Nagesh Bhushan Chuppala
The dinner that wasn’t
Delhi’s petty snub to the opposition is symptomatic of a deeper rot
ON DECEMBER 5th Rashtrapati Bhavan rolled out the red carpet, the silver cutlery and, presumably, enough paneer to clog the Volga. Vladimir Putin, a man who treats ICC arrest warrants the way most people treat parking tickets, was the guest of honour. One small detail was missing: Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, the Leaders of the Opposition in the two houses of Parliament. In their place, the government thoughtfully invited Shashi Tharoor—Congress’s resident polyglot and walking thesaurus—as a sort of bipartisan starter before the main course of sycophancy. Tharoor, ever courteous, turned up. The actual opposition leaders were left to dine on humble pie at home.
This was not a clerical error. It was a deliberate, almost cartoonish snub, the diplomatic equivalent of hiding the good biscuits when the in-laws visit. In one childish evening the Modi government managed to broadcast three unflattering truths: it is vindictive, astonishingly thin-skinned, and—whisper it—borderline amateur.
Vindictiveness first. Since 2014 the state-banquet guest list has become a political guillotine. Once upon a time, opposition leaders were automatically invited, a quaint Indian tradition that said, “Yes, we disagree on everything at home, but abroad we pretend to be adults.” That convention has been quietly buried in the same unmarked grave as several other democratic niceties. Rahul Gandhi, who enjoys the constitutional rank of a cabinet minister, is now treated like the cousin who once borrowed ₹500 and never paid it back.
The thin-skinnedness would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Mr Gandhi has, in the past year, shaken hands with a handful of foreign leaders without first seeking written permission from North Block. The government’s reaction has been to instruct protocol officers to herd visiting dignitaries away from the opposition the way anxious parents steer toddlers from plug sockets. A prime minister who thunders about making India a vishwaguru apparently cannot cope with the idea that a foreign guest might discover there is more than one guru in the classroom—and that the other one occasionally says embarrassing things about him.
But the crowning glory is the amateurishness. 2025 has been a diplomatic annus horribilis: Donald Trump slapping tariffs on India with the casual cruelty of a man swatting a mosquito, a congressional report praising Pakistan’s “military success” (a sentence no Indian expected to read outside a fever dream), and Europeans muttering that India is less rising power, more regional bully with commitment issues. In such times, grown-up democracies reach for bipartisanship the way drowning men reach for life jackets. Mr Modi’s team reached for the petty-cash box instead.
By turning a state dinner into a BJP loyalty oath, they have gifted critics a ready-made punchline: the world’s largest democracy now conducts its foreign policy like a WhatsApp group admin removing members who dare to hit “reply all”.
The fix is embarrassingly simple. Dust off the old convention: Leaders of the Opposition get a seat at the table, preferably not next to the dessert trolley. Resurrect the consultative committee on foreign affairs and give it actual oxygen instead of the ceremonial CPR it currently receives. Brief the opposition on big negotiations so that when the next American president decides to tariff-bomb India, the entire political class can look equally surprised together.
Until then, every visiting head of state will glance at the empty chairs, do the mental arithmetic, and reach the same conclusion: India may be big, but under its current management it is behaving very, very small indeed. Pass the paneer Khurchan - someone clearly needs comforting
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