A leading Norwegian newspaper has found itself at the centre of a storm after publishing a cartoon depicting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a snake charmer, with critics calling it racist and rooted in tired colonial stereotypes.
Aftenposten, Norway’s largest daily, ran the illustration alongside an opinion piece by journalist Frank Rossavik titled “A Clever and Slightly Annoying Man.” The cartoon showed Modi seated cross-legged, holding a fuel-station pipe shaped like a snake rising from a basket, imagery that drew immediate and widespread condemnation online. The piece was originally published on 16 May but only came to wider attention following Modi’s state visit to Oslo.
The backlash was swift. Social media users across platforms called the cartoon “blatantly racist” and “utterly disgraceful,” with many pointing out the bitter irony of the imagery. “PM Modi used to speak about how earlier the world thought of India as a land of snake charmers. And now, during his visit to Oslo, a major European newspaper depicts him exactly that way,” one user wrote on X. Another simply said, “Europeans still can’t come out of their colonial fantasies.”
Others were sharper still, with one user writing that the cartoon was “the sort of tired colonial drivel one expects from a fading European rag desperate for relevance,” adding that it reflected an attitude where “colonial arrogance still survives in the Western elite media.” It is not the first time such imagery has surfaced; a Spanish newspaper drew similar criticism in 2022 for using snake charmer symbolism in coverage of India’s economic rise.
The cartoon controversy unfolded against an already tense backdrop. During a joint press appearance with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, journalist Helle Lyng publicly questioned why Modi had not taken questions from the media. Modi did not respond, but India’s Ministry of External Affairs later issued a sharp rebuttal through diplomat Sibi George.
The opinion piece itself was not entirely hostile in tone. Rossavik described Modi as a well-travelled statesman who “nods and smiles, talks and signs trade, technology, and other agreements with everyone,” and drew a pointed contrast with Donald Trump. “Where Donald Trump says ‘America First,’ Modi says ‘India First.’ But the latter does not pursue it with rockets and bullying,” he wrote.
That nuance, however, was largely buried beneath the furore over the cartoon, one that carries particular weight given Modi’s own history with the image. In his 2014 Madison Square Garden address, and at several global forums since, the Prime Minister had spoken of how India had transformed from a country the world once dismissed as a land of “snake charmers” into a nation of “mouse charmers,” driven by technology and ambition. The cartoon, many felt, proved his point still stands.
