Ponmala

Three of our prominent leaders visited America recently within the span of a month. Rahul Gandhi was the first to go. It was with the aura of democracy he carried with him, thanks Modi’s invidious move to throw him out of parliament and his Delhi residence, using means that were undemocratic to say the least, that he landed in San Francisco on the 30th of May. The main thrust of what he conveyed to his listeners during his 10-day tour was the decline of democracy in India under the stewardship of Modi. He elaborated on it saying that the weeds of communal division and mutual hatred Modi had planted in people’s hearts have flourished under his watch. He also proclaimed that he has taken the burning down of those weeds in the fire of love as his life’s mission; he is willing to bear any hardship and even risk his life for it.
That message seems to have gone home to his listeners, especially because he was a victim of Indian democracy’s swift decline under Modi. His honesty, simplicity and humility struck a chord with genuine lovers of democracy. They saw in him a sign of hope for the fast deteriorating democratic scenario in India. Obviously, it ruffled the feathers of the BJP back home and the Godi media went full steam giving it the stigma of national betrayal. All in all, Rahul’s American tour seems to have paid off.
Kerala’s Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, landed in America even as Rahul Gandhi was half way through his tour. Pinarayi’s lifelong tirade against capitalism was no hindrance for him to place his hopes in it for preserving the only remaining communist enclave in India. He was on a tour to entice capitalists to invest in communist Kerala, which his party would have long back turned into another North Korea if it hadn’t been a part of India.
It was Pinarayi’s weakness for the flamboyant that did him in during his American tour. Like a failed rocket, the much hyped tour plunged headlong into the showpiece of American capitalism, New York’s Times Square. To be seated on a lowly steel chair at the world’s busiest business and entertainment centre was too much for him to take; so much so, he is in a prolonged period of recuperative rest. A loan of 1200 crores from the world bank was the only palpable outcome of the trip.
Within a couple of days of Pinarayi’s return to Kerala, Modi took off to America in his missile proof 4,500-crore Air India One. Godi media would want us to believe that the whole of Biden’s America was decked to give Modi a stupendous welcome and it was all hail Modi. To be honest, they were not far off the mark. The Romans said about Caesar, Veni, vidi, vici, he came, he saw, he conquered; that could be a fair description of Modi’s American visit also. The sight of Biden warmly embracing Modi must have broken the hearts of Manipur’s Christians, but why should that come in the way of the good relationship between the worlds most powerful democracy and the world’s most populous democracy? The jury is out on that.
Both Modi and Biden declared that the democratic values cherished by both India and America are the solid foundation on which their relationship is built. Quite true, both India and America are wedded to democratic values, but the democratic values that Biden and America believe in are in many ways different from the democratic values Modi and the BJP believe in. On his part, Modi made that amply clear while he addressed the US Congress: He stated that democracy takes on varied forms in various countries. That amounted to a warning to the Americans that they should not dream of imposing their mode of liberal democracy on India. The courage Modi exhibited in saying that in the US Congress has to be appreciated. He further said this: For some ten centuries India was under foreign rule of one form or the other. True, India was under the foreign rule of the British for around two and half centuries. But we were not under foreign rule during the Mughals or earlier Muslim rulers. They were not ruling us from a foreign land. They only belonged to a foreign religion. What Modi insinuated was that, for him and his party, Indian Muslims and Christians are foreigners, for the simple reason that they follow foreign religions – Hindutva unhinged. You need more than ordinary courage to say that to legislators of a Christian country. What’s more, every sentence he uttered elicited an applause or a standing ovation! Oratory at its best.
Who on earth can beat Modi in skilful oratory! And who on earth can beat Modi in acting contrary to what he proclaims! Modi made yet another important statement: When he first visited the US around a decade back, India was the tenth riches country in the world, and after nine years of his rule India has climbed to the fifth position. But he conveniently forgot to mention that India has slipped from 55 to 121 in the world poverty index. Heroic was the boldness he exhibited in that too. In any case, the beating he took in the Karnataka elections was amply compensated by his image building accomplishments during the US visit. Let us wait and see if his accomplishments in the US will translate into victories in the extremely important elections that are fast approaching; for, on it hangs the fate of Indian democracy.