RSS mouthpiece links civil society to dimagi Naxals
The mouthpiece of the RSS, in its recent editorial, has targeted civil society and the Congress party as dimagi Naxals, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the term first in his Independence Day address.
Alleging that the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) in the erstwhile UPA Government was a takeover of governance by dimagi Naxals, the editorial in the Organiser magazine titled Decoding and Defeating the ‘Dimagi Naxals’ authored by Prafulla Ketkar alleges, “They don’t carry guns but use labels like eminent historians or intellectuals, award-winning literary figures, legal luminaries, human rights activists, independent journalists, celebrity actors or actresses, and environmentalists. Civil society is their tool of resistance to Constitutional Democracy.”
The editorial claims dimagi Naxals are the people who work secretly in the cities and create multiple frontal organisations in the name of students, women, labour class, farmers, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minorities, citing Maoist documents.
Their idea of “penetrating” the bureaucracy, policy machinery, legal system, academia, media and NGO is part of the “revolutionary strategy”, he adds.
“The National Advisory Council of the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA government was a classic takeover of the Dimagi Naxals of governance,” the editorial adds.
“As PM Modi used the term Dimagi Naxals, some people got rattled and started questioning the term as anti-intellectual, while usual suspects turned it into a badge of honour by turning it into another mode of resistance in the form of Dimagi Naxal Party,” Ketkar wrote in an apparent reference to senior Congress leader P Chidambaram.
A day after the PM’s address, Chidambaram took a swipe at Modi over his Dimagi Naxals remark, and said in a social media post, “I am proud to be a dimagi naxal.”
Ketkar claims understanding the dangers posed by dimagi Naxals and collaborating with agencies and security forces to identify and expose them is “our national duty”.
He said Prime Minister Modi, in his Independence Day speech, tried to “sensitise” the citizens about this duty.
“Decode, identify and expose Dimagi Naxals who want to fool the masses by exploiting their sentiments and genuine concerns; they cannot be the real change-makers but are dangerous agents of violent authoritarianism where decisions will be taken on the roads and through resistance without any democratic participation,” he said.
“As the armed rebellion has failed miserably, the Dimagi variant has taken charge,” Ketkar added.
