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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

Govt clears two railway projects worth Rs 6,405 cr in Jharkhand, Karnataka and Andhra

  • PTI
  • Jun 11, 2025
  • 2 min read

New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on Wednesday, approved two projects of Ministry of Railways worth Rs 6,405 crore, with aim to improve travel convenience, reduce logistic cost, decrease oil imports and contribute to lower CO2 emissions.



The project approved by the cabinet included 133 kilometers long Koderma - Barkakana Doubling and 185 kilometers long project Ballari - Chikjajur Doubling.



The Koderma - Barkakana Doubling project passes through a major coal-producing area of Jharkhand. Furthermore, it serves as the shortest and more efficient rail link between Patna and Ranchi.



Additonally, the Ballari-Chikjajur Doubling project traverses through Ballari and Chitradurga districts of Karnataka and Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.



"The projects are in line with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji's Vision of a New India, which will make people of the region 'Atmanirbhar' by way of comprehensive development in the area, which will enhance their employment/ self-employment opportunities," according to a statement by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.



These projects cover seven Districts across the states of Jharkhand, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, will increase the existing network of Indian Railways by about 318 Kms. And will enhance connectivity to approx. 1,408 villages, which are having a population of about 28.19 lakh.



This addition will help transport commodities such as coal, iron ore, finished steel, cement, fertilizers, agriculture commodities, and Petroleum products etc. The capacity augmentation works will result in additional freight traffic of magnitude 49 MTPA (Million Tonnes Per Annum).



"The Railways being environment friendly and energy efficient mode of transportation, will help both in achieving climate goals and minimizing logistics cost of the country, reduce oil import (52 Crore Litres) and lower CO2 emissions (264 Crore Kg) which is equivalent to plantation of 11 Crore trees," the cabinet said. (


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