India does not become weaker when journalists ask difficult questions abroad. It becomes weaker when its representatives appear unable or unwilling to answer them
PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi’s recently concluded European tour was intended to project India as a confident global power — economically ascendant, geopolitically indispensable, and politically stable. The carefully choreographed diplomatic engagements across Europe were meant to reinforce India’s image as a democratic counterweight in an increasingly fractured global order.
Instead, one moment in Oslo cut through the polished spectacle and exposed an uncomfortable truth about the state of democratic accountability in India.
What unfolded there was not simply an awkward press interaction. It became a revealing political moment — one that highlighted the widening gap between the Indian government’s international branding and the growing concerns surrounding press freedom, dissent, and democratic transparency within the country.
The Oslo encounter quickly became international news because it captured something deeper than diplomatic irritation. It revealed how increasingly uneasy the Indian establishment appears when confronted with unscripted scrutiny.
The event was expected to be a routine media engagement. Instead, it deteriorated into a tense confrontation between international journalists and Indian officials. What should have demonstrated democratic confidence ended up reinforcing many of the very criticisms that India now faces globally.
The defining moment came when a Norwegian journalist from Dagsavisen publicly questioned Prime Minister Modi about press freedom and asked whether he would ever subject himself to unscripted questioning from independent journalists. Modi chose not to respond. He simply ignored the question and exited the room.
The silence itself became the story.
What followed proved even more damaging. At a subsequent media briefing, senior Indian diplomat Sibi George abandoned the restraint normally associated with diplomatic communication and launched into an unusually aggressive defence of the Indian government’s democratic credentials. In remarks that rapidly spread across international media and social platforms, George dismissed critical reports by foreign human rights organisations and watchdog groups as the work of “godforsaken, ignorant NGOs.”
The language was astonishingly combative for a senior diplomat.
Diplomacy traditionally relies on persuasion, nuance, and measured engagement. George’s intervention instead conveyed defensiveness, impatience, and a visible intolerance toward criticism. Rather than calming concerns, the outburst amplified them.
The Oslo episode matters because it highlights a broader political transformation underway in India: the gradual disappearance of accountability through direct media engagement.
Prime Minister Modi’s record on open press conferences is unprecedented in independent India. Throughout his years in office, he has consistently avoided freewheeling interactions with journalists. Communication has largely been reduced to monologues through social media, televised speeches, carefully curated interviews, and controlled formats such as Mann Ki Baat. The possibility of spontaneous questioning has almost entirely vanished from India’s political culture at the highest level
This marks a sharp departure from earlier democratic practice. Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh — despite criticisms of caution and reserve — routinely addressed press conferences and took difficult questions from both Indian and international journalists. Earlier leaders understood that public office in a democracy required periodic accountability before an independent press corps.
Today, political communication increasingly resembles image management rather than democratic engagement.
In most Western democracies, unscripted press conferences are not viewed as optional public-relations exercises. They are considered an essential democratic obligation. Leaders are expected to answer uncomfortable questions because accountability cannot exist without scrutiny.
This difference in democratic culture explains why international journalists repeatedly raise questions during Modi’s foreign visits. The issue is no longer merely about media access. It concerns the broader health of democratic institutions in India itself.
Sibi George attempted to counter these criticisms by invoking India’s constitutional values, civilisational tolerance, universal suffrage at independence, and India’s humanitarian contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic. He pointed to India’s vaccine diplomacy and argued that foreign critics fail to understand the complexity and scale of Indian democracy.
Yet his response missed the central issue entirely.
No serious critic denies India’s democratic foundations or constitutional vision. The concern is whether contemporary India is living up to those ideals.
Pointing to India’s ancient civilisational ethos does not answer present-day concerns regarding intimidation of journalists, arrests under draconian laws, concentration of media ownership, shrinking dissent, and increasing hostility toward independent reporting.
Nor does citing the sheer number of television channels prove the existence of media freedom. Quantity is not the same as independence.
India may have hundreds of news channels, but a growing section of the population increasingly sees large sections of television media as loud, partisan, corporate-driven, and politically compromised. Many citizens have stopped watching televised news altogether because they no longer trust what they see. Conversations in tea shops, buses, campuses, village squares, and working-class neighbourhoods often reveal a deep cynicism toward mainstream media narratives.
The ordinary citizen understands something important: a media landscape dominated by noise is not necessarily a free media landscape.
Corporate concentration has profoundly transformed journalism in India. Influential conglomerates now exercise enormous clout over print, television, and digital news platforms. Editorial independence has weakened under commercial and political pressures. Journalists routinely speak — often privately and fearfully — about stories being diluted, altered, or buried altogether because they conflict with corporate interests or political relationships.
The traditional role of journalism as the “Fourth Estate” has steadily eroded. Marketing departments and corporate management increasingly shape editorial priorities. Advertising revenue drives content decisions more aggressively than public-interest journalism.
This is not merely anecdotal criticism. The consequences are visible internationally.
India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index has fallen sharply in recent years, reflecting growing concerns regarding intimidation, surveillance, violence against journalists, and media concentration. International watchdogs may not be perfect, but dismissing them as “ignorant NGOs” only deepens the perception that the Indian establishment has become unwilling to tolerate scrutiny.
Democracies grow stronger through criticism, not through denial.
Ironically, George’s outburst may have amplified the very criticism he sought to neutralise. The Oslo episode became global news precisely because it revealed a discomfort with questioning itself.
Strong democracies do not fear journalists. Confident governments do not walk away from questions. Mature diplomacy does not respond to criticism with contempt.
India does not become weaker when journalists ask difficult questions abroad. It becomes weaker when its representatives appear unable or unwilling to answer them.
Yet beneath the growing corporate and political control over information, another India continues to struggle for democratic space. Independent digital platforms, regional publications, subscription-based journalism, documentary filmmakers, campus media collectives, and citizen-reporting initiatives are attempting, often under immense pressure, to preserve journalism as a public good rather than a political commodity.
Many young journalists continue entering the profession not for access to power but to question it. Civil society organisations continue demanding transparency, stronger media regulation, disclosure norms, and safeguards against monopolistic media ownership. These voices remain fragile, but they are also vital.
A democracy survives not because governments proclaim themselves democratic, but because citizens remain free to challenge authority without intimidation.
The larger tragedy is that India possesses all the historical and constitutional resources necessary to become a truly exemplary democracy. The Constitution remains one of the most visionary democratic documents in the postcolonial world. India’s freedom struggle itself was built on dissent, argument, journalism, protest, and moral courage. To reduce that inheritance into a system where leaders avoid questions and diplomats ridicule criticism is to diminish the very democratic legacy India once proudly offered the world.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years of age. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
