This is what Norway’s leading newspaper chose for its coverage of the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Norway.
https://x.com/_Tracer_Bullet_/status/2056737017460089173
'Snake charmer' and 'sneaky' too, I guess we should be thankful they didn't add 'satan worshipping Hindu'. pic.twitter.com/dGDSzdQ7Vh
— Tracer Bullet (@_Tracer_Bullet_) May 19, 2026
While the usual suspects on BP chose to focus on an aspiring influencer’s stunts and dramatic heckling, I am not surprised that such blatant bigotry in the ‘mainstream’ newspaper of the supposedly Number one ranked Press has not been discussed on BP. Hilariously, a non-trivial subset of the Indian media and political opposition actually supported a rookie aspiring journalist’s publicity stunt.
Its a time-tested pattern. Rage-baiting and attacking Hindus and India earns notoriety, while the pushback and negative consequences if you push the envelope too far into nakedly racist territory, is minimal if there at all.
For all the cacophony and chaos that the Indian media landscape consistently generates, it has yet to demonstrate ability to even capitalize on such low-hanging fruit. A more capable media ecosystem wouldn’t allow such nonsense unpunished.
This is the overton window that needs to be shifted – the coverage ‘rules’ on India allow for a lot more mainstream ‘phobia’ and assault. And we see that on BP as well, the Pakistani tribal ‘patriot’ squad repeatedly find themselves facing pushback which to them is unexpected. After all, why shouldn’t they be allowed free rein in rage-baiting and plying bigoted stereotypes.
This racist caricatures aside, it is not a religious group or a country being attacked.
And yes our media is bad and horrible and this is a direct result of the domestication through access and ads that has been happening for the last decade. A minstrel can only write hagiogrpahies, not make good rhetoric. Had our media done even the most basic jobs this whole situation would not be happening
Completely agree with Calvin here
Sorry, but I can’t simply gloss over the blatant racism in the caricature. It is the entire subcontinent, not just India being stereotyped. You obviously have a lot of …personal dissatisfaction with the current political power trends in India. But that is a separate issue.
Its not Modi the politician that’s being represented – its all Indians. That is something your partisan one eye is missing in choosing to ignore the prejudice.
It is not all Indians, I dont agree that a picture that clearly shows one person represents all Indians.
I dont agree with argument that sound eerily similar to India= Indira and Indira=India.
They should not have represented him as a snake charme but that is about it.
// And yes our media is bad and horrible //
I agree but it has been like that since long time, as Naipaul noted –
Indian journalism developed no reporting tradition; it often reported on India as on a foreign country.
but i disagree with period & reason you suggest.
I don’t think that before the last 10 years our media was taking narratives directly from social media and openly running false narratives against citizens of the country
Plus Manmohan Singh himself did close to 114 press conferences, this whole situation is because of the state of our media.
Again, this is false. The Nirbhaya case and the India against Corruption movement were essentially “social media narratives” (albeit later hijacked by Arvind Kejriwal and the like). The party that MMS represented lost the elections three consecutive times meaning that people don’t care about press conferences as much as the self-important cohort of journalists does.
Let them throw stones. We should just keep developing.
There were similar cartoons regarding the space program and ISRO has now achieved some things which no country has been able to (moon pole soft landing).
Only two things matter – GDP (for overall power) and GDP per capita (for quality of life). Everything is downstream of it.
The welcome India gets in European capitals was not there 10-15 years ago. 10-15 years later even the cartoons will disappear.
Yes exactly, rather than getting triggered over this and doing usual IT cell shenanigans or thst press conference, one should have just ignored this in the first place.
Why is it so offensive being shown as a snake charmer? Isn’t that part of Indian culture, something that does not exist outside South Asia? If someone showed Pakistanis as snake charmers for charming all the westerners, we would not be offended at all. It’s not bigotry if its true.
The second point about Satan worshipping Hindus is what I alluded to in earlier posts. Westerners, especially Northern Euros and Americans are innately repelled by idol worship and Hinduism to them is seen as Satanic. Even the most liberal ones think this unconsiously.
Line 1. ‘snAkE cHaRmEr’ is not racist.
Line 2. ‘I told you so, white people hate you weird pagan Hindus’.
Make up your mind dude.
Guess what: the two are independent of each other.
Own your peculiarities rather than lash out about it.
Westerners of today seem more repulsed by christianity or Islam tbh
Hinduism when it does get talked about is talked about positively, and whatever repulsion that there maybe is because of the lack of proof not the belief and practise itself
Many Indians dont like the representation of snake charmers because it represents something archaic, not modern. Many Westerners outside of those interested in India still are using 18th-19th century framing on Hinduism like on other religions as well.
this is disgraceful and racist..