With Donald Trump going down in history as the rogue president of America, the world bewildered by the humongous nature of fraud perpetrated by the most powerful man on earth, have been rendered helpless, with a roving question: If the longest serving democracy in the world makes the severest mockery of institutions of democracy, what about the lesser democracies, and those fantasising to evolve as such?
Vivekanand Jha Ranchi: Donald Trump, as widely expected, will not allow the smooth transition of power despite being handed over a comprehensive defeat. In fact, true to his characteristic notoriety, the spectacle that he had engineered on 6th of January, when his lumpen supporters, throwing caution and democratic norms to the winds, laid siege to the Capitol Hill, in one of the deadliest challenge ever extended to the democratic institutions and, that too, in a country which is considered as the flag bearer of democracy, could not have unfolded another global shock, especially in such times when the world is grappling with a monumental challenge on Covid front. That Trump, keeping in view his open opposition to the electoral verdict, will not go for smooth power transition, was the speculation afoot, yet the scale and magnitude of unprecedented unleashing of fraud will engulf the nation, definitively eluded even the worst of naysayers.
No wonder world was horrified to watch the ongoing, nightmarish spectacle unleashed by Donald Trump’s supporters laying siege of Capitol Hill at the behest of the President when the Senate was in session to grant the Certificate of Win to the President and Vice President elect: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. That Donald Trump, the incumbent President, the custodian of law and order, will provoke his supporters to go into rampage, taking hostage of Capitol Hill, in a flagrant violation of the law of the land, was the vindication of the fact that how Americans had voted a rogue as their President in 2016. Significantly, the mayhem unleashed on Capitol Hill, while the Senators still inside, with the supporters of Trump storming in, left the whole world gasping for its breath. Small wonder then this that, with police resisting such an anarchy being let loose on its sign and symbol of democracy, the fatalities almost rose to four with a woman lying dead and good number of people sustaining injuries.
Regrettably, President Trump, remaining a mute spectator to the ongoing feast of frenzy, did not ask his supporters to move out of the Capitol Hill, was a brazen display of insensitivity towards the presidential responsibilities that entailed protecting the lives and properties of the fellow citizens. Thus, the outrage that this brazen act of hooliganism has evoked across the world, too, was unprecedented: The world watched bewildered when the world’s longest serving democracy, which seldom tired from showcasing its prized democracy as the summun bonum of the mankind, itself ended up having eggs at its face: All its bravados and blusters pertaining to the flawlessness of democratic system, stood pulverised in its own country, by its own head of the state.
No wonder the comments, coming as they did, in the wake of such terrible degeneration of democratic values, especially from China, reflects the overall contempt that the gory incident aroused from across the world: ‘ The seize of Capitol Hill by Trump supporters speaks of America’s own hypocrisy in condemning Hong Kong’s public protests’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had the privilege of introducing Donald Trump as his friend, in the Howdy Modi event, barely a year ago in Houston, where he, disregarding all the past conventions, unabashedly sought mandate for his friend Trump, when he gave a slogan, ‘Abki bar Trump Sarkar’, too had to caution his friend, to allow a smooth transition of power. Consequently, Trump, in the wake of devastating disaster which stigmatised him, unlike any of his predecessors, was in for a shock from all sides. Many of the Republican senators who sympathised with him, stood alienated from him in no time; they all welcomed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the winning President and the Vice President. Besides, the issue of the winning certificates to the duo, the shocker came also from Mark Juckerburg, the owner of facebook and Instagram, who immediately announced the banning of Trump’s facebook and Instagram account, lest his provocative posts might create further troubles if allowed to continue.
This, unequivocally, was the bigger slap in the face of the outgoing president who sought to paralyse the whole system to enable another presidential tenure for his continuation in power. Whereas the tremors that Trump’s supporters have caused in America, has its reverberation across the recalibrating, its special significance on India too, could never be lost: The biggest concern that unsavoury siege of Capitol Hill, had evoked in India is this: Will Narendra Modi, if he too is denied the verdict in 2024 general election, facilitate a smooth transition of power, as he has advised his friend Donald to supervise? The reigning fear assumes its own importance in view of Midi’s burgeoning blind Bhaktas, who too, like the followers of Trump, have even the greater potential and prowess to unleash havoc on the polity in the event if Modi stands rejected by the electorate? Narendra Modi, who is already rated as the demi god by his Bhaktas, even designated as ‘Hindu Hriday Samrat’ by the hordes of Hindu nationalists, has even a greater number to support him: The ever proliferating hoodlums in the guise of Hindu nationalists. Significantly, the fear of Modi Bhaktas going several notches ahead of that of Trump’s supporters, becomes far more serious in view of serious erosion of democratic institutions in the country today: With judiciary, already having surrendered before the ever powerful executive, as is increasingly becoming apparent with every passage of day, the fear of Indian democracy too, being hijacked in the future, especially if powerful Modi loses power, is genuine and legitimate. Also, the distasteful episode enacted by laying siege of Capitol Hill, exposes Modi government’s lop sided foreign policy manoeuvres: Putting all diplomatic eggs in one Trump basket. Now, when Trump goes down as a rogue President of USA, it leaves a special message for all the world leaders who stood steadfastly by him through thick and thin: backing a rogue, who appeared unpredictable from the day one, was tantamount to missing tree for a wood.
As it is a case of Modi, so is the case of Oil of Nepal, who too, while distancing himself sufficiently from India, had placed all his eggs in Chinese basket. Finally, as in case of Modi, so too was with K.P.Oli: He too realised that Chinese, whose bidding was doing all throughout–going all the way to claiming Indian territory of Uttarakhand as belonging to Nepal-finally was in for a rude shock when he realised that China could well sacrifice him for the sake of maintaining unity amongst the various constituents of Communist Party. No wonder Oli, in complicity with the President Bhandari, dissolved the Parliament. Also, Oli is recalubrating his foreign policy by balancing his foreign policy between India and China. Significantly, the upcoming visit of the foreign minister of Nepal to New Delhi, in the coming week, is the vindication of Oil’s realisation that dancing to the tune of China has its own pitfalls. Hence in this backdrop, the seige of Capitol Hill has an embedded message for the world in general, and Modi and Oli in particular: Never put all your eggs in one basket, if you choose to do so, you will be left to regret, even the retrieval from the edge of precipice becomes a predicament.
