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The Editors Guild of India (EGI) has strongly condemned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for targeting individuals who have questioned the government, particularly senior journalist and former Guild president Rajdeep Sardesai, by labelling him a “Dimaagi Naxal” (person with a Naxal mentality).
The Guild’s condemnation comes after the BJP’s Goa unit shared an AI-generated video song titled “Who is a Dimaagi Naxal?”, in which several prominent critics of the government are depicted alongside imagery of guns and violence.
The video has raised concerns not merely over the use of political labels, but over the threatening and potentially intimidating manner in which the BJP has portrayed people it identifies as its ideological opponents.
The BJP’s Goa unit captioned the video: “Violence gets intellectualised, Terrorists get sympathised with, Soldiers get interrogated. If that sounds familiar, you know who you are.”
The AI-generated rap video opens with an illustration of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader Abhijeet Dipke. As his head is shown opening, an AK-47 pops out, explicitly associating him with the “Dimaagi Naxal” label. The video then features Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and visuals from CJP protests, accompanied by lyrics accusing “Dimaagi Naxals” of glorifying armed rebellion, sympathising with terrorists and questioning security forces. It also targets Muslims.
The video goes further, naming and depicting several political opponents, activists, actors and journalists, including CJP leaders Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, as well as Prakash Raj, Vishal Dadlani and Arvind Kejriwal. At one point, an AK-47 is shown firing at the people featured in the video.
The video concludes with images of Vishal Dadlani, journalist Dhruv Rathee, Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Rajdeep Sardesai and Prakash Raj, all depicted with bloodied eyes, as if the gun had fired through their temples.
The Editors Guild took strong exception to the fact that the attack came from the ruling party itself rather than from an unaffiliated individual or fringe group.
“An editor with India Today TV, Rajdeep Sardesai, in his long public career as a journalist and TV anchor, has been objectively presenting and analysing news developments. By no stretch can his actions and utterances be termed those of a ‘Dimaagi Naxal’,” the EGI said.
“The development is particularly disturbing as this threat to a media professional comes not from a stray group or fringe elements, but the official social media handles of the ruling party. Such attacks undermine the democratic credentials of our country and further erode media freedom enshrined in our Constitution under the right to freedom of expression,” it said.
The Guild called on the BJP’s social media outlets to refrain from portraying media professionals carrying out their professional duties as “public enemies” and stressed that dissent and scrutiny are integral to a democratic system.
The term “Dimaagi Naxal” is the latest addition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political vocabulary, following terms such as “Andolanjeevi” that have been used to target his critics.
Modi introduced the term in his latest Independence Day speech.
“For years, people with Maoist thinking were there in public life, even in government committees. This thinking had affected various institutions and initiatives. My dear countrymen, we have been able to curb and free the country from hathiyaarband Naxal (armed Naxal). But the ‘Dimaagi Naxal’ (people with Naxal mentality) are looking for an opportunity, looking to see ways of violence, and trying to drag the country down a wrong path,” Modi had said.
Since the Prime Minister’s speech, BJP leaders and official social media handles have used the term to dismiss and ridicule critics.
While the Prime Minister did not provide a precise definition of who constitutes a “Dimaagi Naxal” or what specific conduct would establish that someone belongs to this category, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi described “intellectual Naxals” as people who sympathise with Naxalism and provide it intellectual support, celebrate the deaths of security personnel and advocate street action instead of seeking solutions through Parliament – what the video song has clearly demonstrated.
