The affinities between Trump and Modi are striking, but none of them bodes well for democracy.
Some say, that Signor Bononcini,/Compared to Handel’s a mere ninny;/Others aver, to him, that Handel/ Is scarcely fit to hold a candle./Strange! that such high dispute should be/’Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
—John Byrom (1692-1763)
NO two persons are exactly alike. But Narendra Modi and Donald Trump resemble each other to such a degree that one might as well call them Donald Modi and Narendra Trump. The affinities are striking in their range and depth; and they are disturbing in their potentiality for harm to the national good. This comes out in sharp relief as one lists their traits one by one.
1. Amonumental ego is the most conspicuous quality which Narendrabhai shares with Donaldbhai. From it follow most others.
2. Demand of loyalty. Trump was clumsy enough to sack the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI)Director James Cone because he failed to extract from him a pledge of loyalty; itself a highly improper demand.Modi, unable to fire heads of statutory bodies, hand-picked loyalists in advance for sensitive posts. He planted his man Friday Amit Shah as party chief and set up a cabal of fawning Ministers. Never before was the country treated to a daily dose of Ministers praising their chief. Sushma Swaraj stooped so low as to proclaim that Jawaharlal Nehru merely promoted his own image while Modi raised the prestige of the nation. To think that this is the man who sits on the chair on which Jawaharlal Nehru once sat. Not to be outdone by Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh rushed to praise Modi’s Independence Day speech the very next day (“patterns emerging from his address, which reflect his concept of governance almost like mantras”); Ravi Shankar Prasad’s tributes to his master are as regular as they are sickeningly false. As with Trump’s men, Modi’s stooges suffer from acute insecurity.
This story is from the September 15, 2017 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the September 15, 2017 edition of FRONTLINE.
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