‘Amit Shah, if this isn’t you, skip or scroll’, posts Norwegian journalist

• Norwegian journalist posts a direct appeal to Union home minister Amit Shah after being informed that despite the Visa issued to her, she would not be allowed to enter India

• The journalist was to fly from Oslo on Wednesday night to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad and speak on Press Freedom and Democracy

• This was to be her first visit to India, she says in the reel and appeals to Amit Shah to reconsider the ban

The 3.21 minutes-long reel posted on Wednesday night has drawn seven lakh views in as many hours and has been reposted five and a half thousand times on X alone. Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng Svends starts the reel by saying that her message is for Indian home minister Amit Shah and others can just scroll past it and not bother to view it. While it is not confirmed if Amit Shah has heard the message or been informed about it, the rest of the world is certainly talking about it.

Helle Lyng had attracted attention in India and abroad during prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Norway. At a media interaction with the Norwegian prime minister, when both the leaders read out prepared statements, Lyng asked a question.

When the two prime ministers ignored her, she pursued them up to the elevator insisting that since the media had been invited, the visiting PM must answer questions. The embarrassed Indian embassy invited the media the same evening to ‘answer questions’ but made it worse when a Secretary in the MEA lectured the Norwegian media on India’s past and heritage.

Helle would have none of it and closely followed developments in India and continued posting piercing questions and writing on Indian developments in the newspaper.

Her reel meant for Amit Shah was triggered last night because the Indian embassy informed her that she would not be allowed to enter India on orders from the Ministry of Home Affairs. She had been issued a visa though and she was about to leave for the airport. Since it was Amit Shah’s ministry which had stopped her visiting the ‘largest democracy in the world’ for the first time in her life, she decided to address the minister directly and appeal for reconsideration. “The ball is in your court, Mr Shah”, she says before ending the reel with an earnest appeal. “We can work it out. Let us make it work”.

The Norwegian journalist was visiting India to attend the Bharat Summit in Hyderabad to discuss issues related to Press freedom and democracy. The MHA could still withdraw the ban on her entry and allow her to attend the summit, she pleads.

Was it because she had dared to ask a question to PM Modi that her entry is being banned, she asks the home minister. Is it because she had been critical of the Indian government in her writings? Is it because she had criticised Narendra Modi and his policies? Is it because she has been critical of the Adani-Ambani links and their vice-like hold on the government? Or is it because she has written positively about the Cockroach Janata Party and a month ago interviewed Abhijeet Dipke, one of the founders of CJP?

The Instagram reel posted on other social media platforms as well has gone viral in the last 12 hours with comments flooding in. This is one more international embarrassment that India could have done without.