EGI flays BJP’s video portraying journalists as ‘Dimagi Naxal’

DIMAPUR, AUG 24 (NPN): The Editors Guild of India (EGI) has strongly condemned what it described as attempts by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) official social media handles to portray individuals questioning the government as public enemies, particularly the targeting of senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai as a “Dimagi Naxal” or “intellectual Naxal.”
In a press release, the Guild took strong exception to Sardesai, a former EGI president and senior editor with India Today TV, being labelled in such a manner.
The Guild referred to remarks by BJP MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi at a press conference, where he said “intellectual Naxals” sympathised with and provided intellectual support to Naxals, celebrated the deaths of security personnel and advocated street action instead of seeking solutions through parliamentary processes.
EGI said Sardesai, during his long career as a journalist and television anchor, had objectively reported and analysed news developments and maintained that his actions and statements could not be described as those of a “Dimagi Naxal.”
Further, the Guild said the development was particularly disturbing because the attack on a media professional had come not from fringe elements but from the official social media handles of the ruling party.
According to the EGI, such attacks undermined democratic values and further eroded media freedom and the constitutional right to freedom of expression.
EGI cited India’s ranking of 157 out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), saying the increasingly constrained space for independent media was a matter of concern.
EGI called upon the BJP’s social media platforms to refrain from portraying media professionals performing their professional duties as public enemies and stressed that dissent and scrutiny were integral to the democratic process.
Last week, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘dimagi Naxal’ remark on August 15 became the subject of a political slugfest, with Congress’s P Chidambaram saying he was “proud to be a dimagi Naxal” to which BJP replied that the ex-home minister’s remark shows how UPA govt was run.