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It takes all kinds to make this world. Is it any wonder that we have a Donald in America and a Rahul in India? The former is the head of the government of the world’s richest and most powerful nation, and the other wants to head the government of a rising economic and military power.
Donald sold the dream of ‘Make America Great Again’ and the public voted for him. Rahul wants the voters to ‘make Congress great again’ by voting him and his party to power.
Donald convinced the American public that their nation’s economy was dead, even though the USA continues to remain the leading economy in the world by a significant margin. Unfortunately, the American public fell for it. Rahul wants the Indian public to believe the Indian economy is dead despite hard data that proves it is booming with the highest growth rate in the world over the last few years. Unfortunately, India rubbishes Rahul’s claims in this regard.
Donald used his hate for legal immigrants and anti-immigrant rhetoric to appeal to the dissatisfied, undereducated, and the ‘left behind’ Americans in the industrial and mid-west rural American landscape. He understood and exploited their frustrations, anger, and mistrust of the government successfully to present himself as an alternative. Rahul uses his love for illegal immigrants and appeasement rhetoric to convince the leftists, pseudo-secularists, and civil rights banner-holding sections of the public to vote out the present government. His repeated failures are a result of his inability to understand a resurgent India, its young population, and what it wants.
Donald uses religion (read Christianity) to play the nativity and racial cards to strike fear among Americans about the concerns of immigrants destroying the moral fabric and culture of America. Rahul, on the other hand, attacks everything and anything connected with Hinduism and its culture in his convoluted understanding of secularism, while being mum on minority religions. He sees no dangers to Indian demography or the thousands of years old culture from the fast-growing immigrant community that principally belongs to one minority religion. Donald wants to go all out to deport illegal immigrants, but Rahul does not even utter a word about the deportation of illegal immigrants in India.
Donald believes strongly that immigrants promote crime in the country, that are mostly targeted at native Americans. He is very selective as he does not touch on the crime rates, including the regular shooting sprees in schools and other busy areas, by native Americans. Rahul is also selective as he ignores the high crime rates among immigrants or the largest minority in India, but reacts sharply to an odd incident involving the majority Hindu community.
Donald uses fearmongering tactics, mostly perceived, to instill fears among Americans about the dangers that arise from illegal immigration and a growing immigrant population. Rahul underplays the threats to the nation from illegal immigration or the challenges that the border states face from such immigration.
America is well known for both sexism and nationalism. Donald has played these two cards extensively by exploiting the male hostile sexism towards women and the over-the-top nationalism prevalent in large parts of the USA that are not part of mainstream America. The majority of Indians respect and worship the female form in many ways. Hinduism is known for its respect for women. Unfortunately, the same is not true for India’s largest minority, where a female is principally a commodity and does not command such respect or equality. So, Rahul remains conveniently silent on this issue. Rahul’s credentials on nationalism and its understanding are doubtful and vague. Perhaps this comes from the traditional approach of his party on this subject since its inception. His warped understanding of ‘secularism’ adds to his disdain for the trait of nationalism and makes him see it in a negative light.
Donald has scant respect for political correctness. He makes no bones about all that he supposedly believes, right or wrong, in his bid to woo American voters. Yet, he has a very successful record in this regard and has led his party to victory for the second time. Rahul shares the trait of a lack of political correctness with Donald. He, too, makes no bones about what he believes since he rarely, if ever, goes into the merits or demerits of what he says or thinks. Unfortunately, he has no track record of successes to boast of in the last eleven years. His party and its allies have lost over a hundred elections under his leadership, and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
Donald is a leader who is consumed with himself. He suffers from an ‘I’ syndrome, as is evident whenever he speaks. He has surrounded himself with a core group that hangs on to every word that he utters and claps in unison, unabashedly. Many of these hangers-on are looking to advance their own political careers by riding the ‘Donald wave’ and, therefore, avoid calling a spade a spade. The proverbial young child who could call out the Emperor and make him face the harsh reality in Hans Christian Andersen’s drama ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ seems to be missing from American politics. In a rally in Iowa, Donald is on record as having said that he hates the Democrats. But his hate for the Democrats does not translate into hate for America. If anything, it results in an increased love and commitment to his country as he feels the Democrats have not done enough for America. Donald wants his country to be the ‘Big Boss’ of the world.
Rahul is a dynast who is where he is in Indian politics solely because he comes from a family that has the distinction of giving India three Prime Ministers since 1947. He is consumed with this sense of entitlement when he lays claim to the Prime Minister’s chair. He, too, has a set of hangers-on who are afraid to call out the ‘Emperor.’ The Congress party is also seriously missing the services of that proverbial young child that could save them the humiliation of repeatedly losing elections and credibility among Indian voters. Rahul’s hate for those sitting on the treasury benches in the parliament and their leader is legendary. In fact, today, he is so consumed with this hate for the opposition that it often transcends into hating India. But he is never apologetic for this transgression. This has resulted in his hobnobbing with vested interests outside India, who wish to see India as a weak, poor, internally disturbed, and externally threatened country. Rahul wants a dependent India with a perennial begging bowl in its hand instead of an India that commands respect and exercises its right to be the master of its own destiny.
Trump’s victory wasn’t just about policy. He laced his campaign with emotion, identity, and a sense of disruption. For many, he represented a break from an order where the politicians seemed to have become an unapproachable privileged class with hardly any accountability. His unapologetic style appealed to those who felt their values and interests were underrepresented. Trump’s rhetoric, based on MAGA and often controversial, galvanized his supporters in large numbers. All of Rahul’s political campaigns have been devoid of content and policy. His rhetoric has mostly been based on being critical of the ruling party and negative about the future of India. He and his party still count on the historical emotional content with voters, and that is their failing. The voters have moved on, and so has India.
The world around us has space for all kinds of leaders and the led. Diversity in human nature and behaviour must be expected and accepted. Donald and Rahul prove this to no end. It is for nations, their future leaders, and their ensuing generations to learn from the dichotomies that may arise from this hard truth. It must not lead to helplessness or fear. Instead, the variety of perspectives and experiences that result from such an environment should enrich our societies for a better future.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.