The Trump show

United States President Donald Trump turns a blind eye to the Narendra Modi regime’s handling of the Delhi violence as the two sides seal their military partnership and go ahead with bilateral military purchases.

- JOHN CHERIAN

THE NARENDRA MODI GOVERNMENT spared no effort to ensure that United States President Donald Trump’s massive ego was massaged thoroughly during his visit to India. The massive crowds that it had promised at the cricket ground in Motera, Ahmedabad, may not have materialised, but the U.S.President was satisfied with the numbers that showed up. He told his supporters while addressing a political rally back home in the first week of March that he had never seen audiences as humongous as the one arranged by the Modi government in Ahmedabad. “It was a very special visit, unforgettable and extraordinary,” he said.

In New Delhi, the government went overboard in its welcome for the President and his entourage, though the communal conflagration in Delhi took the sheen off Trump’s visit. While there was heavy police deployment in central Delhi to provide security for VVIP visitors, mobs were on the rampage on the capital’s outskirts. On the final day of Trump’s high-profile visit, the international and domestic media were talking of the Indian government’s failure to check the violence. Asked at a press conference in New Delhi about the communal violence, Trump gave Modi a clean chit. He said that the Prime Minister had assured him that he “wants people to have religious freedom” and that the Indian government “had worked really hard at it”. He told the media that he had not discussed cases of individual violence in the capital with Modi.