The Foreign Service Journal, October 2016

38 OCTOBER 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL verbal trickery akin to a card-shark shuffling a dodgy deck; the gross insults aimed at opponents; the joshing flippancy coupled with the thin skin and willingness to play the martyr; The candidacy and huge popularity of Donald Trump are not that outlandish to Indians who have watched Narendra Modi work his way out of the jaws of ignominy to become prime minister. the accusations of corruption against the media whenever any press or television outlet is critical; all of these are scarily of a piece. Trump’s lurid declarations of his aversion to Muslims are also a big reason why many Modi-worshippers in this country are garlanding pictures of Trump and praying for his victory. And yet, even among those of us who can see the disaster a Trump presidency would be for the world, there is no faith that Mrs. Clinton will turn out to be better for India. Anybody here who has followed U.S. politics and foreign policy for a while knows that Hillary Clinton would, if she thought it expedient, sell assorted Indian interests down the river in a heartbeat, even while making a show of great warmth and deep friendship. To shift the analogy from boxing to a somewhat nastier sport, Indian observers could be forgiven for thinking we are watching an elaborate version of Russian roulette—a version in which we don’t actually play, but nevertheless get to catch whichever bullet is fired by the results in November. n