Why must leaders like Trump and Modi be reviled?

A Trump mania is currently sweeping across the globe.

A Trump mania is currently sweeping across the globe. His critics, mostly liberals, call him divisive, pervert and racist. Nobel laureates, Hollywood actors, singers and social activists have also joined the chorus to mock at his vision of a ‘great America’. Right through his campaign and after, the media led by CNN and New York Times has behaved as if they have a personal score to settle with Trump. The liberals’ problem in any society has been their extreme hostility to an alternate view that one may have on social, cultural, strategic and economic issues. It is worse in the US because the survival and prosperity of immigrants, who are spearheading the opposition, solely depend on unbridled inclusiveness.

Donald Trump
Donald Trump

After all, what do these people want from Trump? Forget the poll promises made by him and follow the agenda of Democrats? Were they not aware of how he would shape his country’s domestic and external policies? And, if the rightist and ultra nationalists outnumbered them in electoral colleges, why grumble? It was funny hearing the Democrats argue that Hillary Clinton secured more popular votes than Trump, suggesting she was the real winner. But popular votes do not elect presidents in the US. They are actually finding it tough to come to terms with a man who is an antithesis of a run-of-the-mill politician.

Within days of his taking over, Trump has turned the governance upside down. He has chosen his team defiantly and is hell-bent on appointing Neil Gorsuch, a rightist, as the Supreme Court judge. He has announced raising a wall along the Mexican border to prevent Mexicans from illegally entering the US in hordes and decreed not to accept Syrian refugees barring Christians, because a Syrian Muslim is more likely to be subverted by ISIS than a persecuted Christian. He has banned citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US till a fool-proof arrangement is put in place to make it safe from terrorist attacks. He has also placed Pakistan on the terrorist watch list. The courts, however, are putting a spanner in his efforts to make immigration restrictive and hazardous. But you can trust him to overcome these setbacks soon.

Several countries in Europe are already keeping Syrian refugees at bay and have tightened their borders. But a ‘secular’ India is still shy of aggressively adopting measures to prevent illegal Bangladeshis and Pakistani terrorists from entering the country. As a result, we encounter daily infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan, and are saddled with 10 million-plus illegal Bangladeshis, who have changed the demography of 17 districts in West Bengal, Assam and Bihar.

Narendra Modi
Narendra Modi

His critics also have problems when he talks of withholding grants for overseas military operations, NGOs and foreign assistance, generating employment for Americans, lowering down taxes across the board and making everyone earn their wages. Honchos of the US companies are worried that they may lose profit and technical edge if he pursues his H-1B visa programme, preventing them from hiring skilled and professional immigrants. On the external front, he has wasted no time in showing red flag to NATO, UNO, imposing sanctions on Iran for firing missile, and warning China of grave consequences for its adverse trade practices and expansionist ambitions in South China Sea. Trump should, hence, expect to be reviled more vehemently by his detractors, obstructed by judiciary and frustrated by Democrats in days to come, because his political agenda is so radically different and power-packed.

You can’t help noticing an uncanny similarity between what Trump and Modi have to endure. A section of the Indian media had also hounded Modi during his campaign and still believes that he is a pretender to the office of the prime minister. Bollywood accused him of stifling its creative freedom, and overly-hyped intellectuals returned literary honours in heaps. Widespread protests were organised whenever he appointed his men, and he had to discipline the bureaucracy to implement his policies. When he spoke of identifying and evicting Bangladeshi immigrants, excluding Hindu refugees, he was dubbed communal. His Make-in-India initiative and skill development programmes, his push for start-ups, digitisation, and his crusade against corruption are constantly scoffed at.

That Modi still manages to deliver despite inheriting a culture of extreme political partisanship, loot, subsidies, free doles and reservations, is creditable. Trump, on the other hand, has already broken free of Obama inheritance and is showing unusual grit and commitment to realise his American dream. It will be interesting to watch him leave the White House in 2018 with all the guns blazing.

Amar Bhushan
Former special secretary, Research and Analysis Wing
amarbhushan@hotmail.com

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