“I think, therefore I am,” declared René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher. Had he been born in India today, he might have reconsidered. Thinking, after all, appears to be acquiring the status of a suspicious activity. Anyone found carrying a dimag (brain) may soon have to explain themselves. Following the recent Gen Z agitation in Delhi and elsewhere, one might have expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to respond with at least a measure of modesty. Far from it. From the ramparts of the Red Fort, he introduced a new category of national menace: the “Dimagi Naxal”, or intellectual Naxal. These are people with a “Maoist mindset” who have supposedly “carved out a place in the corridors of power”, advising........

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