I think I would have been 12 or 13 when I first came across the word Naxal. I doubt if I grasped its meaning although the papers of the late 1960s were full of it. I was aware they were a bunch of people terrorising the good folk of Bengal. But at school in Dehradun – where I would only casually and occasionally read the papers – it felt a long way away.In the early 70s it became a more meaningful term. The new headmaster’s son, Dilip Simeon, was a Naxalite and underground at the time. Years later when he became a professor at Delhi University, I’m told he was hugely popular because of his past. It made him a hero. A sort of real life Robin Hood.So last weekend when the prime minister spoke of the threat of “dimaagi naxals” I wasn’t sure what precisely he meant. I understood the words but the phrase felt vague, arbitrary and undefined. Was it a case of Humpty Dumpty telling Alice in Through the Looking-Glass “when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean”?Most people assume Modi is referring to left-wing intellectuals and activists. Does it, therefore, follow that Marxists, Leninists and Maoists are dimaagi naxals? By that logic Modi’s India has no room for historians like Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill and E.P. Thompson, philosophers like Herbert Marcuse and Antonio Gramsci and politicians like Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Olaf Palme, Willy Brandt and Clement Attlee. If true that would be tragic and diminishing.Some of the great historians of India are left-wing thinkers. I’m referring to Irfan Habib, Bipan Chandra and Romila Thapar. But who is the BJP to question their contribution and characterise it as dimaagi naxalism? That’s not just arrogance. It could smack of McCarthyism.Giving examples of dimaagi naxals, Modi said, “For years individuals with a Maoist ideology had made their place in the corridors of power in the country. Even as advisors on government committees, this Maoist ideology influenced policy.” Is he suggesting Congress governments were dimaagi naxals?The paradox is that during the railway strike of 1974 and the later Emergency, Indira Gandhi would have considered George Fernandes a dimaagi naxal. Yet both Jaiprakash Narayan and Atal Bihari Vajpayee made him senior ministers. Vajpayee gave him defence and made him a member of his cabinet committee on security. Isn’t this proof the term dimaagi naxal makes no sense in Indian circumstances?Perhaps Modi has Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Kanhaiya Kumar in mind? Or student leaders like Abhijeet Dipke and Neha Bora? But then would he not be challenging a whole generation of students and the education system itself? Would that not be biting off more than he can chew?I get the feeling anyone who challenges the prime minister, questions his policies and disputes his authoritarian ways is dimaagi naxal. In which case not only is this undemocratic and unbecoming of the mother of democracy, it also smacks of Hitler’s attitude to the German opposition in the 1930s and 40s.That raises a further question. You may think it’s exaggerated. Even unwarranted. But do you fear calling your opponents dimaagi naxal is a few steps away from creating an Indian version of the Gestapo, Hitler’s secret police, one of whose jobs was to crush political dissent? After all Modi said: “We must identify these dimaagi naxals (and) isolate them”. He added they “should not be underestimated.” To some that might sound ominous.So my point is simple. Modi’s determination to eradicate dimaagi naxals could be construed as a policy that is likely to undermine the principles of our democracy and the cherished values of our constitution. It all depends on how far he goes. But if my concerns are right would I also be correct in suggesting Modi’s Independence Day speech poses one of the gravest threats to India’s democracy and constitution since the Emergency?I hope I’m wrong. I’m sure you do too.