A 32-year-old singer and an 18-year-old activist's tweets sent the Indian establishment into a titanic tizzy on Wednesday.

The usual cast of Bollywood stars were hurriedly deployed to counter Rihanna and Greta Thunberg's concern for the protesting farmers.

Thereafter came a flood of tweets from cricketers including unusual vocality from one former MP who rarely opened his mouth during his tenure in the Upper House.

Most bizarre, of course, was a statement from the ministry of external affairs, provoking one commentator to ask when the MEA had begun responding to celebrity tweets!

The regime's reaction mirrored its closest authoritarian ancestor's assertions in the early 1970s when every obstacle that confronted this great nation was attributed to a 'foreign hand'.

Dominic Xavier offers his take on the drama that took centrestage after Rihanna and Greta's tweets.

• Dom's Take