Reading Albert Camus amid ‘Dimaghi Naxals'

Dr Mohit Sharma and Dr Rashid Ali* 'Violence died today. Or maybe yesterday; I am not sure. The state said it was dead.' (If Albert Camus were to say this in the post-Camus era!) What is more 'surreal' than the individual in post-Camus era? It is political absurdity. In this Brave New World, absurdity is no longer about a lonely individual braving an indifferent universe. Instead, it arrogates itself to the right of the state. Albert Camus famously opened The Stranger with a dreary numb announcement of death - 'My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I don't Know.' If he were to rewrite the novella again in today's India, he would probably replace the iconic opening line with this one: 'Violence died today. Or maybe yesterday; I am not sure. The state said it was dead.' The profound absurdity wouldn't stem from a mother's passing, but from a powerful state apparatus declaring absolute peace out of one side of its mouth, while using the other to hunt down a brand-new enemy hiding inside the human mind. This exact paradox sat right at the centre of the most lamentable comedy in the form of 'Dimaghi Naxal' (Naxals of the mind). The new mechanicals are said to be lurking in the shadows and must be rooted out and isolated. An Enemy Transitions – From Physical Existence to Mind Even after the claim that Naxalism is thoroughly decimated, the state continues its hunting spree on the Naxal? But you can't hunt when you declare someone dead. And then the dead haunt. Between hunting and being haunted lies an enemy that is always invented and reinvented. By declaring victory over armed Naxalism, the state now treats 'Naxalism' as a paranormal condition. Originally, a Naxal was an armed political actor who held physical territory, carried weapons and openly challenged the state's authority. The state fought back using what sociologist Max Weber famously called the defining feature of any government: its monopoly over legitimate physical force. It was a recognizable, structural battle. Two competing factions claimed authority over the land, and the state fought to win back its monopoly. According to the Indian government, its strategy combined intense security operations with 'development, welfare and rehabilitation.' The official data showed a massive crash in Left-Wing Extremist violence, leading to the triumphant declaration that India had finally become free of the armed threat on March 31, 2026. Once a physical enemy vanishes, the political category of 'the enemy' doesn't just evaporate. It migrates. 'Naxal' travels out of the jungle and directly into the human mind. The threat shifts from an armed body to an ideological thought, from held territory to public conversation and from a physical gun to a written argument.