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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Nordic Narcissism

There is something uniquely comical about a tiny, insulated European Scandinavian country like Norway lecturing a rich civilisation like India on morality. The latest specimen comes from Helle Lyng, a purported journalist from an obscure Oslo-based daily Dagsavisen, who interrupted a tightly choreographed bilateral media interaction during Narendra Modi’s visit to Norway to shout about India’s allegedly dismal human rights record and low press freedom index. It was crude theatre masquerading...

Nordic Narcissism

There is something uniquely comical about a tiny, insulated European Scandinavian country like Norway lecturing a rich civilisation like India on morality. The latest specimen comes from Helle Lyng, a purported journalist from an obscure Oslo-based daily Dagsavisen, who interrupted a tightly choreographed bilateral media interaction during Narendra Modi’s visit to Norway to shout about India’s allegedly dismal human rights record and low press freedom index. It was crude theatre masquerading as journalism. The Indian and Norwegian Prime Ministers were not scheduled to take questions to begin with. Yet Lyng behaved less like a reporter seeking answers than an activist seeking virality. Within hours, India’s Opposition ecosystem and professional Modi-baiters within Indian media elevated Lyng into a democratic Joan of Arc. Her social-media footprint, dormant for months, burst into life. Whether coordinated or merely opportunistic, the spectacle had all the subtlety of a pre-packaged outrage campaign. Then, Aftenposten, Norway’s largest broadsheet, went one better with a crude illustration straight from the attic of colonial caricature when it rendered Modi as a snake charmer beneath the sneering caption, “A sneaky and slightly annoying man.” This is no satire but a stale racial cliché embalmed in Scandinavian self-righteousness. The affair revealed not just the shallowness of a section of Norwegian journalism, but also the extraordinary moral vanity of modern northern Europe. Norway is a country of 5.6 million people whose most enduring contribution to the political lexicon remains the surname of Vidkun Quisling, the traitor whose collaboration with Adolf Hitler during the Nazi occupation of Norway was so notorious that “quisling” entered the English language as shorthand for traitor and collaborator. Yet, contemporary Norway today floats about the world dispensing ethical report cards to postcolonial democracies infinitely more diverse and politically complicated than anything it has ever governed. Norway’s moral vanity would be easier to tolerate if its own recent history were not stained by horrors of its own. In 2011, right-wing racist Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people in one of Europe’s worst modern massacres. Norway, like every Western society, has grappled with extremism, racism and democratic tensions. Yet somehow these complexities never seem to invalidate its standing in the fashionable “freedom indices” endlessly weaponised against countries such as India. India, a deafeningly argumentative democracy of 1.4 billion people with thousands of newspapers, television channels and digital platforms attacking the government daily, is routinely portrayed as ‘authoritarian’ by opaque Western metrics. But countries inflicting chronic violence against journalists somehow fare better. This bizarre methodology reflects a closed loop of Western NGOs, advocacy networks and self-certifying liberal institutions validating one another’s prejudices. The real story was not Norway’s predictable condescension, but the speed with which sections of India’s own elite genuflected before it. The Scandinavian sneer found eager amplification from India’s own salon of professional Modi-baiters, whose instinctive reflex is to applaud any foreign sneer at India so long as it embarrasses the man they loathe.

Lingua Pragmatica

Updated: Mar 20, 2025

As Southern leaders like M.K. Stalin rage against Hindi, Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu offers a model of pragmatism over parochialism.

Chandrababu Naidu
Andhra Pradesh

Amid the cacophony of opposition in southern states to Hindi, Andhra Pradesh CM N. Chandrababu Naidu has taken a markedly pragmatic stance by remarking recently in the state Assembly that there was no harm in learning other languages. Hindi, Naidu noted, was useful for communication across India, particularly in political and commercial hubs like Delhi. His remarks, though avoiding explicit mention of the NEP, were widely seen as an endorsement of multilingualism and a rebuke to the linguistic chauvinism that has gripped parts of the South.


Few issues in India stir political passions quite like language. It is not merely a means of communication but a marker of identity, a relic of colonial resistance, and a source of political mobilization. In the southern states, where anti-Hindi sentiment has long been entrenched, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its three-language formula have reignited old tensions. No state embodies this defiance more than Tamil Nadu, where the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by M.K. Stalin has framed the policy as an assault on its linguistic autonomy.


Naidu’s words, welcomed by his ally and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, mark a sharp contrast with the DMK’s position. Tamil Nadu’s hostility towards Hindi dates back to the 1930s, when C. Rajagopalachari’s attempt to introduce it in schools met with fierce resistance. The anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s cemented the DMK’s ideological stance, with its first Chief Minister, C.N. Annadurai, famously warning that Hindi imposition could push Tamil Nadu towards secession.


The question, however, is whether this rigid opposition serves Tamil Nadu’s interests. While Stalin, with an eye to the upcoming Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, has been relentlessly portraying Hindi as a threat to his state’s regional identity, Naidu, a partner of the BJP-led Centre, is framing it as a tool for economic mobility. His argument is not that Hindi should replace Telugu or English but that it offers a competitive advantage.


The economic case for multilingualism is compelling. Indians who speak multiple languages tend to have better job prospects, higher earnings and greater geographic mobility. Andhra Pradesh’s Telugu-speaking diaspora is a case in point. Telugus make up a significant proportion of Indian-origin professionals in the United States, the Gulf, and Southeast Asia as Naidu pointed out, hinting that this success story was built not on linguistic rigidity but on adaptability.


In a country where inter-state migration is rising and where Hindi remains the most widely spoken language, refusing to learn it amounts to self-imposed isolation. Tamil Nadu’s approach, by contrast, risks limiting its youth. The DMK government has refused to implement the three-language policy, keeping schools strictly bilingual with Tamil and English. Its justification that Hindi is not necessary for global success could be true in a narrow sense but ignores the domestic context. If Tamil filmmakers can dub their movies into Hindi to expand their audience, why should Tamil students be denied access to the language that could open more doors for them within India?


The DMK has accused successive central governments, particularly under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of pushing Hindi at the expense of regional languages. Yet, rejecting Hindi outright is an overcorrection. The reality is that Hindi is an important language in India’s economic and political landscape. Naidu’s position, one of accommodation rather than confrontation, offers a middle ground that other Southern leaders would do well to consider.


Some states already recognize this. Karnataka, despite its own history of linguistic pride, has allowed Hindi to be taught as an optional language. Kerala, whose migrants work in Hindi-speaking regions and the Gulf, has been less hostile to Hindi education. Naidu’s model, balancing regional identity with practical necessity, offers a way forward. Languages should be embraced, not politicized. Southern leaders would do well to listen to him.

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