New Delhi : A Norway based newspaper on Wednesday published a racist cartoon depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a snake charmer, triggering accusations reinforcing western stereotypes. 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.
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”.
Several others also reacted sharply, echoing the view that “colonial arrogance still survives in the Western elite media”. 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”.
A row erupted after Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng questioned why PM Modi did not take questions from the media during a joint appearance with Norway’s Prime Minister during his visit to the country. Lyng reportedly asked why there was no open press conference and raised concerns over press freedom and human rights in India. “You know how many stories are up here [in India]. We have a lot of breaking news coming every day in the evening.
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