In the one intriguing comment Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made about US President Donald Trump, he has suggested that like the latter he was also an “outsider” in the 2014 general election. Indeed, there are many striking similarities between the two as there are some differences. As is apparent to the world, the two leaders are devotees of Twitter in giving their take on issues and making policy announcements. The logic in this addiction is clear: it is a one-way communication leaving no scope for embarrassing questions being asked. Both Mr Modi and Mr Trump distrust media. The difference is that the US leader is fighting frontally, describing them collectively as “fake news” and “enemy of the people”, while the Indian leader is more restrained in expressing his distrust. Both leaders are fond of staged television interviews, with interviewers vetted and subjected to a list of dos and don’ts. So if a Fareed Zakaria of CNN is granted an interview, he has to follow the rules. His TV interview had to be done twice over because Mr Modi was not satisfied with the first take.
Mr Modi also carries a heavier load in the genre of TV encounters. He has never quite got over the fiasco of his interview with Karan Thapar when he was Gujarat’s chief minister. In a memorable scene, he walks out of a live interview because he could not satisfactory answer probing questions on the Gujarat riots and the television channel made most of the bonanza by showing the entire scene, with Mr Modi unceremoniously walking out of the set. Mr Trump apparently believes that as far as the media are concerned, offence is the best form of defence. He took the unprecedented step of keeping a number of international media representatives, including the CNN and BBC, out of an off-the-record White House briefing. His favourite is the right-wing Fox News channel on the basis of which he recently berated Sweden for taking in Muslim refugees — the highest in Europe on per capita terms — to the amazement of Swedes. He had apparently based his comments on a Fox News item. Mr Trump has now taken his battle to boycotting the hallowed annual black tie White House correspondents’ dinner as the most powerful man on the planet is brought down to earth through the weapon of humour. In Mr Trump’s case, it would have been a riot.
Mr Modi has taken a more indirect route to avoid being questioned by an irreverent media. Although the US President has taken the occasional press conference to decry media, the Indian Prime Minister simply does not hold press conferences which he cannot control. He is the first Prime Minister not to hold a free-for-all general press conference in his three years in office basking in the glow of official TV channels, which are suitably reverential. The only publicly-funded free channel is Rajya Sabha TV, but the channel’s contributors are counting their days with foreboding because they do not know who will take over from vice-president Hamid Ansari, the present chairman of the Rajya Sabha. At the same time, there are some striking dissimilarities between the two men. Mr Trump is fond of beautiful women, indulges in locker room ribaldry, ran beauty contests for a time and was a reality TV host. I have on my desk a copy of a cartoon by the incomparable Chappatte in the New York Times showing Mr Trump pinching the bottom of the Statue of Liberty in New York, to her amazement, at a time his bottom-pinching proclivities were a subject of raging debate in the US.
In sharp contrast, Mr Modi’s instincts are more puritanical. Apart from his attachment to his mother, he has foresworn family ties, including to his wife, and mocks the Indian tradition of family rule, exemplified not merely by the Nehru-Gandhi clan, but by the Yadavs in Uttar Pradesh bringing in their family tree into the government. Beyond this difference lie other areas of similarities. Both men are capable of taking bold decisions if they are convinced of their virtue. In Mr Modi’s case, it was demonetisation of high currency notes and Mr Trump broke the mould on the demonisation of Russia. Their ascent to power came on the strength of very different impulses. In the US, Mr Trump’s unlikely victory came from blue-collar white workers marooned by technology, resentment towards a self-serving elite and a measure of resentment of black and coloured communities. In India, the impulses for change came from the performance of coalition governments, particularly in the last five years of the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi arrangement, and the desire for a decisive leader.
Indeed, both leaders have an authoritarian bent of mind, Mr Trump more flamboyant in expressing himself even though Mr Modi remains very conscious of his power and can be ruthless in striking at political opponents. The two leaders face immense challenges. Mr Trump is finding out the strength of US democratic institutions, as in staying his executive order banning travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries and in the mettle of the free press. He might cry himself hoarse on “America First” and bringing lost jobs home, often barking up the wrong tree because manufacturing jobs will not provide many openings in today’s world. He will continue to discover institutional and constitutional hurdles at every step. For Mr Modi, the monumental task is of changing the halo of the Independence movement and the value of secularism in a diverse country. Unsurprisingly, history is being rewritten to hew close to the lines of the ruling BJP’s mentor RSS of a Hindu India. There seem to be some difference of perspectives between the two but the rush to appoint RSS men or sympathisers to public-funded historical and research institutions tells its own story. The Communists were the last ones to rewrite history. How long the present exercise will last and to what end remain to be seen.
