“Mr Modi has perfected the art of direct contact with his electorate and seems to be doing a rather good job,” remarked a foreign ministry official and perhaps he was convincing.
Technically and otherwise; after Norway, question of why the leader of the world’s largest democracy does not take unscripted questions from journalists follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Australia and New Zealand.
Someone has answered that critical query quite convincingly in someway ...
MEA official pointed out that Modi is one of the longest-serving prime ministers of India and he is "doing well" when establishing direct contacts with the masses.
“It's not appropriate for me to question the PM's political method as I'm a civil servant,” Rudrendra Tandon, secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said in reply, smiling. “He is a very successful politician.”
He then went on to “explain the context” to New Zealand reporters, claiming that PM Modi prefers direct contact with his electorate like most “quintessential Indian politicians”.
“You must remember that the Indian electorate are predominantly rural folk who want direct contact. They don’t like being spoken down to, they don’t like being spoken to through intermediaries,” the diplomat used his skill pretty well.
“Mr Modi has perfected the art of direct contact with his electorate and seems to be doing a rather good job,” he added, pointing out that Modi is one of the longest-serving prime ministers of India.
"This visit, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in four decades, has opened an important new chapter in our relations. Our decision to elevate ties to a Strategic Partnership, the progress on trade and investment and the renewed momentum in defence, education, culture, sports and people-to-people exchanges reflect the growing depth of our friendship," PM Modi tweeted.
Modi with New Zealand PM Luxon
It goes without stating that PM Modi has been using social media extensively and his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat' mostly dealing with non-political issues is also extremely popular.
Days earlier, an Australian journalist reporting on Modi’s visit said on TV: “This is about as close as we will get to Narendra Modi on his trip with [Australian PM] Albanese. He [Modi] famously avoids unscripted news conferences, preferring more staged-managed appearances instead.”
The episode has reignited criticism at home. Several social media users said it was "mind-boggling" that Modi continued to hail India as the world's largest democracy while not holding a single unscripted press conference during his three terms in office, either in India or abroad.
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate called the Australian episode a "joke on the Indian media", saying it was only "a matter of time" before supporters of the prime minister turned their attention to discrediting the Australian journalist.
She alleged that instead of demanding answers from Modi, sections of the Indian media had been reduced to amplifying his "monologues".
During Modi’s visit to Norway last month, Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng had shouted from the press gallery: “Prime Minister Modi, why don’t you take some questions from the freest press in the world?”
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Helle had later justified her call-out to PM Modi:
“Norway has the number one spot on the World Press Freedom Index, India is at 157th, competing with Palestine, Emirates & Cuba. It is our job to question the powers we cooperate with.”
Sibi George, Secretary (West) in the foreign ministry had said:
"Let me give a background of what India is and why should the world trust India. Let us look at the few challenges that the world faced in the last few years. COVID was a big challenge the world faced.
And how do you test the trust on a country? One, what is a country? A country today has four elements: One, population; two, government; third, sovereignty; and fourth, territory.
So that is what makes a country a country. And we are proud that we are a civilizational country of 5,000 years old, continuous civilization, contributed immensely to the world. You look around, you see an India connect everywhere in the world.
India has, you know, the numbers which you see on your phones, it is originated in India. "Shunya,” Zero originated in India.
Chess originated in India. So, we are proud of that civilization. Yoga, which the world admires today, it originated in India. India has epics and books…".
ends
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