Norway’s PM took questions. Modi left Indian envoy to face Norwegian media

On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had just walked off stage without taking a single question from journalists, including one shouted at him by Norwegian commentator Helle Lyng of Dagsavisen. What followed, when MEA Secretary (West) Sibi George and other ministry officials faced the media, was one of the more revealing diplomatic exchanges of Modi’s five-nation tour.

Lyng had already made her position clear before the briefing even began. As Modi walked off stage alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, she had called out: “Prime Minister Modi, why don't you take some questions from the freest press in the world?” The question went unanswered, though Lyng had expected nothing less. She later wrote on X: “Prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, would not take my question, I was not expecting him to. Norway has the number one spot on the World Press Freedom Index, India is at 157th, competing with Palestine, Emirates and Cuba. It is our job to question the powers we cooperate with.”

Modi’s decision to blank Lyng as he walked out with his Norwegian counterpart had already brewed a storm back home in India, with Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi taking shots. 

Responding directly to Lyng’s post on X, the Indian Embassy in Norway said that it would organise a press briefing on Modi’s visit later that day and that she was “most welcome” to come and ask her questions there.

Unlike PM Modi, the Norwegian PM had come out to take questions from a group of Indian journalists. Though Lyng had earlier expressed disappointment that the Norwegian prime minister “did not include time today for the Indian reporters”. 

Later, at the press conference in the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel in Oslo, Lyng wasn’t about to let go.

“I am wondering as we strengthen our partnership — why should we trust you?” she asked. “Can you promise that you will try to stop the human rights violations that go on in your country? And also, will the Prime Minister start taking critical questions from the Indian press at some point in the future?”

It was a pointed question. But George launched into a meandering response that touched on India's five-thousand-year civilisation, the origins of chess, the concept of zero, yoga, India's role in the G20, its Covid vaccine diplomacy, and the preamble of the Indian Constitution – before eventually arriving at the question of human rights. 

Lyng interrupted. George pushed back.

“Let me answer. You ask me a question. Let me answer,” he said, his frustration audible. “When to answer, where to answer, how to answer – these are my prerogatives. You ask the question, don’t ask me to answer in a particular way.”

At one point, George told her plainly, “Please don’t interrupt me. This is my press conference.”

On press freedom, George argued that critics fundamentally misunderstand the scale of India’s media environment.

“You know how many breaking news (stories) come every day in Delhi? At least 200 TV channels – in English, in Hindi, in multiple languages,” he said. In other words, a country with 200 news channels apparently cannot be accused of suppressing its press.

On human rights more broadly, he leaned on India’s constitutional guarantees. “We have a constitution which guarantees the fundamental rights of the people,” he said. “If anyone whose rights are violated, they have the right to go to court.” He also highlighted that Indian women received voting rights at independence in 1947, earlier than women in several other nations.

On the question of minority rights, George reached for a civilisational argument rather than contemporary evidence. He described India as a society rooted in diversity and tolerance, one that had historically welcomed persecuted communities from across the world. 

“India is a democratic society. It was not in 1947 that we became a democracy. We were a democratic society for centuries, for millennia,” he said. 

India’s diversity, he argued, was itself proof of this tradition of acceptance. “Whenever there was persecution anywhere in the world, they came to India, and Indian society accepted everyone.” He went further, drawing an implicit contrast with other nations: “We did not eliminate, we did not go for ethnic cleansing,” he said, pointing to countries that today have “only one religion” or “only one ethnicity”. It was a sweeping historical defence that just sidestepped the present.

But it was his swipe at critics that generated the sharpest reaction. “People have no understanding of the scale of India,” he said. “They read one or two news reports published by some godforsaken, ignorant NGOs and then come and ask questions.”

It was a familiar posture for Indian diplomats on foreign soil under the Modi administration. Suffice it to say, Oslo was not an isolated incident.

Lyng was candid about the briefing's outcome. 

“My colleague and I asked questions tonight both on why we should trust India given the human rights violations, and also about the visit. I tried multiple times to get them to be specific on human rights, but I was unsuccessful. The representatives talked about India’s effort during Covid and also yoga, among other things.” 

What came in the hours that followed was a torrent of online abuse. Lyng faced significant trolling for her questions and the way she framed them. Things got so severe that she felt compelled to clarify on X: “I never thought I would have to write this, but I am not a foreign spy of any sort, sent out by any foreign government. My work is journalism, primarily in Norway now.”

The exchange was the latest episode in a tour repeatedly shadowed by questions about press freedom – and another serious flashpoint had come days earlier in The Hague. There, at a briefing meant to celebrate the elevation of Indo-Dutch ties to a strategic partnership, Sibi George faced the same pressure.

Dutch journalist Ashwant Nandram of De Volkskrant asked why both prime ministers weren’t available for questions and raised concerns about press freedom and minority rights, concerns that Dutch PM Rob Jetten himself had already publicly voiced. George’s response was to impugn the questioner's understanding of India.

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