The Orientalist Lens: Deconstructing the "Snake Charmer" Caricature of PM Modi

In May 2026, Norway’s largest daily newspaper, Aftenposten, sparked widespread international outrage by publishing a cartoon depicting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a snake charmer. Accompanying an opinion piece by journalist Frank Rossavik titled "A clever and slightly annoying man," the illustration portrayed Modi seated cross-legged, playing a flute to charm a fuel-station nozzle shaped like a snake rising from a basket. Ostensibly a commentary on India's pragmatism regarding global energy imports and its multi-aligned foreign policy, the cartoon instead collapsed into a textbook exhibition of media racism. By reviving one of the oldest, most patronizing colonial tropes used against the Indian subcontinent, the publication revealed the persistent undercurrent of Orientalism that continues to shape how the Western press views the Global South.

To understand why this cartoon is fundamentally racist, one must examine its visual semiotics and historical weight. The image of the "snake charmer" is not a benign piece of folklore; it was a deliberate construct of British colonial ethnography designed to justify imperial subjugation. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, depicting India as a land of mystics, snake charmers, and occultists served a vital political purpose. It framed India as a primitive, irrational, and pre-modern space that was fundamentally incapable of self-governance. By superimposing the face of a democratically elected leader of 1.4 billion people onto this specific caricature, the Norwegian media effectively stripped India of its political agency, modernity, and sovereign dignity. It reduced a complex nuclear power and a major global economy to a caricature of backwardness.

This depiction is a classic exercise in what the theorist Edward Said termed Orientalism—the systemic academic, literary, and artistic framework through which the West constructs the East as its exotic, stagnant, and backward "Other." Under the Orientalist gaze, the East is never allowed to be modern on its own terms. If India engages in sophisticated, multi-aligned diplomacy—balancing trade relations with both Western nations and energy suppliers—the Western media struggles to comprehend this through a framework of rational, sovereign self-interest. Instead, it must rely on exoticized metaphors of deception, mysticism, and "charming." By representing geopolitics as "snake charming," *Aftenposten* relied on an ethnocentric hierarchy where Western actions are viewed as "strategic and rational," while Indian diplomacy is rendered as "cunning, mysterious, and backward."

Moreover, the cartoon exposes a textbook case of anthropological ethnocentrism—the tendency to view one's own cultural and political frameworks as the universal standard, thereby rendering any deviation as abnormal, backward, or morally deficient. The European elite media frequently positions its own geopolitical alignments and moral postures as the objective baseline of global reason. When a rising power from the Global South refuses to act as a geopolitical vassal, the ethnocentric reflex kicks in: rather than attempting to understand the nation’s policies from its own standpoint, the observer defaults to patronizing caricatures.

What the Western commentariat fundamentally lacks is a lens of cultural relativism—a foundational methodological tool in anthropology that requires observers to suspend their own cultural biases to comprehend an alternative system's internal logic. Applied to global politics, a culturally relativistic approach would compel European journalists to evaluate India's multi-aligned foreign policy through the lens of India's own domestic imperatives, history, and socioeconomic realities. It would recognize that balancing energy imports to sustain the development of 1.4 billion people is a highly rational, self-interested calculation. Instead, by abandoning cultural relativism, Aftenposten reduces a calculated, sovereign strategy to a primitive, exoticized performance of "snake charming," proving that the European press struggles to see non-Western nations as modern rational actors.

The ultimate irony of the "snake charmer" trope is its utter disconnect from contemporary reality. PM Modi himself has famously remarked in international forums that while the West once stereotyped India as a land of snake charmers, it is now a land of "mouse charmers"—a reference to the nation’s

 explosive growth in digital technology, software development, and space exploration. India currently boasts the world’s most advanced real-time digital public infrastructure (UPI), is a leader in space exploration with missions to the Moon and Mars, and is a crucial hub of global technology. To reduce a country driving global digital transformation to a cross-legged man with a flute is not just lazy journalism; it is an active, xenophobic denial of coevalness—the refusal to acknowledge that the "Other" exists in the same modern time and space as the observer.

In conclusion, the Aftenposten cartoon is not an isolated error of judgment, but a symptom of a broader structural pathology within Western media. It demonstrates how easily modern European commentary retreats into the comfort of nineteenth-century colonial fantasies when dealing with the rising, assertive powers of the East. As the geopolitical center of gravity continues to shift toward a multipolar world, Western media outlets must urgently dismantle their ethnocentric frameworks. True journalistic critique requires engaging with the complex realities of Global South nations as equal, modern sovereign entities, rather than retreating into the patronizing, racist caricatures of a bygone empire.

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The Shadow of the Ojha in the Age of Aadhaar

The air in the Jhargram and Paschim Medinipur tribal belt of West Bengal changes as the sun dips below the horizon. The vibrant, dusty bustle of the college day is replaced by a heavy, palpable silence, broken only by the rhythmic crunch of dry leaves under the boots of men patrolling the village peripheries. As a faculty member recently posted to a government college here, I have moved from the sterile world of academia into a landscape where the line between the physical and the metaphysical is perpetually blurred.

In my recent visits to the neighbouring villages with my students, I find that even if they learn Darwin, balance chemical equations, and measure human anatomical details in the practical rooms well, yet, the moment the lecture ends, the conversation often drifts to the Ojha—the local sorcerer. Villagers, who include our students, speak with absolute conviction about the "evil eye." They describe how their elders identify a potential witch whose mere look can make one fall ill. It creates a malady that only the sorcerer can remedy through jhar-fuk. To them, this is not "superstition." It functions as a necessary defence mechanism in a world they perceive as spiritually volatile.

This landscape—Junglemahal—is etched with the history of the occult. Take, for instance, the village known locally as Dain-mari - its name literally translates to "the place where witches are killed." It stands as a grim reminder of a belief system where the "witch" is the scapegoat for every unexplained misfortune. But today, the traditional fear of the supernatural has mutated into a modern, hyper-vivid hysteria.

The Anatomy of a Modern Phantom

A new folklore has emerged, one that feels like a fever dream of the digital age. Throughout villages in Jhargram and Paschim Midnapore, a specific terror has taken hold. The villagers are gripped by reports of "Identity Snatchers." The description of these figures is remarkably consistent and terrifyingly specific: they are tall, dark figures who arrive in groups, clad entirely in black with high-necked collars and masks obscuring their faces. They wear heavy boots that thud against the earth, yet they possess a supernatural agility, jumping great distances to evade capture if anyone tries to intervene. Most strikingly, they carry large knives and speak only in English.

From an anthropological lens, this is a fascinating "urban legend" manifesting in a rural heartland. These figures are the perfect inversion of the local tribal identity. Where the villager is local, these figures are "outsiders". Where the villager speaks Santali or Bengali, these phantoms speak English—the language of the elite, the court, and the distant bureaucracy.

In her seminal work, Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas speaks of ‘dirt’ as "matter out of place." This is the root cause of taboo and fear. Therefore, these black-clad, English-speaking jumpers are the ultimate "matter out of place." They represent a localised personification of a globalized, predatory force that the villagers feel is closing in on them. They are not merely thieves; they are "identity vampires."

The SIR Drive and Administrative Anxiety

To understand why these rumors focus so obsessively on the snatching and burning of Aadhaar cards, Voter IDs, and PAN cards, we must look at the timing. This panic has peaked exactly as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive is underway.

In the tribal consciousness, the "document" is the thin thread connecting them to survival—to rations, to land rights, and to the right to exist in the eyes of the State. Here, the SIR drive, while intended as a routine administrative update, is perceived through a lens of historical trauma and precariousness. The fear that English-speaking intruders are burning these cards represents a localised interpretation of "Administrative Anxiety." If your "paper self" is destroyed, your "physical self" becomes invisible to the State, and therefore vulnerable. The large knife carried by the phantom is the tool of "severing"—a symbolic representation of being cut off from one's citizenship and protections.

The Fortress of Fear and the Night Vigil

The result of this anxiety is a total social shutdown. Scores of villages are now ruled by fear after sundown. In Kherejora, men aged 18 to 60 have formed night vigils, patrolling with torches, lathis, and axes from 8 PM until 4 AM. Even those who work grueling day shifts, like 25-year-old labourer Uttam Mahato or his 58-year-old father Kartick, find themselves sacrificing sleep to guard their borders.

This is "Dain-mari" logic applied to the 21st century: find the "outsider," the "other," and neutralise the threat before they can cast their bureaucratic spell. The villages have effectively closed themselves off to outsiders. The fear is so pervasive that even women, though not patrolling, spend sleepless nights in groups, convinced that a knock on the door leads to the snatching of their belongings and identities. The tragedy lies in the human cost and the potential for violence. There are already sporadic reports of innocents being harassed or beaten out of sheer suspicion. In an environment where everyone is looking for a tall man in a mask, any stranger becomes a monster by default. If a villager feels insecure about their future due to the SIR drive, the "Identity Snatcher" provides a tangible target for that existential dread.

The Failure of the "Rational" State

Local officials, including the Superintendents of Police for Jhargram and Paschim Medinipur, have dismissed these as mere rumours, noting they have failed to identify any actual culprits or evidence of such intruders. They have stepped up awareness drives and patrolling, but they are fighting a ghost. 

We treat superstition as an absence of knowledge, rather than a presence of a specific, lived history of marginalisation. We teach the "what" of science, but we fail to address the "why" of the fears that keep our students awake at night.

The nights in Junglemahal remain long and dark. The villagers are exhausted, yet they remain vigilant, convinced that their very existence is at stake. Until the State can speak to the villagers in a language they trust—rather than the "English" of a distant, intimidating administration—the sal forests will continue to be haunted by the ghosts of our own bureaucratic making.

Two phones or the story or an eternal migration

It was a long day at Keshiary, Kaleidoscope's new workplace. The upcoming university visit, two hours of student seminar and the previous nughta extravaganza made him tired. Yet, the call of fallen sal leaves their yellow colour, and smell made him rethink the straight back home. The Kushgeria haat has this irristible call that is too difficult to ignore he thought just when two of his partners decided to answer the call. A toto - the electric rickshaw, the last resort of employment was carrying a lone passenger answered their waving hands. Would you take us to Kushgeria haat? Yes, the old man driving the toto replied, kaleidoscope took the front seat beside the old man. The gentle breeze of late January, fallen leaves of sal tree, forests, lateritic dusty country road was everything that an otherwise urban eye would have looked for. The yellow greenish forest border from a distance had and irristible call just as the old man whispered the stories of garam than with an ever sceptical and yet submissive words as he touched his forehead and whispered a prayer crossing one of the groves - the garam than. "What is a God? Any stone with a bright vermillion becomes a God, God is the one we have never seen but is the one we are taught to believe by our forefathers." He continued to narrate how little he has, little home, little farm land that lays fallow most of the year, a little toto with a very little savings, that makes him live. 

Kushgeria haat arrived, Kaleidoscope got down, he too wanted to do some marketing before calling off a day. The haat is smaller than the one before Makar Sangkranti but as colourful as it was. Kaleidoscope wanted to go back to the sweet vendor where last time they ventured. Porks, with chopped heads of pigs was spectacular, and profound and it was not there during the Makar haat, or was it something Kaleidoscope missed? 

The return journey was even more spectacular as they took an unusual Auto - something that doesn't ply here! It stopped, and it was carrying two ladies. One, younger than the other, visibly sick because of motion sickness and the other married, skinny and visibly poor. The sister in law was taking her brother's wife to Tamilnadu where she works now. The elder lady, her brother's wife looked tensed, holding two phones. One with a rubberband and other a smartphone. She will join in the ever increasing number of migrant labourers to work at school site down south. Perhaps a smartphone next time, replacing the phone with rubber band? Did they see homebound, the movie? Will they know that Kushgeria haat, fallen sal leaves are romance for another migrant, an elite one? As they get down, a pair of parrots shouted, on a dead tree trunk, the smell of fallen sal leaves was intoxicating and an evening of a different migrant life started to emerge with a promise, not quite the way it is going to happen to the Tamilnadu goers in a general compartment with cramped and sqeezed bodies.