Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that India had largely eliminated the armed Maoist-Naxalite rebellion but still faced a threat from its ideological backers.
In his Independence Day speech, Modi described the remaining figures as “dimagi Naxals”, or “intellectual Naxals”, and said they should be identified and isolated because they were seeking opportunities to create violence.
What Modi said about the Naxalite movement
Modi said India had succeeded in “getting rid of armed Naxals”, referring to members of the Maoist-influenced Naxalite movement that challenged state authority across parts of central and eastern India. He credited his government’s security and development policies with sharply reducing Maoist violence since he took office in 2014.
He also said the Maoist movement had “destroyed the future” of generations of young people. The movement began in 1967 with an uprising in Naxalbari in eastern India and developed into a decades-long armed rebellion focused on landless farmers, rural poor people and Indigenous communities. Thousands of civilians, rebels and security personnel died in the conflict.
Why the phrase is politically charged
The expression “dimagi Naxal” echoes “urban Naxal”, a politically charged label previously used by Modi and leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party for activists, academics, intellectuals and other government critics.
Rights groups have for years accused the Indian government of using anti-terror laws, sedition-related provisions and foreign-funding rules to constrain civil society and target activists, journalists and organisations critical of its policies.
The wider context of the Independence Day address
Modi did not mention the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party protests in his speech. The movement emerged weeks earlier as a rare challenge to his government and helped force the resignation of his education minister.
Instead, Modi repeatedly highlighted initiatives for young Indians, including artificial-intelligence skills training and free online coaching for competitive examinations. He also said India had changed from a “fragile” economy into the world’s fastest-growing major economy over the past decade and reaffirmed the government’s goal of making India a developed nation by 2047, the centenary of its independence.
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