by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
It is no longer a remote possibility. Though the US presidential election is still a good eight months away. But its time to brace up for White House to receive, as its next occupant, Donald Trump, "a bully, showman, party-crasher and demagogue" as TIME said in its cover story. "His (Trump's) is not the temperament of a stable, thoughtful leader", says Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican candidate. He called Trump a "phoney" who is "playing the American public for suckers", a man whose "imagination must not be married to real power". If it happens, how exactly will the world respond to a potential dictator elected as the 45th President of the USA?
Though it is not easy for an American President to act like Caesar, it is not impossible either. The ramparts around the American institutions, though steep, can still be breached. In the 1940's, when the courts sought to tie the hands of President F. D. Roosevelt, all that FDR did was to pack the courts. Watch the vulnerabilities of the US bureaucracy in All the President's Men. The media of course remains a formidable challenger, but dictators have a way of throttling it. Lawmakers too are bendable. And the birth of Trump in White House is surely a matter of concern to the rest of the world, including India.
Till now, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's foreign policy is heavily weighted by the US initiatives in the region. The draw-down of the US troops from Afghanistan was reversed in 2015. Throughout 2015, US future plans about Afghanistan centred around Pakistan's concerns and led to President Barack Obama superseding lawmakers to arm Pakistan with eight F16 aircrafts. The consequent gripe in India is self-evident.
However, Trump's to-do list on South Asia includes resumed military presence in Afghanistan (to save Pakistan's nukes). At the same time, he wants to "work with India" to make sure that Islamist terrorists cannot access Pakistan's strategic assets. The plan does not stand scrutiny. Why should Pakistan allow its nuclear arsenal to be inspected by any international team if there is an Indian presence in it? And, considering the well-known divide between Pakistan's army and its political leadership, it is hardly realistic to expect the two to work in unison in keeping terrorists at bay.
There is little clarity, therefore, in what exactly Trump has got on his mind about South Asia if he becomes President. The charge against him being that he is not a "stable, thoughtful" leader, one must be prepared for all kinds of eventualities. For India, risks are enormous in Trump's rather bizarre thoughts on immigration, including raising a high China-style wall across the border with Mexico (at Mexico's cost) and packing off 11 million illegal immigrants. It's possible that these are mere rhetoric, but Trump is clearly aiming at his Republican constituency of angry white men who refuse to be reconciled to America's shifting demographics. Many of them feel deprived of jobs by the eminently successful 1.5 million Americans of Indian origin. The number is rising as today's bright Indian kids are generally headed to US universities and businesses, thus linking their career with India's middle class dreams. A future racist conflagration that singes Indo-Americans may leave long-lasting scars on India's relations with the US.
Modi is of course a lot more organized leader than Trump, a real estate tycoon with no orientation in party politics. But they are not a class apart. In his campaign trail so far, Trump has frequently dashed across the red line of decency on matters relating to minorities, or the rights of women and children. And Modi, during his electioneering, while waving the development flag, did not hesitate to express his distaste of the minorities; he even described Indian Muslims as "Hindu" by a comic twisted logic patented by Hindu Mahasabha founder V. D. Savarkar.
Behind Modi is a long history of Hindu wounded pride crystallized in the philosophy of VHP and RSS. Trumpism has no institutional mooring but racial prejudice and bigotry form the inner weave of America's social fabric, particularly that of its south which went to war with the rest of the republic on slavery abolition. The Republican Party that fought for freedom under Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago has now been hijacked by a New York billionaire who hemmed and hawed to support a resolution against the notorious Ku Klux Klan during electioneering. In the 1970's, when he joined his family business of constructing houses for renting, he faced legal action for falsely using 'No Vacancy' board to keep coloured persons from asking for accommodation.
Hillary Clinton, the most likely Democratic bulwark against Trump, could be a more powerful match if she had fewer baggage, being ex-President Bill Clinton’s wife and former Secretary of State. It was evident on Super Tuesday when Clinton gathered 5.5 million supporters while the voter turnout at Trump’s rallies was an estimated 8 million. Clinton will no doubt get the Hispanic votes but it is pretty close to the typical BJP ‘polarisation’ in India, with two Hindus marching into its booth for every Muslim running to that of Congress. But will the American whites go out to vote and prove to be electorally significant? In 1980, 54% white voted for Reagan who won by a margin of ten points. But in 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney polled 59% whites, yet he lost. To make it to White House, Trump must therefore outdo Romney in mobilising white voters.
If he wins, it will be a worldwide defeat for plurality, multiculturalism and liberalism. Its political fallout on an India struggling double-speak on nationalism and sedition is not difficult to foresee.
