By Aditya Aamir
Earthworms are worming from under the soil and committing mass suicide in Wayanad, north Kerala. The earth is getting too hot for them, say some folks, post the battering earth got from unprecedented rains and floods. There are lots of people around the world who would wish such a fate on politicians and it’s a worrying thought for politicians, from Barack Obama to Amit Shah.
The former United States President is giving ideas to people that he’s on a comeback, probably the only ex-POTUS to emerge from retirement to attack a successor, who, if questioned, will say Trump has only himself to blame for wrath-visited. The democrats are hoping to make gains in senate and other elections slated for 2018 in the run-up to the “big ‘un” in 2020. But Obama knows D’s Achilles heel.
Addressing a rally in Illinois the other day, he said the biggest threat to democracy is not Donald Trump but “indifference” and “cynicism”, that’s keeping the “young voter” from the voting booth. “Go out and vote,” he urged, around the same time Trump was telling his rally that America was a “developing country” and subsidies to China and India should be stopped.
“They call themselves developing nations and under that category they get subsidies. We have to pay them money to grow. This whole thing is crazy, but we’re going to stop it, we’re going to stop it. We have stopped it. We’re a developing nation, too, OK? As far as I’m concerned we’re a developing nation…we’re going to grow faster than anybody,” Trump told his “people” at a fundraiser in South Dakota.
This, when the Obama was reminding “his people” that Trump shouldn’t forget “when the current growth of the United States actually started”; Obama is acutely aware there’s not much left by way of legacy he has left behind. For, even as the Modi regime was beating Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy to the ground, the Trump administration was rubbing Obama’s to below sub-soil, a reverse earthworm phenomenon.
Which brings us to the realization that both Trump and Modi face “acid tests” this year, the difference being that while the two-party system entrenched in America makes Obama to appeal to the voter to come out in droves, singly and collectively, the rise of regional parties, eating into India’s vitals, has forced the only national party in the opposition to appeal to all opposition parties to come together and “do whatever it takes to defeat Narendra Modi.”
It’s common belief that lawyers defy truth at the drop of a fee, and who better to know that than Kapil Sibal. At a function to launch his book ‘Shades of Truth’, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delivered his verdict on the Modi regime: A “failure on all fronts.” And Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury, to a question as to who was an alternative to Modi, said, “The question is not ‘Modi versus Who?’; next year’s election is going to be ‘Modi versus India’.
But that still leaves the Opposition without a “face” and the absence of Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee at such “functions” does leave the question open whether there is opposition unity. Ex-BJP loyalist Chandan Mitra – now a Trinamool recruit, who was present at the Sibal book release – was jokingly reminded of the ‘Jyoti Basu-moment’ of the CPM by Yechury and that probably spoke of the “lurking” more eloquently than a direct reference.
The media probably is to blame. Unwittingly or with purpose, in the last several weeks, media has been pitching Rahul Gandhi against Narendra Modi and coupled with Rahul’s Europe tour, a “face” has emerged, more so because the BJP wants the Congress to come out and say it straight that it’s “Rahul versus Modi”. But the fractured opposition likes “Modi versus India” better, and like Obama at his Illinois rally said, “Better is always good!”
The opposition in India and the United States are up against an ideology that has a dedicated base and the 31% who voted BJP/Modi must have only risen, by whatever percentage, while there’s still no surety if the 69% who didn’t vote BJP/Modi are together in purpose. The problem is of the 69%, only 24% voted for the parties now in the opposition in 2014. The remaining 45% stood and watched, voting neither BJP nor Opposition.
It’s this undecided 45% which will decide 2019. As it will ‘2020’ in Trump’s America. Obama wants “his America” to come out and “vote” and it’s not much different in India. The earthworms will have to squirm out and vote for the Opposition if the Opposition wants to avoid a mass suicide. Like Trump said, “The whole thing is crazy.” (IPA Service)
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