(In light of ongoing conversations and debates over the issue of ‘outsiders’ such as Rihanna and Greta Thunberg criticising the goings-on in India at present, and the subsequent statement from the MEA, The Quint has invited experts across the board to weigh in on the matter. Here is another analysis.)
It’s past time for the government to wake up to the damage done to India’s international standing by the ongoing standoff over the farmers’ protests, and the authorities’ unwillingness or inability to resolve them — but the way it has chosen to do so has left many citizens squirming.
It took a tweet from pop singer Rihanna — in turn quote-tweeting a CNN article about the government’s ham-handed internet shut-downs in parts of, and around, the nation’s capital — to stir the government to react. Rihanna has the small matter of a 100 million-plus followers on Twitter, some 40 million more than the Indian Prime Minister himself, so in the peculiar logic of social media influence, her post had to be taken seriously even by people who had never heard, let alone liked, a Rihanna song.