The Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (MEA) made an embarrassing mistake on their official Instagram handle on Thursday, in what might otherwise have been a normal attempt to wish two nations on the occasion of their independence days.
In the first post, the MEA cordially wished the Government of Israel a happy Independence Day, with a video showing the flags of the two nations beside each other.
Just an hour later, the ministry extended their warm regards to the Marshall Islands, another country celebrating their Independence Day on May 1. The post also tagged the Indian Embassy in Japan, since India did not have an official embassy in the Marshall Islands—a chain of islands and coral atolls located in the central Pacific Ocean, just between Hawaii and the Philippines.
Much to their embarrassment, this second post was also accompanied by the very same video used in their previous post—the one that showed the flags of India and Israel placed together. Hilariously enough, the post made in error still lingered on their page, an hour after it was put up, before it was replaced by a new, corrected post with the flag of the Marshall Islands.
Netizens who expressed mixed opinions on the first post were quick to poke fun and highlight the error in the second post, which garnered roughly fifty comments, before it was finally taken down.
India currently maintains a cordial relationship with the two nations, with the Pacific island archipelago having signed an MoUs with India last year for four community development projects, and Israel currently supporting India’s retaliatory stance against Pakistan on the Pahalgam terror attacks of April 22.
