Anupam- The Dreamer

There was a king in the medieval history. He sat on the throne of Delhi in 1325 A.D. and he was infamous for his big big blunders. Can you guess his name?

He was none other than the legendary Mohammad Bin Tughlaq (MBT). Mind it, it was a monarchy form of rule, where the king’s word was final (similar to what Shivagami Devi said in Bahubali “मेरा वचन ही है शासन” meaning “My word is the final law”). Whatever he wanted to do, he did with impunity and an iron hand. But, howsoever good he wanted to do, more often than not he ended up doing it to the detriment of his own subjects (citizens were subjects then, you see). If you have listened the song from the Rockstar movie “जो भी मैं करना चाहूँ बर्बाद करे अलफ़ाज़ मेरे”, then you can relate it with MBT. He was an ill-fated king, who increased taxation in fertile Doab region in order to garner more taxes. But as fortune would have it, it turned out a severe famine year. The tax officials showed no mercy on the subjects and eventually the subjects had to abandon their lands and fled to the forests.

Similarly, MBT decided to shift his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad to administer his territory from a central location and to keep Mongols attack at bay. But it was too tedious for thousands of people to leave their home and shift to a new place. Many people died on their way, faced difficulties in adapting to a new location and eventually MBT had to again shift his capital back to Delhi. He basically had a penchant to pass what would eventually come to be known as “तुग़लकी फरमान” (Tughlaqi farman), which means that whatever the ruler has said, has to be done, even if it is against the common good of the people.

Fast forward to the current times. Again, a leader has arisen from the ashes like the phoenix (especially after surviving an assassination attempt), who thinks of himself as a medieval era ruler, which unfortunately he is not. The rise of Donald J. Trump and his radical thinking to change the world as per his wish is a testament to this. He wants to rule with an iron hand like the MBT and he is routinely in the habit of passing Tughlaqi farman. He has demonstrated the same in his first term, when he used to tweet at 4 am in the early morning about his random thoughts and policies. He promised that “America will be great again”, but unfortunately that promise was more like a farman, which turned out rather hollow. Because, if he could make it great again, then there would be no need of making same promises now. What actually happened is that instead of making the America in particular, or world in general, a better place, he left the world a less safe, less integrated place and more fragmented than ever before.

Now, the great leader has made another set of bigger and loftier promises than ever before. Now, having led the first term with impunity (and failing to do what he promised) and learned his lessons in terms of how to woo the voters with loftier promises just to win elections, he has summed all that up in his inaugural speech as the 47^th President of the USA. He has declared “DRILL, BABY DRILL” in order to promote more oil and gas drilling even in protected areas. He has promised to upend the Electric Vehicle policy. What is most appalling, is his complete and vehement denial of the climate change phenomenon!!!! He doesn’t believe in the data published by the UNFCCC and the other UN agencies about the last 10 years being the warmest years after the industrial era began, which again proves that the climate change is real. He doesn’t want to look at the empirical evidences of climate change and has no shred of belief in the scientific work done over the last few centuries in this direction. That’s why, he is a Tughlaq. He wants to live in his own cocoon and thinks that the world outside the cocoon is as cosy as inside. After all, he is a billionaire and immune to all the world’s problems. But, his denial does not mean that there is no climate change and that the poor are not most affected by the climate change phenomena like forest fires, typhoons, flash floods etc. The most prominent of the voices on climate change like Al Gore, the former US Vice President, have criticized Trump on his stance of climate change policy and vowed to fight against his policy to continue the good work done by several climate scientists and activists over last few decades.

Another legendary farman by the great leader is regarding the recognition of only two genders, male and female! It is like some day, the leader has woke up from dream and decided that all those who don’t fall in this category are lesser citizens. With a single stroke, the LGBT community faces fear of ostracization by the government agencies. The point here is not that whether this community is right or wrong, but to ostracize them in a country which considers itself a champion of individual rights and freedoms seems very paradoxical.

One more area that I am curious about is imposition of tariff on every other country, where the trade balance is not in favour of the US. It is like going against the mandate of the WTO which promotes free trade across the world. It is against the integration of global economy is which progressing in positive direction only since the modern age. If tariffs only could make a country great again and if it was so easy to be against the whole world, then certainly he would have done in his first term. I only hope that this policy doesn’t turn into a Frankenstein monster and turn against the US itself.

There are many other areas where he has issued farmans (Executive orders), which could be discussed. But my major concern is not his farmans. The major issue here is that we are not living in medieval era of monarchy. We are in 21^st century, which is predominantly an era of democracy. And democracy is not run by farmans, rather by rule of law! The Constitution, the laws, the accumulated wisdom of years, the robust democratic institutions etc. all act as a bulwark against the individual whims and fancies. Therefore, it is not a cake’s walk for any individual, even at the highest position of power, to mould everyone according to his own idiosyncrasies.

For a lot of time, many in the world believed that the earth is the center of the universe and sun revolves around the earth. But, as we now know that was not true. Simply, believing anything by any individual does not change the reality, unless it is backed by scientific evidence. The same scenario is unfolding now also….So, it doesn’t matter much in the long-term what Mr. Trump thinks about at personal level. The American people, its history, its institutions are robust enough to ward-off any attempt to trump the goods done earlier by the past governments. No individual can rewrite history as per his whims and fancies. May God bless America and May God bless the world!