One question - just one - posed by a Norwegian journalist to India’s visiting prime minister has triggered a political and media meltdown that says far more about the state of Indian democracy than any official government statement ever could.

The episode should have been routine. A journalist doing her job. A world leader is being asked to answer. Instead, it turned into a revealing spectacle of evasion, intimidation and institutional insecurity.

India’s prime minister has now spent twelve years in office without holding a single formal press conference. Zero. In any functioning democracy, that alone would be alarming. Previous Indian prime ministers faced the press regularly, often under intense scrutiny. Press conferences are not ceremonial obligations; they are among the most basic mechanisms through which elected leaders are held accountable.

But accountability appears to have become an unacceptable inconvenience.

During an official visit to Norway - a country consistently ranked among the freest in the world for press freedom - the Indian prime minister was approached by a Norwegian journalist attempting to ask a question. Rather than engage, he simply walked away.

That should have been the end of a mildly embarrassing news moment.

Instead, it became something much bigger.

The journalist later attended a press briefing organised by the Indian embassy in Oslo. There, she asked a direct and legitimate question: Why should India be trusted?

It was not a hostile........

© The Friday Times