(NEW DELHI , LANKAPUVATH) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot catch a break in India.
Trudeau, accustomed to being praised for his Prince Charming good looks, is getting a lot of flak on his tour of India, and the latest gags focus on his razzle-dazzle wardrobe, upstaging even India’s flamboyant movie stars.
Offending garments include Trudeau’s long, multicolored sherwanis, usually worn on special occasions such as weddings or in Bollywood movies. Trudeau wore a sparkling gold one to a meeting with Bollywood’s top brass while the film stars wore muted black suits. Add to that the Canadian first family’s posey, soap-opera style namastes, and it’s enough to keep social media here buzzing with memes and jokes.
“It’s a little over the top,” Vivek Dehejia, an economics professor at Carleton University in Ottawa told Canada’s Global News. “I understand on day one having to wear the traditional clothes, but now it’s getting too much.”
The gaffes about the razzmatazz outfits are latest in a series of fiascoes during Trudeau’s India visit. First, the leader was teased for being “snubbed” by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when a junior agricultural minister was sent to receive him at the airport.
Many pointed out that Modi, known for his social media savvy, did not even tweet a welcome on the Trudeaus’ arrival until five days into the trip.
Then, Trudeau was trolled for misspelling “Gandhi” in a tweet sent from the revered Indian leader’s ashram.
Trudeau’s India trip has been beset by allegations that his Liberal Party curries favor with Canada’s prominent Sikh minority by supporting secessionist Sikh groups that want an independent homeland called Khalistan. Trudeau’s administration has denied backing pro-Khalistan groups.
On Thursday, Trudeau’s attendance at the Canada-India business summit was overshadowed by embarrassing revelations that the Canadian High Commission (the country’s diplomatic mission in India) had issued, and then rescinded, official invitations to Jaspal Atwal, a businessman convicted of trying to assassinate an Indian politician in the 1980s.
(www.washingtonpost.com)
