OPINION: Modi making India butt of jokes at international forum?
The G20 summit last year had one lasting effect—the creation of a chain of memes involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni. With the hashtag #Melodi, the funny content on the internet was aimed towards projecting Modi and Meloni to be a ‘supposed couple’, and that the Indian prime minister was head-over-heels in love with her.
That time, PM Meloni had come to India. This time, PM Modi has gone to Italy to attend the G7 summit.
The most astonishing wonder of this summit has been that rather than publicly being statesmen, Meloni and Modi have indulged the social media wave and posted a short video together where the Italian PM says, “Hi friends, from team Melodi”, while Modi laughs at the background.
This raises serious questions about the state of affairs on both sides, and more specifically, India. The #Melodi trend is deeply entrenched in sexism and makes one doubtful about the quality of humour being popularised in India.
But Prime Minister Modi behaving like a lovestruck teenager only adds fuel to the fire and creates the apprehension that serious geopolitics is being taken over by social media pop-culture, where politicians will do anything to generate online traction like K-pop stars?
PM Modi is essentially making India the butt of jokes on a major international forum. The recent European Union elections might have solidified Meloni’s hold over both sides of the Rubicon, but, through #Melodi, it is Modi who is being portrayed as the irresponsible ‘world leader’ who doesn’t have the time to spend on important domestic affairs like Manipur or the terrorist attacks in Reasi and Kathua, but has for creating Instagrammable videos.
Rajya Sabha MP of Shiv Sena (UBT) Priyanka Chaturvedi has openly rebuked this trend by posting on X, saying, “This PM Giorgia Meloni and PM Modi memes have gone too far, they are absolutely cringe and also poor reflection of the level of humour that prevails in India. Just saying.”
