Bari una manifestazione con buona
partecipazione 2.000 certi con buona combattività e condivisione e molti
giovani; sin dal concentramento pulmino nostro addobbato di cui abbiamo
imposto il passaggio e presenza alle forze di polizia: striscione e
locandine con intensi slogan e speakeraggi con buon seguito, poi la
manifestazione è partita e i mass media sono concentrati essenzialmente
sulla testa.
Alla testa una dialettica con momenti di
discussione ha sostanzialmente tenuto fermo il corteo a lungo (due
posizioni): una ha insistito perché ci concedessero un pezzo ulteriore
di corteo oltre il percorso imposto da Governo e questura – cosa giusta
ma giocata troppo presto su una linea trattativista – l’altra che
subito ha sollevato il tema del fermo avvenuto in stazione di 3 compagni
a cui se ne sono aggiunti altri 5; la richiesta di liberazione dei
compagni era giusta e necessaria ma non doveva diventare subito il
centro dello scontro rispetto all’obiettivo reale che avremmo dovuto
avere – arrivare al più presto al limite del divieto ingiusto e illegale
e forzare costi quello che costi il divieto guastando la festa alla
Meloni, spostando l’attenzione di tutti sulla manifestazione
dell’opposizione antagonista alla Meloni.
Noi volevamo questo.
Durante il corteo sono continuati i nostri interventi nella zona dove eravamo presenti, sostenuti da parte dei manifestanti.
Gli interventi dal camion, spesso
identitari e autocentrati rispetto alla centralità dello scontro
politico necessario, in questa giornata dove si autocelebrava il
governo: altri compagni hanno assunti toni elettoralisti anti campo
largo e con critiche alla Meloni perché falso sovranista – mai
pronunciata la parola imperialismo; buona la denuncia di tutti su
Palestina, guerra e repressione e i richiami alle questioni sociali
proletarie e popolari vedi carovita spese sociali, licenziamenti in
arrivo all’indotto ex Ilva Taranto – assenti invece nella manifestazione
i migranti e la questione migranti negli interventi.
Quando si è arrivati al limite blindato
del corteo, naturalmente lontano dal porto dove c’era la Meloni, noi ci
siamo spostati avanti con striscione e bandiere, in prima linea davanti
agli scudi polizieschi: vi è stata una lunga defatigante trattativa per
ottenere la messa in libertà dei compagni fermati – alcune aree sono
andate via – siamo stati fino alla fine del fronteggiamento e poi il
corteo è ripartito in direzione stazione, perché presso la Polfer vi
erano ancora compagni in attesa di messa in libertà reale: i compagni
sono stati poi rilasciati.
La manifestazione è riuscita nei numeri e
nella rappresentatività possibile, meno nell’obiettivo politico che si
doveva cercare di raggiungere: abbiamo fatto la nostra parte fino in
fondo, ma sulla manifestazione e le sue lezioni dovremo ritornare nei
prossimi giorni.
Dai compagni/e di “proletari comunisti” e “Slai cobas sc” presenti
This article has been written in a period of escalating intensification of state repression in India, in particular the repression of ground-level activists focusing on the land rights and human rights of marginalised Indigenous (Adivasi and other tribal communities) and caste-oppressed peoples, and religious minorities. After claiming success in ‘annihilation’ of the longstanding people’s struggle and insurgency in the Adivasi (Indigenous Peoples) areas in March 2026, the government of India has expanded its call to end ‘Naxalism’ (Maoism) in central India, to include anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-displacement and labour activists across the country as so-called ‘Urban Naxals’ or, more recently, ‘Dimagi Naxals’ [‘intellectual Naxals’]. Indian intelligence agencies and security forces are bearing down with full impunity on workers, lawyers, public intellectuals, journalists and students activists. The situation is akin to a ‘mopping up’ operation to destroy all forms of resistance and protest against the anti-people, pro-capitalist and Brahminical fascist majoritarian policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime.
This article spotlights what is known as the ‘Lucknow Conspiracy Case’ (LCC) that emerged from an FIR or First Information Report (RC 01/2023/NIA-LKW) filed on 19 June 2023, by the under-secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs in Lucknow to urge the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to investigate ‘alleged reports of concerted attempts by leaders, sympathisers, and over-ground workers of the banned CPI (Maoist) Party working for the revival of the Northern regional bureau of the proscribed party’. In a period of approximately three years, the NIA has raided residences of over thirty activists, and called many for interrogation[1] as well as raided the offices of organisations such as Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch and Delhi General Mazdoor Front (DGMF), and arrested three activists.
' Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that India’s decades-long Maoist insurgency
was nearing its end but warned that the country now faced a new battle
against what he called “dimagi Naxals,” or people who align with the
movement’s ideology.'
We are all Dimagi Naxals!
Sep 01, 2026
By PUCL Bulletin Editorial Board
On 15th August, 2026, on the 80th anniversary of India’s
independence, Prime Minister Modi, identified a new threat, the
so-called ‘Dimagi Naxal’. In the Prime Minister’s words, while the armed
Naxals had been defeated, the ideology continues to live. Those who
embodied it needed to be identified and isolated, he announced.
While this labelling of an opposition is something we are used to,
from the Prime Minister, considering his previous coinages of ‘Tukde
Tukde Gang’, ‘Khan Market Gang’, ‘Andolan Jeevi’ and ‘Urban Naxal’,
there was something new about this coinage. By using the word ‘Dimag’,
the Prime Minister seemed to imply that the very act of thinking is an
offence. The Prime Minister shockingly disregards the constitutional
imperative under which the right to think enjoys unconditional
protection.
Article 19(1) of the founding document of international human rights
law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
states that, ‘Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without
interference.’ The only basis for restricting opinions under Article
19(3) is when opinions are expressed through ‘print’, ‘art’, or ‘any
other media’. The basis for restricting opinion are grounds such as
‘national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public
health or morals.’
There is no limitation on the right to hold opinions. The right to
hold opinions without interference is crucial as the human personality
develops through this right. When one uses the word ‘conscience’, it is
fundamentally about the right to hold beliefs which may be at odds with
what the family, society or nation thinks. It is about allowing for the
expression of individual opinion, regardless of what the collective may
think. The Preamble to the Indian Constitution, by setting liberty as
one of the constitutional ideals, sanctifies the idea that people can
think differently and to protect the right to be different is at the
very heart of the Indian Constitution.
The Prime Minister through the coinage of ‘Dimagi Naxal’, expresses
his reservations about this constitutional guarantee according to which
each individual should be allowed to develop in accordance to his or her
way of thinking. For the Prime Minister, when such free ‘thought’
aligns with the ideology of Naxalism, a crime is in the offing. However,
it may not be too far from the truth, to say that for the Modi regime,
you may fall under this category simply for disagreeing with their
policies, raising questions or criticising them.
The Prime Minister by creating this new national enemy called the
‘Dimagi Naxal’, who has to be ‘identified’ and ‘isolated’ is declaring
himself in alignment with the criminalisation of thought crime in
Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. As per Orwell, ‘the essential crime that
contained all others in itself’ was the ‘Thoughtcrime’. In Orwell’s
totalitarian state, citizens were terrorized into submission by the
‘thought police’.
The right wing ecosystem latched on to this idea of a ‘thought crime’
and sought to ‘identify’ and ‘isolate’ all those who disagreed with the
policies of the Union Government as ‘Dimagi Naxals’ on social media.
When a pillar of the establishment such as former Home Minister, P.
Chidambaram (who was himself guilty of human rights violations committed
in the name of eradicating Naxalism) tweeted that ‘I am proud to be a
Dimagi Naxal’, something had changed.
Modi’s previous attempts at ‘identifying’ and ‘isolating’ those who
opposed the policies of the BJP government through disparaging labels
such as ‘Urban Naxal’ and ‘Tukde Tukde Gang’ did not see the political
class resist by embracing those labels. In the past it was mostly left
to courageous civil society voices, be it Girish Karnad who wore a
placard saying, ‘I am an Urban Naxal’ or Arundhati Roy who called
herself ‘a proud Andolanjeevi’ to challenge the government’s narrative
of labelling all opposition to its policies as ‘anti-national’.
The new vocabulary of protest while using satire, also drew from the
history of India’s independence movement. This was best embodied in the
formation of the online Dimagi Naxal Party which gathered a strong
online following in just a few hours. The Dimagi Naxal Party declared
that its manifesto is to ‘question everything’, ‘think critically’,
‘seek facts’ and ‘follow the Constitution ‘claiming the tradition’ of
Bhagat Singh, who they noted ‘inspired rational thinking, scientific
temper and fearless questioning’. Bhagat Singh in their estimation ‘read
more books in jail than most cabinets read in a term’ and was therefore
the quintessential ‘Dimagi Naxal.’
The pushback seems to have made the Prime Minister realise that
Indians used to the constitutional protection of the freedom of speech
and expression will not easily submit to the policing of thought itself.
The icons of Indian independence, be it Bhagat Singh or Ambedkar, were
fierce advocates for the freedom of thought and this historical current
could not be delegitimised so easily.
Pushed to a damage control mode, in a rare comedown, the Union
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Kiren Rijiju was forced to clarify
on X that,“PM @narendramodi ji didn’t say opposition leaders as Dimagi
Naxals. Only following are Dimagi Naxals: 1. Who support Maoists and
reject Indian Constitution. 2. Who stand with separatists & support
Article 370. 3. Who want to cut chicken neck to separate North-East from
India.”
However, this clarification did little to address the crucial
question as to whether the BJP was willing to abide by the values of the
Indian Constitution. If according to Rijiju, the Prime Minister meant
that Dimagi Naxals were those who supported Maoists and rejected the
Indian Constitution, the best response comes from the archive of human
rights lawyering. When eminent human rights lawyer and former president
of the PUCL, K.G. Kannabiran was asked in court as to ‘why should
Naxalites who do not believe in the Constitution take shelter under
it?’, he replied, “When such issues come before the court, it is your
values and not their values that are on trial. It is the values
enshrined in the Constitution and the values of the state that are under
test.” Simply put, the expression of a viewpoint which rejects the
Constitution is protected speech under the Constitution.
The second category created by Rijiju is the support for Article 370;
this has been voiced by politicians, media and civil society. It cannot
be a criminal offence to voice a political opinion at odds with the way
the Modi government has responded to the Kashmir issue.
Regarding the third category, it must be noted that there is a test
laid down by the Supreme Court as to when speech can be restricted under
the sedition law. In Balwant Singh v. State of Punjab in 1995, the
Supreme Court adjudicated the question as to whether shouting slogans
including, “Khalistan Zindabad” in a crowd the day Indira Gandhi was
assassinated amounted to sedition. The Supreme Court noted, “We find it
difficult to hold that upon the raising of such casual slogans, a couple
of times without any other act whatsoever the charge of sedition can be
founded.” In simple terms, even the advocacy of the viewpoint that the
“chicken neck should be cut to separate North-East from India” is not an
offence. It is only when such advocacy becomes incitement to the act
that the statement can become a criminal offence. In Shreya Singhal v.
Union of India, the Court held that discussion and advocacy of any
cause, however unpopular, lies at the heart of Article 19(1)(a), and
that only incitement may be restricted.
What cannot be forgotten is the context in which the Prime Minister
made his remarks. Just a month ago, a wave of student protests initiated
by the Cockroach Janata Party had pushed the government on the backfoot
and forced the resignation of the Minister for Education, Dharmendra
Pradhan. Clearly the label of ‘Dimagi Naxal’ was nothing other than a
preemptive move to target the burgeoning student movement now spanning
both Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
In the time going forward it is likely that we will see even more
critical speech. We will also see new forms of association both online
and offline to ventilate the grievances of all those dissatisfied with
the current government. We are also likely to see more protests by
students, workers and all those dissatisfied with the status quo.
The constitutional protections of speech, association and assembly
are likely to be tested as never before. It is up to ‘we the people’ to
ensure that our freedoms are not taken away.
We are all Dimagi Naxals!
Bulletin Edition: September 2026
Contents of this Edition of the PUCL Bulletin (print version):
The
International League of Peoples’ Struggle sends our deepest condolences
while standing in solidarity with the people of Nepal affected by the
glacier lake outburst flood across a 72km stretch of the Trishuli River
on August 26th. After a week, the situation is more devastating with
each revelation:
Infrastructure:
around $1.3b USD in damages, 8,317 houses destroyed, 41 bridges and 42
km of road damaged, four flood monitoring stations and 20 schools
destroyed, 13 hydropowered projects damaged, 200 loaded shipping
containers missing, destroyed over 26,000 livestock, wiping out paddy
fields in 20 districts , etc.
Causalities: 1,200 people displaced, over 5,000 injured, at least 1,280 killed, and 5,624 people still missing.
These
flash floods were caused by a glacier collapse linked to the current
climate crisis and exacerbated by US imperialism’s rising parasitism
under Trump, cutting USAID funds for natural hazards monitoring that
Nepal was made dependent on for years.
Across
the Global South, the threat of climate change is no longer a distant
reality, but an existential crisis for the peoples of these colonies and
semi-colonies through a multitude of catastrophes: record-breaking
heatwaves, drought, floods, tropical cyclones, wildfires, and many more
natural disasters have been destroying lives and livelihoods of the
basic masses, especially peasants. It is clear that imperialism’s
incessant need for profit is the cause of this crisis through the
increasing emissions from the imperialist countries with the people in
the neocolonies bearing the burden of the havoc caused by global
warming. For instance, Nepal’s share of the world’s greenhouse gas
emissions is ~0.1%, around 41.5 million tons – the US military alone
emits almost five times as much with 205 million tons. Based on per
capita emissions the responsibility of climate disasters still sits with
the western imperialism as their per capita emissions are sky high as
compared to emissions from countries such as China and India.
Climate
imperialism in South Asia will no doubt bring more horrific disasters
as the glaciers in the Himalayan range cuts across from Nepal to
Pakistan, with Pakistan alone being home to more than 7,000 glaciers
while the entire ecosystem is being impacted by high temperatures in the
region.
A
fresh debacle is the hundreds of data centres that are being built in
the western countries but now rapidly expanding in the South. The high
energy cost, further heating and plundering of water resources is
another threat and cannot be separated from the climate and
environmental crisis.
The
issue will only worsen with the end of the “rules-based order”, which
never intended to solve the climate crisis, but was rather concerned
about potential loss of super-profits from climate change. However, the
junking of even the empty multi-lateral treaties such as the Paris
Agreements, large-scale environmental deregulation, and semi-colonies
hung to dry after cuts to ‘aid’ programs designed to make them
dependent, the turn towards to fascism for unfettered profit has
intensified the crisis. And as seen with Venezuela, they with their
usual gang of financial crooks such as the IMF and WB alongside the
ever-present Zionist entity are eager to seize control amidst disaster.
As
the government of Nepal is now filled with royalist and pro-Western
forces that intend to worsen imperialist plunder, the US and other
imperialist countries turning towards fascism, and the climate crisis
only deepening, the people must rise in droves to fight for not only a
better future, but a future itself. The struggle against climate change
is part-and-parcel with the struggle against imperialism and all
reaction.
The
detainees are former commanders of Nepalese revolutionary forces. The
solution of the problem of Maoist rebels weighs on the future of the
country. The conclusion of the UN mission is also connected to the
process of integrating the forces of the People's Liberation Army into
the ranks of the regular army.
Kathmandu
(AsiaNews) - The Nepalese prime minister is asking India to free the
Maoist rebel commanders detained in Indian prisons. Back from the summit
in the Bay of Bengal (BIMSTEC), Pushpa Kamal Dahal announced the
official request to the head of the government of New Delhi, Manmohan
Singh, to "release our cadres who are in the Patna jail." "The Indian
prime minister has given me a positive commitment," says the Nepalese
leader, whose nickname is "Prachanda."
As of today, more than 20
Maoist rebels are detained in Indian prisons. Immediately after the rise
to power of the Maoist party, New Delhi freed two leading exponents of
the revolutionary forces detained in the prison of Jalpaiguri, to
demonstrate willingness to continue cooperation. The incident has taken
on particular significance partly because of the presence of Maoist
rebel groups operating in India. According to some analysts, the
openness of New Delhi is related to the fact that India is Nepal's main
commercial and economic partner, but the Maoist Prachanda has repeatedly
demonstrated that he is more interested in Beijing than in New Delhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a strong warning to Pakistan on September 5, 2026, saying that if Pakistan indulges in any “misadventure,” India’s armed forces will enter its territory and strike. Modi made the remarks while addressing the centenary celebrations of Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in New Delhi, where he said those spreading terrorism are currently “on the back foot.”
The warning comes against the backdrop of Modi’s repeated emphasis on India’s policy of responding decisively to terr0rism. During his SRCC address, he said that peace had increased from Jammu and Kashmir to the Northeast and claimed that the backbone of Maoist terr0rism and Naxalism had been broken. His remarks reinforced the government’s broader message that India will respond forcefully to threats to its security.
Palestina.
De acuerdo con
Francesca Albanese, relatora especial de la ONU sobre la situación de los
derechos humanos en los territorios palestinos ocupados, el
inicio de los trabajos para retirar escombros en Gaza por parte de la
entidad sionista y la mal llamada “Junta de Paz” de Trump, puede destruir las
pruebas del genocidio cometido contra la población. Mediante un comunicado
Albanese ha dicho que… "En la
devastada Gaza, los escombros no son solo residuos de construcción. Forman
parte de la escena del crimen, de un cementerio y constituyen el registro
material de lo ocurrido durante una campaña de bombardeos brutal y sin sentido
que duró dos años", ya que se estima que debajo
de estos se encuentran sepultados los cuerpos de al menos 10 mil personas,
además de los indicios periciales que la comunidad internacional debería compilar
para juzgar y encarcelar a los criminales de guerra. La “Junta de Paz” que está
financiando estos trabajos recibe subsidios directos de los gobiernos de
Estados Unidos, Emirato Árabes Unidos y Marruecos, respectivamente, e “Israel”
los administra de forma deliberada para borrar las huellas de sus crímenes. Otros
investigadores como Muhammad Shehada, adscrito al Consejo Europeo de Relaciones
Exteriores, sostienen
que“el organismo redirige recursos
destinados a la recuperación de la Franja para sufragar el desalojo clandestino
de cascotes impregnados de restos humanos”. Entre los trabajos que se están
realizando se encuentran la introducción de maquinaria pesada para la remoción y
trituración de escombros, nivelación y compactación de suelo, pavimentación y
construcción de rutas para transporte militar. La barbarie cometida contra Gaza
no parece tener fin; el “alto al fuego” simplemente no existe y desde su firma
en octubre de 2025 a la fecha ya han sido asesinadas 1,352 personas y otras 4,511
han sido heridas. En total, la suma de mártires desde el 7 de octubre de 2023 a
hoy asciende a 73,658
con al menos 174,622 heridos. Ante este escenario, una importante reunión
entre el Movimiento de Resistencia Islámica (Hamás) y el Frente Popular para la
Liberación de Palestina (FPLP) ha tenido lugar esta semana en Beirut,
Líbano. En ella se han establecido algunos ejes de discusión que responden a la
propuesta lanzada recientemente por el FPLP como “Hoja
de ruta para el Rescate Nacional”. Es importante seguir denunciando el
genocidio y la barbarie contra el pueblo palestino, y seguir apoyando a la
heroica Resistencia Nacional Palestina. ¡Muerte
a la maldita entidad sionista! ¡Del río al mar, Palestina vencerá!
