send out of India every year sixty crores (more or less) of rupees for cloth. We grow enough cotton for our own cloth. Is it not madness to send cotton outside India and have it manufactured into cloth there and shipped to us? Was it right to reduce India to such a helpless state”?

The greatest lesson in Gandhi’s letter is that merely silencing one’s opponents is not strength. Moral strength lies in addressing their conscience through reason. Gandhi called the British imperial system “satanic,” but he did not call every English person a devil. He distinguished between human beings, and the unjust systems human beings create. Democracy needs that distinction just as urgently. Let the state take firm action against violence and incitement to violence; but peaceful disagreement should not be confined within the same label.

If a citizen asks questions about government schools, unemployment, corruption, examination irregularities, or constitutional rights, answer the questions – do not put the citizen’s ideology on trial. The central promise of independent India should have been this: thought cannot be a crime. India is not Orwell’s fictional Oceania. In a democracy, asking questions is not treason; the right to question is precisely what separates a democracy from authoritarian rule.