A Norwegian newspaper sparked outrage after publishing a cartoon depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a snake charmer amid a row over a journalist trying to question him at a press briefing.
A Norwegian newspaper on Wednesday published a racist cartoon depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a snake charmer, triggering accusations reinforcing western stereotypes, amid a row over a journalist questioning the Prime Minister for allegedly avoiding queries India during his state visit to the European country.
The illustration on Aftenposten showed him holding what appeared to be a fuel-station pipe shaped like a snake, alongside an opinion article reportedly titled "A clever and slightly annoying man".
The controversy intensified amid a row over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s press briefing in Norway, where Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng publicly questioned why he did not take media questions during a joint appearance with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store.
PM Modi did not respond to the query, but the exchange later drew a sharp rebuttal from India’s Ministry of External Affairs, represented by diplomat Sibi George.
The cartoon triggered massive outrage, with many on the internet calling it blatantly racist and rooted in old colonial stereotypes that portrayed India as a land of "snake charmers". Many slammed the newspaper arguing that the imagery was xenophobic and disrespectful to India and its elected leader.
"This cartoon is blatantly racist," a user wrote on X, adding, "What also stands out is the irony. PM Modi used to speak about how earlier the world thought of India as a 'land of snake charmers'.
And now, during his visit to Oslo, a major European newspaper depicts him exactly that way".
One Carl Wheless tweets acidly : "This isn't journalism. It's a colonial era racism..."
A similar backlash had emerged in 2022 when a Spanish newspaper used snake-charmer symbolism in coverage related to India’s economic rise.
Notably, Prime Minister Modi, in his Madison Square Garden speech in the US in 2014, had referred to how India was once stereotyped abroad as a country of “snake charmers” before becoming a technology-driven nation of “mouse charmers”.
He later repeated the same portrayal of India at other global forums as well.
In 2022, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar in an interaction during his visit to west gave a powerful message on what Europe generally thinks about India and about other parts of the world.
"Somewhere Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe's problems are the world's problems. But the world's problems are not Europe's problems".
No comments:
Post a Comment