Priyanka Chopra posts picture of meeting with PM Modi, trolls take offence at her legs

PC shouldn't have worn that dress or sat like that, they say.

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Actor Priyanka Chopra recently put up a photograph in which she's in conversation with Prime Minister Modi in Berlin, thanking him for taking time off to meet her. However, PC might not have expected the backlash she would face for this.

In the picture, Priyanka is seen wearing a dress that bares her legs and moreover, she's sitting with one leg crossed over the other - as non-sanskaari as it gets in the textbooks of the moral police. Within no time, the picture attracted comments from offended Modi fans and "patriots" who felt the actor had insulted the Indian PM by her "inappropriate" attire and style of sitting:

Ravikumar Narasimhan You don't know basic courtesy about how to sit in front of Prime minister of India

Rajashekhar Bommanahalli When our pm sir meeting you u should wear our indian culture dress not a foreign dress learn from our culture then act in films medam

Naveen Prakash She should not meet to PM like in such dress and the way of sitting. Why and how she can be ur desi girl if adopted all Hollywood culture. This is hurting us really. ..

Gaurav Singh Priyanka plz proper dress wear when pm Mr nrendra modi ji meet conference

Rekha Vaidyanathan Not a skirt fr the day....atleast salwaar as a mark of respect fr the prime minister of our country.

Hingonia Ritvik on one hand deepika padukone wear saree in large gathering and she do not know what to wear and she even doesn't know how to sit with Prime minister (one should not cross legs while sitting with important person)

Priyanka Churoria Priyanka u may b lucky enough to meet d pm..bt pls do maintain ur ethics of dressing...at d day end u r an Indian

Akhil Varma I don't like your sitting body language in front of our honourable prime minister

However, there were others who defended Priyanka's choice and said that it was unnecessary to attack her for it:

Sagar Pandey Such an amazing snap priyanka chopra u look gorgeious!!!!ppl say abt yur attire let thm say!!!!u lookng stunning n perfct attire wid perfct prsn!!!! Respect

Nandini Bisoi She can choose to seat how ever she wants. Her legs, her chair, her personality! Why people alwys try to find negativty evrywhr. She z a global star & pm modi nt gone to meet her personaly. Thy both were at same place so jst met. Both r proud of our nation. Stil ppl judge thm with lot of negativty. Change ur way of thnkng.

Ankit Mohapatra Now people if she wears a Saree, then according to you all "She is exposing her belly n waist in front of our PM"

She has her choice to wear what ever she wants.. At least she is much more decent than most of the Indians.

We shuld mind our own business.

This is not for the first time that a woman in public eye has been reprimanded for wearing "improper" clothes or "insulting" cultural pride. In 2008, south Indian actor Shriya Sharan was forced to apologise for wearing an "indecent" dress while meeting the then CM of Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi. The Hindu Makkal Katchi filed a police complaint against Shriya for offending Hindu culture by turning up in such a dress during the silver jubilee celebrations of Sivaji: The Boss.

Not wanting to get into a controversy, Shriya issued a clarification that she'd arrived at the venue from a shoot and didn't have the time to wear something more "appropriate". She also said that she was sorry to have offended people.

That same year, tennis star Sania Mirza was dragged to court for disrespecting the national flag by sitting with her feet pointed to it. Sania, who was only 21 at the time, was so affected by the controversy that she said that she'd even considered quitting the game and that it had impacted her preparations for an upcoming Grand Slam.

Interestingly, when Michelle Obama was the First Lady, she was widely appreciated on social media for not covering her head when meeting with a Saudi leader. However, it later emerged that Saudi Arabia doesn't really require female visitors to cover their heads when they are in the country and that several female dignitaries had met Saudi kings and leaders for years without doing so.

Maybe it's her or maybe because it's the year 2017, Priyanka chose to laugh off the hot air about her "inappropriate" dress by posting an epic response: a photograph with her mother in which both women can be seen baring their legs, with the hashtag #itsthegenes.

Legs for days.... #itsthegenes with @madhuchopra nights out in #Berlin #beingbaywatch

A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on
May 30, 2017 at 4:23pm PDT

To be fair, Priyanka wasn't the only person who was trolled for the photograph. Though Modi was err...fully dressed and sitting in the sanskaari-approved fashion, he came under flak for meeting with an actor when he'd not met with protesting Tamil Nadu farmers in Delhi and being out of the country constantly:

Vasanthan D No offence to u Ms.Chopra..He has time to meet u, even if he hasn't he ensures he allots time to meet u, but our TN farmers r still struggling to get an appointment to see him and to share their misfortunes of cultivating food for us...and he doesnt gives a damn about our farmers ! That hurts us (Tamils) to the core...

Ramesh Kadam PC, please ask modi , in ur nxt meeting , to take a time to listen our families of farmers who committed to suicide .He'll definitely listen you.