Modi targets 'intellectual Naxals' on Independence Day
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- Modi declared India has "got rid of armed Naxals," saying the Maoist-influenced Naxalite movement that challenged state authority across central and eastern India is largely eliminated.
- Modi warned that "dimagi Naxals" (intellectual Naxals) are seeking opportunities to create violence and must be "identified and isolated."
- The phrase echoes "urban Naxal," a label previously deployed by BJP leaders and Modi against activists, academics, intellectuals and other government critics.
- India's Naxalite movement began in 1967 with an uprising at Naxalbari in eastern India, championing landless farmers and Indigenous communities; thousands of civilians, rebels and security personnel died over decades.
- Modi credited his government's security and development policies with sharply reducing Maoist violence since taking office in 2014 and said the movement had "destroyed the future" of generations of young people.
- The remarks come weeks after the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party protest movement emerged as a rare challenge to Modi's government and helped force the resignation of his education minister.
- Rights groups have accused India's government of using anti-terror laws, sedition provisions and foreign-funding rules to squeeze civil society and target activists, journalists and groups critical of its policies.
Why it matters: Rights groups have documented India's government using anti-terror laws, sedition provisions and foreign-funding rules against activists, journalists and civil society critics — Modi's revival of the 'urban Naxal' vocabulary weeks after a youth-led protest helped force an education minister's resignation keeps that legal and rhetorical toolkit actively in play against domestic dissent.
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