With Naxal insurgency waning in its traditional heartland, BJP MP Anurag Thakur has opened a new front — turning the ideological gun toward university campuses. Speaking at Delhi University on Friday, 25 September 2026, the former Union Minister declared that while the Modi government had finished Naxalism on the ground, the battle against what he called 'dimagi Naxal' — intellectual Naxals — sitting inside universities and institutions was just beginning.

Thakur's post in Hindi read: 'Modi sarkar ne Bharat se Naxalwad toh khatam kar diya, ab baari vishwavidyalayon va sansthaaon mein baithe dimaagi Naxal ki hai..jinse vaicharik ladaai hum sabhi ko milkar ladni hai.' — 'The Modi government has eliminated Naxalism from India; now it is the turn of the intellectual Naxals sitting in universities and institutions, against whom all of us must together fight an ideological battle.'

The claim: Naxalism 'eliminated' from India

The central government has, since 2014, pursued a twin-track strategy against Left Wing Extremism (LWE) — security operations paired with development schemes in affected districts. Officials have repeatedly cited a shrinking geographical footprint of Maoist violence, with the number of affected districts falling sharply over a decade. Thakur's assertion that Naxalism has been 'finished' amplifies that official narrative, framing it as a mission accomplished under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

That claim, however, is a political characterisation. Security and intelligence assessments through the most recent available period indicated that residual Maoist activity persisted in parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and neighbouring forest belts, even as large-scale incidents declined significantly.

The new target: campuses and 'ideological battle'

The phrase 'intellectual Naxal' — or dimaagi Naxal — is not new in Indian political discourse, but its invocation at a central university carries pointed weight. Delhi University, like JNU before it, has long been a contested site in debates over academic freedom, campus protests, and faculty appointments at central institutions. Thakur's framing extends the anti-insurgency frame from forests to lecture halls, recasting ideological disagreement in universities as a form of insurgency requiring collective pushback.

BJP leaders have used similar language in parliamentary debates and public addresses over the past decade, arguing that certain strands of left-leaning scholarship provide intellectual cover for Maoist violence. Critics — including teachers' associations and student unions — have consistently contested that conflation, calling it a tool to delegitimise academic dissent.

Why Delhi University, why now

Thakur's choice of venue matters. Delhi University is one of India's largest central universities, enrolling hundreds of thousands of students and housing faculty bodies with significant influence over national academic policy. The National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) perennially contest its student union elections, making it a live political battleground. A call for a collective 'ideological battle' at this address is as much a mobilisation signal to student and faculty wings as it is a policy statement.

Whether the Ministry of Education or the University Grants Commission (UGC) follows up with any formal guidelines on campus ideology — as Thakur's rhetoric implies — will be the real test of how far this framing translates into institutional action.

The forests may be quieter. The argument about who controls the classroom is just getting louder.