Queen and us

While the Dutch media gave full play to Queen Beatrix8217;s visit, it was different here.

This week a member of the Order of the Elephant came to visit the land of the elephants. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who belongs to this distinguished Order, is in India. In the Netherlands, her state visit to this country was big news but here, in New Delhi, it wasn8217;t exactly the talk of the town 8212; or of television either.

Queen Beatrix, like Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, is a ceremonial head of state. While she has made several personal visits to India, this is only her second official visit since 1986, six years after her ascension to the throne. After Delhi, the queen will be visiting Bangalore. Queen Beatrix is accompanied by her oldest son, Prince Willem Alexander, the first male heir to the throne for more than a century. His wife 8212; the glamorous Argentinian-born Princess Maxima 8212; was also here. Whenever the queen pays a state visit, a political and trade delegation goes with her and often receives more attention back home than the queen.

The Dutch media dogged every step taken by the royal family. There was lavish coverage of Queen Beatrix inspecting the presidential guard, President Patil8217;s banquet, her visit to Rajghat and her meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Dutch radio, NOS 8212; which is the national broadcaster 8212; even captured an interesting sidelight: Prince Willem Alexander had presided over a workshop on synergy between water management and micro-finance on Thursday, during which he had expressed his concern over sanitation. That evening, NOS visited a public convenience at Delhi railway station and was surprised by the level of sanitation. Similarly, when the Dutch royals visited Deepalaya school in South Delhi, where children receive instruction in health and hygiene, Dutch TV ran visuals of children chanting, 8220;Comb your hair, every day,8221; even as Queen Beatrix and Prince Willem beamed their approval.

In Holland, which is 76 times smaller than India, the media felt somewhat let down by their Indian counterparts. While the queen8217;s visit was featured in just a few newspaper photographs in Delhi, there were daily specials on the Indian odyssey in the Dutch media. Several Dutch newspapers highlighted minister for commerce and industry Kamal Nath8217;s dismay 8212; expressed to a visiting Dutch business delegation 8212; over a 2005 report of the Dutch-Indian Clean Clothes Campaign, alleging that the Indian firm, Fibres and Fabrics International Ltd, had violated labour norms by allowing child labour.

As Queen Beatrix8217;s visit to Delhi wound down, the mystery of the missing coverage in the local media remained. Was the Indian media bored with such state visits or was it because the Dutch authorities themselves were not keen on coverage? When an Express correspondent tried to cover the Deepalaya visit, Dutch embassy officials refused entry citing security reasons 8212; because security clearance, as the embassy understood it, required more time than was available in this request. And that perhaps provides a clue to why the Indian media8217;s reception to Queen Beatrix was so tepid.