That politicians can say the silliest of things should not surprise any of us. Many would say that’s par for the course. But that three of them, from the same party, should put their feet firmly in their mouth, on the same day, is incredible.

Unknown to many of us that’s exactly what happened on Sunday. The only thing is, you would have had to read a number of different papers to find out.

According to The Times of India, the information and broadcasting minister proclaimed that India is on a par with every developed country. His precise words were: “India has everything that any developed nation in the world has.”

Really? It would be unnecessary, if not also futile, to point out the long list of things we don’t have. Each of you know for yourself. What I find odd is that this was said by the minister of information and broadcasting. Perhaps he needs better information before he starts broadcasting his views?

Separately, but on the same day, the external affairs minister voiced his irritation with the West for what he calls “commenting on others”. Let him speak for himself.

According to The Indian Express, he said: “The West has a bad habit of commenting on others. They somehow think it’s some kind of God-given right. They will have to learn only by experience that if you keep doing this, other people will also start commenting and they will not like it when it happens. And I see that happening.”

Now, in the first instance, the minister has clearly forgotten that we in India frequently comment on what’s happening in the rest of the world. Our papers are full of articles about China, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka. Indeed, after Britain, we possibly have had more to say about Rishi Sunak and Humza Yousaf than any other country. So does he think we too have “a bad habit of commenting on others”?

However, Mr Jaishankar’s argument goes further. He is also complaining about the nature of journalism because that’s where most of the commenting happens. So does he wish the world to live in separate, isolated countries, unaware of and unconcerned about what’s happening because they are uninformed? That’s one implication of what he said.

There is, of course, another. He threatens “other people will also start commenting and they will not like it when it happens”. This, I assume, is a strategy of tit for tat. Every time the West says something about India we don’t like, we will find something about them to retaliate with. Or, to twist the biblical quotation, for every mote the West finds in our eye we will focus on the beam in theirs.

No sooner had the good Mr Jaishankar spoken than one of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s vice-presidents, Jay Panda, obediently heeded his advice. In a tweet on Sunday that The Economic Times reported, Mr Panda said: “Was dismayed to read about Germany’s police brutality at Lützerath village in January this year. Protesters accused the police of ‘pure violence’, and said they had been beaten ‘unrestrainedly, often on their head’. Indians are taking note of such decline in democratic norms in Europe’s biggest economy with sadness and concern.”

Of course, Indians have a right to be concerned. Even if they haven’t spoken out, Mr Panda can claim to do so on their behalf. The only thing is the incident he’s alluding to happened in January. Yet his tweet was on the second of April. So, if “Indians are taking note”, they have certainly taken their time.

Actually, to speak out two months after it happened only suggests two conclusions. Either we didn’t know earlier, in which case we are not that well informed, or it wasn’t a matter of great importance, which says a lot about the quality of our concern.

Now, I wouldn’t deny our dear ministers a right to their foibles. In fact, we all have bees in our bonnets. But the truth is there’s an awful lot more, of greater importance, happening in India, that should be a priority than these foolish games of vain glorious boastfulness or levelling silly threats at the West.

I doubt if the chancelleries of Europe or the great panjandrum in the White House are flustered by the threat to comment on them. They get an awful lot of that from their own press. A bit more from our ministers would hardly matter. If anything, I imagine ambassadors and high commissioners in Delhi have had a jolly good laugh, which is not the response our dear foreign minister intended.

Of greater interest is what (I&B minister) Mr Thakur’s fellow country men think of his claim that we are on a par with “any developed nation”. Perhaps this is the best comfort he can provide to the poor, the destitute, the hungry, the uneducated and the unhappy. We have tens, if not a few hundred million, of them. They must find it very reassuring that “India has everything that any developed nation in the world has”. If only it could be shared with them.

In my days at the Cambridge Union, undergraduate debaters had a rather neat way of referring to people who say foolish things despite knowing better. We would borrow from the Reverend Spooner and call them “shining wits”. I wonder if that applies in this case.