New Delhi
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Italy for the G7 summit, it was not the diplomatic meetings that drew attention in India, but his relationship with the Italian Prime Minister.
“Hello from the Melody team,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a video posted to social media on June 15, waving and smiling broadly next to fellow right-wing leader Modi.
The pair have developed a close friendship in public and were seen together at the G20 summit in India last year and the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai.
Modi reposted Meloni's video on X, praising Rome-New Delhi ties in Italian.
He met with Meloni and strengthened ties “in areas such as commerce, energy, defense and communications,” the document said.
But in India, it was a short video of Modi and Melloni that drew attention on Sunday, sparking a flurry of memes and videos on social media portraying the two leaders' fictional relationship.
In that fictional world, the leaders are central to an internet love story that's filled with happy moments as well as betrayal and heartache.
The AI-generated video, viewed by millions, shows Modi singing a love song whenever Meloni appears with a political leader other than Modi.
But the newspapers were also highly critical and quickly tried to calm tensions.
“Like other women in high-ranking public office, Ms Meloni is viewed through masculine lenses: attractive or not?” an editorial in The Times of India said.
“No matter how influential a woman is, how much she knows, or who she becomes, she will always be vulnerable to this kind of humiliating treatment,” she added.
“As Meloni's talk shows, old-fashioned misogyny dies hard.”
