Karni Sena’s ruckus over Padmaavat overshadows ASEAN leaders’ visit to India

Thanks to widespread vandalism, arson, loot and stoning of a school-bus (in Gurugram) by activists of Karni Sena, the move to invite 10 ASEAN leaders for Republic Day celebrations virtually got overshadowed. Not to speak of the then US President Barack Obama’s visit on this occasion in 2015, these guests got less media attention than the recent visits by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Sep 2017) and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu––though we have just over $ 4.2 billion annual trade with the latter in comparison to $ 71 billion with ASEAN countries.

Instead of boosting the image of the Narendra Modi government as well as of the country, the incidents left behind a bad taste. In today’s 24x7 world, the visiting guests can not remain insulated from what has been happening in India throughout their stay.

Even the friendly television channels and newspapers gave more coverage to the Padmaavat row rather than the arrival of guests and their meetings with the leaders of the host country on January 24 and 25.

Almost all the dailies in their Delhi and other major editions carried the news related to the film on January 25 and 26 space on front pages. The arrival of guests from ASEAN and their talks with Indian leaders were pushed to the inside pages.

However, some Edit/Oped page articles highlighting the importance of the relationship with these countries were carried by various newspapers.

Even on January 25, late evening panel discussions in most of the channels remained confined to news related to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s magnum opus.

Ironically, none of the BJP bigwigs, including the Prime Minister, who loves to speak on all the issues under the sky, preferred to remain tightlipped. In contrast, several chief ministers of the ruling BJP tacitly backed the Karni Sena.

The media, in general, was actually reminded about the ten guests only on the Republic Day. This was quite obvious as their presence in the high-profile functions on this day could not be ignored.

If India wishes to check-mate China in the South East Asia and do something extra-ordinary it will have to first put its house in order.

Whenever an Indian President or Prime Minister goes abroad, we tend to highlight as to how much media coverage they get in that country.

The issue of Padmaavat may be dear to a section of society and one has every right to democratically register protest. But things can not be allowed to go wrong for so long a period and that too on the eve of such a multi-national event.

True, we can not be like Communist China, which sometimes back invited leaders of African countries. Still, one can learn something from our northern neighbour if we wish to challenge its global ambition.