Shaken by the fierce but peaceful protest by members of the British Nepalese community, the Modi government has ordered the Indian High Commission in London to prepare a report on the ‘influence’ of the Nepalese diaspora in England.

If being heard was what the hundreds of Nepalese protesters wanted when Narendra Modi was being welcomed in London by David Cameron last Thursday then they have had their first victory. Their voice has reached the Prime Minister’s Office of India, southasia.com.au understands from an Indian media report.

There were Sikhs, Dalits, Tamils and even British protesters on Downing Street as a red carpet was laid out for the ‘charismatic’ Mr Modi but none of them appeared to have shaken the Indian establishment as much as the Nepalese did.

The protest was primarily organised by British residents of Nepalese origin, which of course coincided with similar activities by members of the Sikh diaspora as well as people who accuse Mr Modi as being complicit with the Gujarat mass murder of Muslims in 2002. The riot had in fact prompted the British government to roll out an ‘informal ban’ on his travel to the UK which was eventually lifted in 2012. Such is the dynamics of today’s economics-driven international politics that the same government this week spread out a red carpet for him.

The Indian Express has reported that the ‘presence’ of the Nepalese nationalists took the Indian delegation ‘by surprise’ and therefore, now wants to know exactly how powerful the British Nepalese society is through a detailed report on the ‘scale’ of Wednesday’s protest and the extent of their ‘influence in British society’.

The Express report suggests that the Indian government expected protests by Sikhs and other human rights organisations but the Nepal-related placards completely caught it by surprise. “While protesters on Gujarat riots and Sikh groups were expected, what surprised us were Nepalese protesters. The High Commission will send a report,” the daily quoted the ‘source’ as saying.

The placards read slogans such as ‘Modi Illegal Blockade on Nepal’, ‘Back off India’, ‘BRITAIN DO NOT SIGN ANY TRADE DEALS WITH INDIA IF THEY BLOCKADE NEPAL’, ‘Your Action Is Inhuman and Against International Laws’ and so on and so forth.

It is noteworthy that protest by Nepalese diaspora turned out to be so powerful that London police reportedly struggled to contain the peaceful protest.

However, despite the immediacy of the Indo-Nepal saga and its unfolding humanitarian consequences on the Himalayan nation’s 28 million people, the international media remained somewhat blind to the gravity of the situation. CNN’s report on the visit, for instance, mentions the word ‘Nepal’ just once and even then without elucidating what the issue is. Analysts associated with southasia.com.au believe mere two sentences more would have sufficed to give the world a notion about the violation of the young republic’s internationally guaranteed right to transit. But what is Nepal in the eyes of a global media elephant? A nondescript patch of mountainous region in a remote corner of the world, perhaps.