Introduction

Norway’s recent behaviour in India and its larger neighbourhood has attracted significant attention in strategic and diplomatic circles, as its approach increasingly reflects a pattern of activism that appears intrusive and misaligned with the political and cultural realities of South Asia. While Norway projects itself as a small but principled Nordic nation with a tradition of peace brokerage, its unilateral interventions in South Asian geopolitics reveal contradictions that cannot be ignored. India has noted with dismay Norway’s comments on delicate internal issues, accompanied by attempts to project normative leadership in the subcontinent and its periphery. Norway projects an image of progressive neutrality and humanitarian virtue. Yet, its foreign policy machinery has repeatedly engaged in destabilising sovereign nations under the guise of democracy promotion. The prime examples are Libya, Ethiopia, Syria, Sri Lanka, Colombia and many more.

Though such behaviour may initially be dismissed as idealism by a well-intentioned but zealous peace-broker, closer examination through the lens of international relations theory, power fungibility, and norm-setting geopolitics suggests that Norway’s strategy is in fact a deliberate exercise of soft power, one that risks eroding regional sovereignty while advancing Western strategic agendas.

Foreign policy in Oslo has long been described as a form of “norm entrepreneurship,” where a materially limited state deploys moral diplomacy, mediation, and aid to gain outsized influence in global affairs (Stokke, 2010). This reputation is admired in Euro-Atlantic scholarship, where Norway’s contributions to peace processes in places as diverse as the Middle East, Colombia, and Sudan are valourised. Yet, when transposed into South Asia—particularly in India and its immediate neighbourhood—such activism has provoked scepticism and pushback, given the fragility of sovereignty in the region and the deep strategic stakes for New Delhi.

Norwegian Meddling in Sri Lankan Civil War:

The best illustrative precedent is Norway's intermediary role in Sri Lanka during the civil war (2000–2006). Initially received as a portent of global support for peace, Oslo's intervention soon fell into controversy. Purnendra Jain (2013) has demonstrated how Norwegian facilitation disproportionately favoured the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to the disadvantage of Colombo's sovereignty concerns and eroded confidence in Oslo's impartiality. What was initiated as a peace-building process turned into an externally patronised process that diluted local ownership and state legitimacy. For India, the traditional upholder of the doctrine of non-interference, the Sri Lankan saga remains a telling reminder of how lowly mediatory powers can upset delicate balances and complicate local calculations of security.

Norwegian Interference in India’s Domestic Affairs:

This precedent resonates today as Norway increasingly comments on India’s internal affairs, including human rights, minority rights, and democratic processes. Parliamentary debates in Oslo, ministerial remarks, and Norwegian-funded NGOs operating in India collectively reflect a continuity of normative activism. Indian policymakers identify this as part of a broader Western strategy of using normative power to shape the domestic debates of emerging democracies. Yet in Norway’s case, such interventions appear particularly disproportionate given its limited material stake in South Asian security architecture.

In international relations theory, this represents “power fungibility”: the redeployment of normative capital accumulated through peace diplomacy as leverage in unrelated contexts. By converting its moral reputation into a tool of political influence, Norway complicates India’s task of balancing cordial relations with Europe while safeguarding sovereignty at home.

Norway's recent actions in India and its larger region have drawn considerable attention in diplomatic and strategic circles, for its policies increasingly suggest a trend of activism that seems intrusive and discordant with the political and cultural underpinnings of South Asia. While Norway presents itself as a small but principled Nordic country with a peace-brokering tradition, its one-sided interventions in South Asian geopolitics expose contradictions that cannot be overlooked.

India, in fact, has resented Norway's statements on sensitive domestic matters, followed by efforts to exert normative leadership in the subcontinent and its surrounding regions. While such actions would at first glance be explained away as idealism on the part of a well-meaning but passionate peace-broker, more careful scrutiny through the prisms of international relations theory, power fungibility, and norm-setting geopolitics reveals that Norway's policy is indeed an exercise in deliberate soft power, one which threatens to undermine regional sovereignty in furtherance of Western strategic interests.

On Monday, July 8, 2025, Norway’s Ambassador to India, May-Elin Stener, held a confidential meeting with political strategist–turned–politician Prashant Kishor. At first glance, this appeared to be a routine diplomatic engagement. However, when seen in the context of Norway’s documented history as a soft-power regime-change operator and Kishor’s ambitious aims for being the chief minister of Bihar, the meeting demands closer scrutiny (Angad, 2025). This encounter should not be mistaken for simple diplomacy. Instead, it reflects elements of hybrid warfare tactics, where seemingly benign institutions—such as embassies, aid bodies, or sovereign funds—are used to destabilise targeted nations.

Norway’s ambassador chose to meet Kishor despite his current political irrelevance at the national level. As a local leader striving for visibility, resources, and external validation, Kishor provides a perfect entry point for a petrostate that positions itself as a philanthropist but wields vast financial leverage (Angad, 2025).

The core concern is sovereignty: Bihar’s electoral future must be shaped by Biharis, not influenced by a trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund exploiting India’s democratic fault lines. The precedent is sobering. From Kashmir to Ukraine, history suggests that where Norway’s oil wealth flows, sovereignty often bleeds.

Norway’s’ Soft Power Diplomacy:

The foreign policy of Oslo has traditionally been portrayed as a technique of "norm entrepreneurship," by which a materially modest state employs moral diplomacy, mediation, and development to exert disproportionate influence on the international scene (Stokke, 2010). This image is revered in Euro-Atlantic academia, where Norway's role in peace negotiations in as varied a set of locations as the Middle East, Colombia, and Sudan is celebrated. However, when transferred to South Asia—specifically, India and the surrounding region—the same kind of activism has triggered scepticism and pushback, due to the regional vulnerability of sovereignty and the intense strategic interest of New Delhi.

This case enjoys currency now as Norway increasingly ventures to opine on India's domestic affairs, such as human rights, minority rights, and democratic processes. Parliamentary discourse in Oslo, ministerial statements, and Norwegian-sponsored NGOs in India convey an unbroken sequence of normative activism. Indian policymakers view this as part of a larger Western effort at applying normative power to influence the domestic discourses of aspiring democracies. However, in Norway's case, such interferences seem especially out of proportion considering its modest material interest in South Asian security arrangements.

In the theory of international relations, this is "power fungibility": the transference of normative capital built up from peace diplomacy as leverage in new contexts. By transforming its moral prestige into an instrument of political leverage, Norway makes India's job more difficult to balance friendly relations with Europe while maintaining sovereignty at home.

Norwegian Interference in India’s Near Abroad:

Norwegian activism finds its outreach extending to India's near abroad, comprising Myanmar, Bangladesh, and the Himalayas. Strategic thinkers like C. Raja Mohan (2023) and Harsh Pant (2021) note that smaller Western countries tend to exert "outsized" influence by inserting themselves in humanitarian and human rights narratives, thus magnifying their voice in international affairs. Norway is a prime example of this exercise by positioning itself as a moral entrepreneur in areas where huge powers such as India and China already vie for clout. In place of de-escalating conflict, such initiatives run the risk of reinforcing regional fault lines, especially insofar as they resonate more with Western strategic priorities than with domestic political realities.

These patterns also manifest themselves in multilateral venues, where Norway promotes human rights monitoring and global scrutiny within South Asia. Albeit couched in universalist terms, the political subtext cannot be missed. This activism contrasts with India's pluralist and sovereignty-based worldview. As enunciated in The New World: 21st-Century Global Order and India (Madhav, 2025), India asserts pluralism, sovereignty, and non-interference as pillars of a multipolar order. In contrast, Norway's liberal institutionalism gives precedence to norm convergence, frequently at the cost of variation in governance structures. This contradiction generates doctrinal dissonance in India–Norway relations.

India's leadership has invariably prioritised the supremacy of sovereignty and non-interference. During the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised "mutual respect for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, equality, mutual benefit, and non-interference in internal affairs" as the fundamental principles of international order (MEA, 2023a). In his speech to the US Congress, Modi also reaffirmed India's civilisational tradition of sovereignty, pluralism, and adherence to the UN Charter (MEA, 2023b).

During the Quad Summit, he also reiterated India's vision for a "free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific" based on cooperation, not coercion (MEA, 2024). All these statements together indicate India's refusal to accept external normative impositions, in marked contrast to Norway's interventions.

Norway's activism is also supported by what Burgis (2020) calls "monetarised diplomacy." Norway's sovereign wealth funds and aid budgets allow it to finance NGOs, peace efforts, and advocacy groups globally, translating money flows into political influence. Though sometimes packaged as philanthropy, this type of funding can corrupt national debates and compromise sovereign autonomy. In India, Norwegian funding for certain NGOs has been viewed in these terms, raising concerns that externally funded activism is weakening local agency.

The general strategic value of Norway's initiatives is their complementarity to Western liberal initiatives. While devoid of hard power, Oslo enhances the Euro-Atlantic bloc's normative power, providing a façade of neutrality to what are essentially Western-oriented agendas. Norway’s foreign adventures are not accidental. They are facilitated by a well-documented “deep state” (Maktnorge) centered in Oslo, with historic ties to NATO, US intelligence, and covert networks like Operation Gladio. This apparatus, rebooted after WWII with CIA support, treats Norway as a “vassal state” of the Atlantic alliance.

Per capita, Norway is the world’s largest arms exporter and has participated in more recent wars than all but the US and Israel. (Angad 2025). For India, this presents the layered challenge of containing direct interventions while at the same time fending off indirect pressure from smaller Western powers in alignment with great powers.

The Sri Lankan example, Myanmar's Rohingya crisis, and Bangladesh's democratic contestations all attest to the dangers of external activism: genuinely well-intentioned interventions more frequently than not fail to address latent confounds and actually have the tendency to consolidate polarisation.

Geopolitical scholars such as Brahma Chellaney (2019) have contended that South Asia's sustainable peace needs to emanate from regional cooperation and indigenous ownership, rather than foreign mediation. India's "multiple-sum game" doctrine of where cooperation and competition exist side by side in terms of local balance, is inherently incompatible with Norway's norm-based impositions.

Norway’s Own Dismal Human Rights Record

Norway’s frequent use of soft power diplomacy and extra-territorial activism on human rights is essentially a case of pot calling the kettle black. Norway has a dismal record of treating its own indigenous people historically and has indulged in human rights violations of the SAMI people, the aborigines of Norway. The Sami are an Indigenous group, now numbering roughly 100,000, who have for hundreds of years inhabited Europe’s northernmost regions, across Finland, Russia, Sweden and Norway, which is home to the largest Sami population (Chutel, 2024).

Historical Assimilation and Discrimination

The SAMI, numbering around 100,000 across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, faced a state-driven Norwegianisation policy from the mid-1800s until the late 1960s, severely damaging their cultural heritage and linguistic rights. SAMI children were frequently removed from their families and denied the right to speak their native language in school, while racist attitudes and social Darwinist beliefs about SAMI inferiority permeated official policy and public health practices. Although institutional discrimination formally ended in the 1960s, the enduring consequences include reduced access to healthcare, endangered languages, and ongoing prejudice and marginalisation (Chutel, 2024).

Contemporary Violence and Ongoing Harassment

Recent studies confirm persistent violence, bullying, and discrimination against Sami individuals, with women and men reporting significantly higher rates of emotional, physical, and, at times, sexual violence compared to non-Sami populations (Ericksen et al 2015). This harassment typically occurs in local communities, schools, workplaces, and even in interactions with public services. Distinctly SAMI individuals—such as LGBTQ+ people, those with disabilities, or those in traditional occupations like reindeer herding—are disproportionately affected (Johansen et al, 2024), (Ericksen et al, 2015).

Struggles Over Land and Political Activism

Land disputes remain a major source of conflict. Indigenous SAMI activists have protested government inaction following rulings that large wind farms constructed on lands traditionally used by Sami reindeer herders violated their rights, with authorities slow to remove illegal developments despite Supreme Court decisions (Al Jazeera, 2023). This exemplifies ongoing injustices and a lack of concrete remediation despite formal apologies.

Interventions and Limited Progress

A rapid review of recent research showed that, although over eighty interventions have been proposed to address discrimination against the SAMI, very few have been implemented and rigorously evaluated, with most remaining as strategies or action plans on paper Johansen et al, 2024). The lack of proactive, measurable policy action has led to feelings of marginalisation and internalised shame among some SAMI people.

Official Apology and Current Challenges

In November 2024, the Norwegian Parliament issued a formal apology to the SAMI, Kven, and Forest Finn communities, accompanied by 17 resolutions focusing on the protection of minority languages and cultural rights (Chutel, 2024). While this move was welcomed by SAMI leaders, calls remain for robust, ongoing policy changes and meaningful reconciliation, with unresolved issues of land, water rights, and cultural harm still prominent.

Norway’s advocacy for human rights abroad, therefore, stands in tension with its own unresolved domestic human rights legacy, making accusations of hypocrisy a matter of public and scholarly debate.

Conclusions:

Norway’s strong advocacy for human rights abroad thus stands in tension with its unfinished domestic legacy of Indigenous injustice. This gap between rhetoric and reality has led many scholars and activists to label Norway’s position as hypocritical, raising pressing questions about credibility, accountability, and what genuine reconciliation should look like. Norway's repeated use of soft power diplomacy and activism regarding human rights stands in stark contrast to its own troubled history with Indigenous peoples, notably the Sami, who have long suffered systemic discrimination and human rights violations within the country.

In sum, Norway's activism in India and near abroad constitutes norm overreach. Dressed as it is in peace and human rights rhetoric, its interventions erode sovereignty, destabilise regional equilibria, and serve wider Western imperial agendas. By using the frameworks of power fungibility, doctrinal dissonance, monetarism, and multiple-sum game dynamics, it is revealed that Norway's policy amounts not to mere benevolent peace-brokering but a deliberate exercise of soft power. India, while cooperating productively with Norway where there is mutual interest, needs to be watchful against attempts to offload internal discussions or divide South Asian autonomy.

The path ahead is through reasserting sovereignty, pluralism, and local control over peace processes—principles that will enable South Asia to counter excessive activism while welcoming partnerships based on genuine respect for regional agency. Norway must do national self-introspection and course correction on its own human rights abuse of its indigenous SAMI people instead of externalising and finger-pointing at Asian countries.

 

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