MODI & TRUMP: MADE FOR EACH OTHER

If any world leader is as loved as he is hated, it is Donald Trump, elected 47th president of the US.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

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. Modi's PMO calls the shots as he has centralized 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 symbolize 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, center-stage. Both want to deliver maximum governance through minimum government. The similarities are uncanny.