Opinion | Trump's 'Hellhole' Comment Might Just Be A Favour To India

When a head of state starts using unparliamentary language about another state and its people, it can be assumed to be a sign of deterioration: either of the ties between the states or the mental faculties of the speaker. It is not difficult to understand what applies to the utterings of Donald Trump, the President of the United States. Apart from Israel, there has been no country, ally or enemy, spared his verbal lashings during his second term in office. It appears, sometimes, that he channels all the criticism and curses landing on his doorstep from his countrymen towards anyone beyond the US territory. This doesn't mean that he spares his countrymen either. 

The latest 60 Minutes interview, hours after the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, saw Trump lashing out at CBS correspondent Norah O'Donnell for reading out the suspect's manifesto. He called O'Donnell a "disgrace" and labelled the media in general as "horrible people". It's now public knowledge that Trump is touchy. He feels. The only problem with this is his temperament and words have the power to upset the markets, kill and kidnap heads of state, and bring economies to the brink of ruin.

From 'I Love Hindu' To Verbal Lashings

When he calls India a "hellhole", therefore, it's not the words per se that matter but the impression they create for a country that's making a bid to be counted as a global superpower. And we Indians are no less touchy. We are perhaps also upset at Trump's volte-face. How does an "I-love-Hindu" proclaiming man go to this current litany of curses and complaints within a matter of a few years? Not just that, we are also baffled by his consistent hyping up of the Pakistan establishment. While Indians get verbal lashings, Pakistanis are being lavished with trust and praise.

How much attention should we actually pay to Trump's harangues? 

Words are not important; what they betray is. Trump is putting in words, rather blatantly, the itch of an imperialist. Through his words, Trump becomes the representative of the Empire that strikes back at the erstwhile colonies for daring to demand equity. Neocolonialism has been given too big a benefit of the doubt in the era of globalisation. The stated claims of globalisation - equity, mobility, and dismantling of the racial supremacy of the Global North - have all fallen flat. Yet, we are uncomfortable accepting them. Perhaps because the post-colonial nations are still clutching at straws. We are still dependent on the scraps of the empire. Any change in immigration policies in the Global North gives us nightmares. Any change in the geoeconomics reaches our kitchens. We are still vulnerable.

Vivek Ramaswamy Knows

The emergence of China and India as big economies is not good news for the populations whose ancestral pride involves carrying out massacres in these very countries. Sure, the Indian and Chinese people are welcome to spend their money on holidays and luxuries that strengthen the neocolonial states; they are not welcome to demand equality. They are also not supposed to be in denial of their roots. Vivek Ramaswamy, for example, learned it the hard way. It's the same old script, and now even the vocabulary is getting back to its offensive roots.

And yet, there is a danger in over-reading Trump. He is a symptom, not a system. The neocolonial order he so crudely ventriloquises was perfectly well-oiled even when American presidents spoke in the measured cadences of diplomacy. The polite version of the same hierarchy and condescension. The "aid", the World Bank conditionalities, the IMF prescriptions, and the visa queues outside Western embassies were no less humiliating for being dressed in the language of partnership and development. Trump's contribution, if it can be called that, is merely to have removed the euphemism. The empire has always struck back. It is just now doing so without a speechwriter.

Thank Trump For Clarity

This, perhaps, is the only service Trump inadvertently renders the post-colonial world: clarity. For decades, the Global South has been asked to perform gratitude for an arrangement that was never designed in its favour. The question for India and for every nation still negotiating its place in an order it did not build is what to do with this clarity. The day India stops caring what Trump calls it will be a more significant milestone than any trade agreement. We are not there yet. But the map, at least, is getting harder to misread. So, it's not the "hellhole" comment that's worrisome; it's the probability that he can make hell break loose, and there's very little that can stop him from being gratuitously destructive. Let's focus on that.

(The author is a Delhi-based author and academic)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author