Right response from Mohanji Bhagwat. Nehru banned RSS. When he lifted it, he only asked RSS to submit a written Constitition. RSS did & it is in govt records. Nehru didnt ask RSS to get registered under Societies Registration Act 1860. Nor did Indira, Rao or Manmohan.

Interesting: US Media reporting that after 5 failed attempts to get PM .@narendramodi Ji on phone, Trump agreed to Bharat's key demands in Trade Deal. Only then, Modi Ji tentatively agreed to meeting with Trump in France. More Interesting: US has included Modi-Trump meet on 17 June in official itinerary but Bharat Sarkar hasn't. Modi Ji's itinerary just mentions 'bilateral meetings with leaders on sidelines of summit'. US seems more excited about the meeting than Bharat.

My Times of India op-ed today on collapsing fertility rates, and the policy we need: hum do, humare teen. Link in comments!

What strikes me is not so much the original post by @suhasinih as the quality of the debate that follows. Almost immediately, a legitimate question about the balance between symbolism and substance in diplomacy degenerates into partisan point-scoring, personal abuse, and caricature. There are really three separate issues here. First, should a Prime Minister engage with the diaspora during overseas visits? Of course. Every major country does this in one form or another. Diasporas are strategic assets, sources of influence, investment, expertise and goodwill. Second, can cultural showcases be useful? Again, yes. Culture is part of statecraft. No serious diplomat would argue that projecting India’s civilisational heritage abroad is somehow illegitimate. Third, and this is where the real debate lies, has the balance tilted too far toward spectacle? Has the visual theatre of diplomacy begun to overshadow the less visible but more consequential business of diplomacy itself? That is a fair question to ask. It is not anti-national. Having served in diplomacy, I would say that foreign visits are ultimately judged not by the applause, the cultural performances, the stadium crowds, or the social media clips. They are judged by outcomes: agreements concluded, interests secured, crises managed, relationships strengthened, and strategic objectives advanced. The irony is that diplomacy requires both performance and substance. The problem arises when one begins to crowd out the other. What I find most dispiriting in these exchanges is the assumption that every question must be either wholehearted praise or total condemnation. Diplomacy is rarely so binary. One can appreciate the value of diaspora engagement and cultural projection while still asking whether India’s external messaging has become overly repetitive and choreographed. That is a conversation worth having. The insults in the replies are not. As for the dance performance in Nice, it seems to me a perfectly harmless cultural welcome. The more important question is what happened in the meetings behind closed doors. That is where diplomacy earns its keep.