New Delhi, Sep 3 (PTI) BJP leader and former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to spell out clearly what the term ‘dimagi Naxal’ means and what separates the category from legitimate dissent.
Singh’s comments questioning the PM’s remarks made in his Independence Day address from the Red Fort come ahead of assembly elections in Punjab, where the BJP is seeking to expand.
The former chief minister, in an opinion piece in Hindustan Times, said, “Let’s not be too casual about the Naxal label”, noting that “India should not have to choose between national security and democratic freedom. Properly understood, the two reinforce each other”.
In his article, Singh said the PM did not describe recent youth protests as “dimagi Naxalism”, and it would be unfair to attribute such a connection to him. But political expressions rarely remain confined to their original context, he said.
“Once repeated by parties, television studios and social media, their boundaries can expand quickly. That is why clarity matters.
“Words spoken from the Red Fort carry exceptional authority. When the PM says that a category of people must be ‘identified’ and ‘isolated’, citizens are entitled to know what separates that category from legitimate dissent.
“If the expression refers to those knowingly enabling Maoist violence, the distinction should be stated clearly, and the law applied firmly. If it were ever allowed to extend merely to radical, unpopular or sharply critical opinion, a democratic India should draw the line,” he said.
Noting that a republic requires obedience to the Constitution and the law, he said, “It does not require unquestioning loyalty to the government of the day and citizens retain the right to disagree. At the same time, civil liberties cannot become camouflage for organised violence.” “The dividing line is not left versus right, government versus Opposition, or nationalist versus critic. It is between lawful dissent and conduct that knowingly enables violence,” he said in the article.
“That standard protects the state as much as the citizen,” Singh said, adding that vague categories can weaken security by blurring the distinction between the genuinely dangerous and those that merely disagree.
Intelligence agencies and police should concentrate on networks capable of financing, facilitating or organising violence rather than being drawn into broad ideological scrutiny of inconvenient voices, he observed.
“India should not have to choose between national security and democratic freedom. Properly understood, the two reinforce each other. A State unable to defeat violence cannot protect liberty. But a democracy that treats disagreement itself as a security threat risks diminishing the freedom that security is meant to defend.
“If the Naxal gun is finally disappearing from India’s forests, that is a major national achievement. The task ahead is equally important: Identify and isolate those who profess violence, but do not allow the Naxal label to hang indiscriminately,” he said.
The former chief minister himself clarified that “dimagi Naxal” is a political expression and not a legal category and criminal liability cannot rest merely on a presumed state of mind.
“The law can examine conduct, intent, conspiracy, incitement, financing, and deliberate assistance, and all of these attract legal culpability. What a constitutional democracy must guard against, however, is the slide from evidence to association, and from association to assumption.
“That distinction goes to the heart of citizenship. A student protesting an examination, a college graduate demanding jobs, a farmer questioning policy, a tribal activist opposing displacement, or a journalist scrutinising a security operation does not become an extremist merely because the criticism is inconvenient. The government may disagree, and the police may regulate protests. But dissent alone cannot make loyalty to India suspect,” he said.
In his Independence Day address, Modi said armed Naxalism had been decisively weakened but warned against “dimagi Naxals” (people with a Maoist mindset), who, the PM said, remained alert to opportunities of creating violence and disorder and, therefore, needed to be identified and isolated.
Noting that insurgencies are rarely sustained by armed cadres alone, Singh said violent organisations may rely on recruitment, finance, shelter, communications, propaganda, logistics, and people who facilitate them. Those who finance violence, recruit for it, harbour cadres, assist operations, or conspire to commit offences cannot claim immunity where evidence establishes criminal conduct, he said, adding that the law must take its course firmly.
“The difficulty begins when conduct gives way to presumed thought,” he noted. PTI SKC SAP SAP SAP
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