Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reference to “dimagi Naxals” has created quite a flutter. While Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s claim—that the description was about all opposition parties—was an attempt at playing the victim card, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju brought some clarity to the issue.
Let’s examine what exactly was said by the PM: “For years, those with Naxal mentality had their place in the power corridors. They were in government committees as advisors. Maoist thinking impacted policies. We have succeeded in getting rid of armed Naxals in the jungles, but dimagi Naxals (intellectual Naxals) are looking for opportunities to create violence, unrest... They want to drag the society on the wrong path. These dimagi Naxals have to be identified and isolated, and connect the youth with the mainstream.”
Unlike the mostly-forest-dwelling Naxals who openly espoused violence, urban Naxals and dimagi Naxals provide intellectual arsenal. Whether it’s the Congress, the BJP, or any regional party in power, they oppose government systems—openly or clandestinely. They try to be seen as anti-establishment even when they themselves take advantage of the establishment at times.
The PM’s word of caution is timely, too, as Naxals and their sympathisers are increasingly getting frustrated. But though the reference hit a chord, like urban Naxals, it’s not easy to identify dimagi Naxals—a term that may be loosely translated as ‘thought anarchists’. Many such people have made deep inroads into media, academia and intelligentsia. They are often Janus-faced, and hence identifying them is difficult. It is, therefore, useful to know a set of symptoms that mark them.
The first and the most dreadful symptom is an oblique acceptance of violence and anarchy as pathways towards revolution. They may not openly indulge in violence, but somewhere down the line, they also don’t entirely reject violent ways. Naxals indulge in open violence and dimagi Naxals try to theorise on it. They believe violence is essential to establish deterrence. It was Charu Mazumdar’s conviction that “he who has not dipped his hands in the blood of class enemies is not worthy of being called a communist”. Such acts from the past were described in an online journal as recently as 2008.
Second is anarchy, which walks hand-in-hand with violence. Destruction is the key to this so-called revolution. Dimagi Naxals believe in abiding by what B R Ambedkar described as the “grammar of anarchy”. In a passionate appeal at the last meeting of the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar had said, “Now that we have constitutional methods at our disposal, we must use them to obtain the socio-economic objectives set for our country.” Yet, while proclaiming themselves as parts of the civil society, dimagi Naxals turn a Nelson’s eye on many things uncivil and indecent. According to some of them, the more aggressively one uses cuss words, the greater revolutionary he or she is.
Dimagi Naxals are not entirely anti-establishment. When someone goes against their own organisations, he or she may be shown the door. While one may partly understand their anger against the establishment, they rarely share clarity on what should be the new thing to replace it.
All those who consider patriotism a bad word essentially belong to the category. They are even more set against the notion of cultural nationalism because, in the Indian context, the mainstream of our culture flows parallel to Hindu ethos.
Beyond that, they consider anything imbued with the fragrance of Indian soil inferior. They have concluded that Machiavelli is superior to Chanakya and Shakespeare to Kalidasa. They relish describing Ganga as Ganges and Hanuman as monkey-god. They care two paise for India’s ancient culture, much less for Ramayana and Mahabharata. If you eulogise these epics, they would brand you as sectarian. They do not recognise Indian traditional knowledge systems, but take pleasure in pooh-poohing it. Talking about heritage and traditions amounts to backsliding in their view.
To many who belong to the category, India is a conglomeration of many nations. Many of them believe that states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh should be considered nations by themselves. To them, India became united thanks only to British rule. Many of them are hell-bent upon stretching diversity to give fillip to divisiveness and fragmentation-ism. The Indian Army, to them, is an oppressive force. They are convinced that holding candles and marching along the Indo-Pak border will help withering away the frontier.
They do talk of democracy but in their idea of it, consensus is suspicious. Difference of opinion is the only yardstick with which they measure the genuineness of a democracy. They expect tolerating intolerance as supremely important. They are never tired of talking about freedom of expression, but when it comes to, say, the freedom of Taslima Nasrin’s expression, they refuse to utter a word. They selectively apply some yardsticks, and when one holds a mirror to them, it is ‘whataboutery’.
However, for an idea of the singular dimagi Naxal mentality, one must read how Ananda Coomaraswamy, the Sri Lankan-Tamilian metaphysician, historian and philosopher, described an anglicised youth of the 1930s (as quoted in Modern Review, October 1908): “Speak to the ordinary graduate of an Indian university or a student from Ceylon of the ideals of the Mahabharata, he will hasten to display his knowledge of Shakespeare; talk to him of religious philosophy, you find that he is an atheist of the crude type common in Europe a generation ago, and that not only has he no religion, but is lacking in philosophy as the average Englishman; talk to him of Indian music, he will produce a gramophone or a harmonium and inflict upon you one or both; talk to him of Indian dress or jewellery, he will tell you that they are uncivilised and barbaric; talk to him of Indian art, it is news to him that such a thing exists; ask him to translate for you a letter in his own mother-tongue, he does not know it. He is indeed a stranger in his own land.”
Dimagi Naxals are strangers in their own land.
Vinay Sahasrabuddhe | Senior BJP leader
(Views are personal)
(vinays57@gmail.com)
