Overview
- YouTuber Dhruv Rathee posted on X urging foreign journalists to “embarrass” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and wrote that “Modi deserves to be humiliated everywhere he goes,” a message widely reported on Friday.
- Rathee’s post responded to a Norway joint press briefing where media accounts say Modi declined to answer a question and left the stage, and Rathee repeated his claim that Modi has not held a formal press conference in 12 years.
- Actor Gul Panag quoted Rathee’s message on X and wrote “Not cool,” saying reducing the office of the prime minister to a joke abroad “diminishes him, the institution, and ultimately, us.”
- The Norway journalist who asked the question, Helle Lyng, has been targeted with online criticism following the exchange, and coverage notes the trip was the first Indian prime ministerial visit to Norway in 43 years.
- The episode shows how fast social media and celebrity interventions can nationalize diplomatic moments, deepen divisions over what counts as legitimate dissent, and raise the risk that foreign reporters face online harassment.