'Dimagi Naxal Party' goes viral, but its founder remains a mystery

What's common to the social media accounts of the 'Dimagi Naxal Party' launched over the weekend in response to the Prime Minister's reference in his Independence Day speech, and the protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) is a heavy dose of Gen Z humour.

One Instagram post reads, "When someone says Dimaagi Naxal, all I hear is intellectual baddie!"

Its X handle, @DNJP_India, has already amassed 14,000 followers, while several X users have added 'dimagi Naxal' as a prefix to their names as a show of solidarity. The party also has a website featuring a manifesto and an anthem, which links to a YouTube clip from the 2006 Hindi film 'Rang De Basanti', in which the actors recite the revolutionary poem 'Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna'.


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Its Instagram account now has over 488K followers.

Following the PM's remarks, Congress leader P Chidambaram described himself as a 'proud dimagi Naxal' in an X post, while actor Prakash Raj shared a reel urging people to become 'dimaagi' rather than 'bewakoof'. Union minister Kiren Rijiju, meanwhile, clarified that the term was not aimed at the opposition and laid out a three-point definition of who qualifies as a dimagi Naxal: those who support Maoists and reject the Constitution, those who side with separatists and support Article 370, and those who want to cut the chicken neck to separate the Northeast from India.

The identity of the party's founder remains undisclosed. Online, the founder goes simply by the name 'a dimagi Indian'. On its website, DNJP describes CJP as a sibling party. Its first tweet on Sunday, "What if all dimagi naxals come together?", was also a nod to CJP's origins, which can be traced to Abhijeet Dipke's now-iconic May 16 tweet, "What if all the cockroaches come together?"

Unlike CJP, however, DNJP's 'manifesto' says there will be no flag, no font and no founder doing press. It says the only criteria for joining the party is a "functioning brain and a willingness to ask 'wait, why though' out loud".

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The manifesto is equally clear on one point: terms such as 'dimagi Naxals' and 'anti-nationals' are used across political lines and often serve to shut down criticism.

"Every side of Indian politics has, at some point, called the other side 'anti-national' for disagreeing," the website says. "DNJP's bet: the people who actually think for themselves are scattered across every one of those parties - and a label meant to isolate them is exactly what could bring them back together."