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HomeOpinionThe bling of billionaires like Trump Jr bedazzles Indians. They’re the gods...

The bling of billionaires like Trump Jr bedazzles Indians. They’re the gods of achhe din

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Meanwhile in Washington D.C., the Trump Hotel recently got an extreme makeover with the words ‘This Place is a Shithole’ and poop emojis projected on its wall.

Donald Trump Jr is not in India as the President’s son. He is here to sell luxury apartments.

But a headline in UK’s The Times would warm his father’s heart.

‘Donald Trump Jr. outshines Justin Trudeau on trip to India’.

The very photogenic Trudeau is still waiting for his Narendra Modi welcome tweet — the diplomatic equivalent of that five-star hotel check-in welcome drink. Meanwhile Trump Jr’s arrival was heralded, says The Times, by “breathless, full-page advertisements asking, ‘Trump is here – are you invited?’ Potential buyers have shelled out almost £30,000 for dinner and a chat with the President’s son”.

Back home in the US, a survey by the American Political Science Association ranking the country’s 44 Presidents on a “greatness” scale has ranked Donald Trump dead last. In just about a year, he has managed to knock out the previous worsts – James Buchanan, who failed to address slavery on the brink of the Civil War, and William Harrison, who refused to wear an overcoat or hat for his inauguration, caught pneumonia and died within 31 days.

As Trump Jr packed his bags for India, Trump Sr’s lawyer was trying to quell a storm about $130,000 of hush money being paid to a former porn star. Junior himself just had his moment of controversy for “liking” conspiracy tweets casting aspersions on a teenager who had survived the Florida shooting.

Whether anything is illegal or unethical, in a more normal world, all of this lurid scandal would usually amount to bad news for a brand.

In India, though, the Trump brand appears to be hot rather than a hot potato.

India is the Trump Organisation’s biggest international market. There are real estate projects underway in Kolkata, Gurugram, Pune and Mumbai. According to the developers, many units in Trump Towers are selling about 30 per cent per square foot higher than the prevailing market rate. In Kolkata, 73 per cent of Trump Tower apartments have already been sold while other luxury real estate projects struggle. Harsh Patodia, chairman of Unimark, which is building them, says the response has been “phenomenal” and the “visit of Don Jr will certainly add to the momentum”. The entire ultra-luxury market is hoping for a Trump ripple effect.

Pankaj Bansal, the director of Gurugram-based developer M3M India, which is partnering with Tribeca Developers to build Trump Tower in Gurugram told CNNMoney that the Trump name allows them to add a premium of as much as 40 per cent to their apartments compared with other luxury properties. “It’s all about status symbols,” he says. “People want to be able to say: ‘Come, let’s go have a drink at Trump Tower’. That’s what we are trying to tap into.”

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., the Trump Hotel recently got an extreme makeover with the words “This Place is a Shithole” and poop emojis projected on its wall. Several of the winners of this year’s Superbowl game announced they would skip the customary White House visit.

All of this makes one scratch one’s head when Patodia says: “It is a privilege to welcome Donald Trump Jr to Kolkata. The success of the project reflects the relevance of the Trump brand and lifestyle for India.”

Which part of the Trump brand and lifestyle exactly?

One and a half years ago, when the deal was first signed, it was the senior Trump who was supposed to come for the launch. At that time, most of the world did not know much about Trump beyond that he was a flashy and successful businessman, a larger-than-life symbol of shiny capitalism.

But now we do. We know his Twitter rants, his mudslinging. We have major newspapers keeping a running tab of outright lies and denials. In November, the Washington Post said his falsehood total stood at 1,628 claims in 298 days, or an average of 5.5 claims a day. None of that seems to have dimmed well-heeled Indians’ appetite for a piece of Trump.

Trump Jr has a good reason to come to India to hawk luxury apartments branded with the family name. The developers who have money in the project have every reason to hype them and sell them to willing buyers. That’s business.

But what’s the excuse for those who want to buy them and live in them, given all that they now know about what Donald Trump says and does? They chose to buy the apartments. They chose to take selfies with Don Jr.

What part of the Trump brand do they hope will rub off on them and their families? Hopefully not the bit that visits the Trump International Golf Club in Florida while families of the school massacre victims are buried just miles away?

It shows how much we remain enthralled by larger-than-life business figures. Their bling blinds us to everything else about them. They are the real gods of achhe din, and we take selfies at their altar. The Forbes list is our holy grail. The very name of the developer in Gurugram, M3M, stands for “Magnificence in the Trinity of Men, Materials and Money”, which, when you come to think of it, sounds positively Trumpian.

While US pundits fret about the overlaps between business and policy as Trump Jr plans to deliver a speech in New Delhi about reshaping Indo-Pacific ties, in India we take cozy ties between business tycoons and politicians as not only natural but a necessary marker of success, a vital lubricant in the art of the deal. It’s all about connections anyway, and a connection to the President of the United States is quite a trump card.

For aspiring India, this feels like some golden seal of approval from the most powerful man in the most powerful country in the world, an endorsement of India and Indian real estate. We love our brands, the more exclusive the better, and all we care about Trump is that he’s a brand that now lives in the White House. Even better, he chooses to flatter India by saying India is not an emerging market but an amazing market while his son talks about how even the poor in India smile. Who says the man lacks empathy?

In America, Trump’s approval ratings are perennially rocky, but in ultra-rich India, the Trump brand still rocks. But what if Trump gets impeached or resigns under a cloud? Will that invitation to “come, let’s go have a drink at Trump Tower?” still sound quite so inviting?

Sandip Roy is a journalist, commentator and author.

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