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New Delhi: In his first remarks after youth protests in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar that spread across the country and forced Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address on Saturday (August 15) warned against “dimagi Naxals” or “intellectual Naxals” who are dragging society on the wrong path.

Modi said that while Left Wing Extremism (LWE) has been dealt with in India’s forests, ‘dimagi Naxals’ remain entrenched and called for them to be isolated and for India’s youth to be aligned with the mainstream. 

While it was Modi’s 13th Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, it was the first since he faced widespread public anger on the streets that led him to force an Union minister to resign for the first time.

Police in New Delhi during the youth protest on July 20, 2026. Photo: PTI/Gurinder Osan.

Modi, however, made no mention of the protests itself, the widespread anger against irregularities in competitive examinations or the police action that was unleashed on protesters that only........

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