NEW DELHI: After Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the term “Dimagi Naxal” during his Independence Day speech and subsequent clarification given by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, now the RSS-linked publication Organiser has come with explanations.
In the editorial of its latest issue, the magazine has called the National Advisory Council (NAC), a Sonia Gandhi-led consultative body on policy decisions of the UPA government, an example of the “Dimagi Naxal” takeover of governance.
Magazine editor Praful Ketkar has written that some people got rattled and started questioning the term as anti-intellectual, while “usual suspects” turned it into a badge of honour by making it into another mode of “resistance” in the form of “Dimagi Naxal Party”.
He wrote, “The term ‘Dimagi Naxal’ is not new or derogatory for the believers of the violent and destructive ideology called Naxalism or Maoism. Their aim is to ‘seize the political power of India through armed war.” The main aim of the Maoists is to destroy the Indian army, police and the entire bureaucratic system by waging wars, he added.
The editorial argues that as the armed rebellion has failed, the “dimagi” variant of the ideology has taken charge, allegedly working secretly in cities and creating multiple fronts organisations in the name of students, women, labour class, farmers and SCs/STs.
Describing the modus operandi, he has stated, “Where they don’t have space for ‘fractional work’, with their own platform, they would infiltrate other organisations and shape the agenda in the most clandestine ways. The NAC of the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA government was a classic takeover of the Dimagi Naxals of governance.”
The “Dimagi Naxals’ idea of penetrating the bureaucracy, policy machinery, legal system, academia, media and NGOs is part of a revolutionary strategy, the editorial states. “They don’t carry guns, but use intellectuals, award-wining literary figures, human rights activists, independent journalists, celebrities and environmentalists,” the editorial adds.
