If any world leader is as loved as he is hated, it is Donald Trump, now elected the 47th president of the US. His tenacious twin is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who shares his values of patriotism, traditionalism and national identity. Trump is abhorred by the leftist media, Hollywood latitudinarians and European liberals. Modi is lambasted by the Lutyens’ Lilliputians and secularism’s near-extinct conscience cavaliers for his aggressive nationalism. Both Trump and Modi are cults that dominate the New World Order.
Americans voted for Trump’s unapologetic stand on illegal immigration and putting his country first. His tough stand on Palestine and threats to deport terror-supporting students made him a pugnacious political pugilist.
Both Modi and he were political parvenus. Modi swore to bring down Delhi’s drawing-room caucus, while Trump vowed to drain Washington’s political swamp. The billionaire real estate developer may be America’s oldest president, but has the energy of a rampaging Rambo to make the White House more powerful. Modi’s PMO calls the shots as he has centralised power to enforce his mission and vision. Both men are ultimate outsiders, though Trump had a privileged upbringing and an Ivy League education; Modi sold tea.
Modi’s victory in 2014 and Trump’s in 2024 symbolise the acceptability of leaders with absolutist agendas, the empowering of patriotism and a natural affinity with authoritarians. The two are separated by 12,000 km, but are conjoined by conviction. Both are bigger than their parties. Both swear by the constitution but find enough loopholes to garner more power than what the book provides. They surround themselves with ‘bezzies’ who tell them what they want to hear. Both want to shine solo, centre-stage. Both want to deliver maximum governance through minimum government. The similarities are uncanny.
Nationalism and patriotism: In January, Trump will stride into the White House for a second term, pumped on ‘Make America Great Again’ steroids. He convinced voters that the idea of a United America was in jeopardy. MAGA weaned away many Democrats. With signature Trump jokes, sneers and insults on the vote-hatching trail, he warned supporters and fence-sitters that if the Dems returned to power, the US would lose its global primacy. During his 2016 campaign, Trump championed US nationalism. He threatened to cut funds to NATO since he believed it served European interests more than America’s. His vote-athon is almost similar to Modi’s in 2013. Surakshit Bharat was Modi’s ultimate weapon to unite a divided India. He vowed to punish Pakistan and abrogate Article 370 to remove the constitutional weakness that gave Jammu and Kashmir a separate identity.
Anti-immigration: The Republican triumph owes much to Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration. Rabid rhetoric reaffirmed his warning, “A vote for Kamala Harris means 40 or 50 million more illegal aliens will invade across our borders, stealing your money, stealing your jobs, stealing your life.” While seeking his party’s nomination, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They’re coming from prisons, from mental institutions—from all over the world.” In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler used the term “blood poisoning” to excoriate Jews; Trump critics lambasted him for using the phrase to mean immigrants envenoming America’s bloodstream.
Modi consistently hammered a similar sentiment during his 2014 campaign about the danger of illegal immigrants creating cultural anarchy, and law and order disruptions. Even during the current state assembly elections in Maharashtra and Jharkhand, Modi has charged the Congress and regional parties for encouraging illegal flow of people from across the borders for bolstering their prospects.
Cultural cohesion: Both Modi and Trump are strong votaries of protecting the way of life of their nations. In 2017, Politico Magazine called Trump “the culture war president” and quoted The New York Times: “President Donald Trump is a war president of a different sort: a culture war president.” As the NYT reported this week, “In private, the president and his top aides freely admit that he is engaged in a culture war on behalf of his white, working-class base… against ‘politically correct’ coastal elites… He believes the war was foisted upon him by former President Barack Obama and other Democrats—and he is determined to win.” By polling over 50 percent of the popular vote, the Don has won the cultural war.
Modi is relentlessly fighting to restore what he deems the Hindu way of life to reinforce the superiority of ‘Bharatiyata’ over other faiths. Under his leadershiship and nudge, not only have BJP-led state governments renamed old cities, but they have revived old Hindu and tribal shrines that were vanishing fast.
Restricted capitalism: Trump was born and brought up as a businessman. Modi’s business savvy is synchronous with his birthplace’s ethos. He frankly admitted after becoming the prime minister: “I am a Gujarati and Gujaratis know how to do business.”
Trump has been talking about lowering taxes and trimming the size of the government. Modi is the only PM to have brought down the corporate tax to 25 percent for Indian companies. Modi calls entrepreneurs wealth creators and pushes his government to ensure ease of doing business.
Anti-China and pro-Israel: Ideologically and personally, neither Trump nor Modi trusts China. Trump has threatened to impose a 60 percent customs hike on Chinese imports and had banned many Chinese companies. India’s China-phobia stems from geographical alarm, since it has been squatting on our territory since 1962. Israel is another uniting factor. Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, while Modi was the first Indian PM to visit Israel.
Both also hate student activism: Trump threatens to deport the keffiyeh crowd occupying American campuses, while Modi has firmly quelled protests over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, and in JNU.
The oxygen of modern politics is social media. Modi understands the Indian predilection for public dignity; hence his posts to his over 80 million followers are informative and explanatory, leaving the onslaughts to the IT Cell and furious fans. Trump is clued into America’s in-your-face outrage and cancel culture; hence his posts are scathing. Trump was banned by Twitter for abusive tweets, though with 80 million followers, he was leading the social media war.
Such commonalities have made Modi and Trump friends. Modi is the only Indian PM who met Trump eight times in four years. At the Howdy Modi event in Texas and Namaste Trump in Ahmedabad, the deep connection was obvious. Trump was invited to join Modi’s Texas rally, where the Indian PM paraphrased the BJP slogan by cheering, “Abki baar, Trump sarkar.”
Though Trump lost in 2019, he fought on despite impeachments, penalties, loss of iconic real estate, convictions and judicial confrontations. The TV reality show that made Donald Trump a household name was The Apprentice. Going by popular validation, neither Modi nor Trump are political apprentices. They are heroes to the nationalist masses who are rewriting history by confining liberal apologia to the trashcan of history.
Prabhu chawla
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
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