In his Independence day address this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that his government had eliminated the threat of armed Naxals/Maoists, but added that ‘dimaagi Naxals (brainy Naxals’) remain. These dangerous individuals, he said, had been elevated to policy advisers by his predecessors. Now, they look for opportunities to ‘drag society onto the wrong path’ and ‘steer the nation’s youth’ away from the ‘mainstream effort’ to turn India into ‘a developed nation.’ He asked Indian citizens to ‘identify and isolate’ such individuals among them.

Is Mr. Modi the first leader of a democratic nation to declare thoughts to be crimes, without resort to innuendo or euphemism, in a formal address to the nation? A search for other instances came up empty.