Donald Trump Says Ban Muslims From USA, Politicians In India Are No Less

By Anugraha Hadke:

Donald Trump is not a tolerant man, as much as he has tried to prove otherwise. The ex-business magnate now Republican US presidential candidate has time and again, made comments that are clearly sexist, or racist, or just plain offensive, during his election campaign. At a rally in Carolina, Trump read out a press statement earlier released by him, “calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” With this, he has probably hit rock bottom, inviting large scale criticism from fellow presidential candidates, the American citizens, as well as people from all over the world.
Jeb Bush (Republican):

Carly Fiorina (Republican): “Trump’s overreaction is as dangerous as President Obama’s under-reaction,” Hillary Clinton (Democrat):

Bernie Sanders (Democrat):

When Trump’s campaign started, Huffington Post (which has a worldwide audience of 115 million), had in July shifted its coverage the ‘entertainment’ section instead of politics, because it was a “sideshow”. After the recent comment, Editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington wrote that it will no longer be called entertainment because “the ‘can you believe he said that?’ novelty has curdled and congealed into something repellent and threatening — laying bare a disturbing aspect of American politics.” 

Trump’s extremist ideologies are clearly making Americans uncomfortable, but he might fit right in with Indian politics. With rising debates over intolerance, freedom of speech and ideas of ‘Bharat’, hateful remarks are being spewed left, right and center. Many Indian politicians have made equally sexist, racist and downright problematic comments like:

1. Giriraj Singh, Union Minister: “Agar Rajiv Gandhi koi Nigerian ladies se byaah kiye hote, gori chamra na hota, toh kya Congress party uska netritwa sweekarti kya? (Had Rajiv married a Nigerian lady, had she not been fair-skinned, would the Congress have accepted her leadership?)”

2. Sakshi Maharaj, BJP M.P: “A strong law should be put in place to hang people responsible for cow slaughter.”

3. General V.K. Singh, Union Minister of State for External Affairs (on being questioned about the murder of two Dalit children in Haryana): “To har cheez par, ki wahan par pathar maar diya kutte ko to, sarkar jimmewaar hai. Aisa nahi hai. (For everything…like if somebody throws a stone at a dog, then the Central Government is responsible…it is not like that).”

4. Subramanian Swamy, BJP leader: “A mosque is not a religious place. It is just a building. It can be demolished any time. If anyone disagrees with me on this, I am ready to have a debate on the issue. I got this information from people of Saudi Arabia.”

5. Digvijay Singh, General Secretary, Congress: “Our party MP, Meenakshi Natrajan, is a Gandhian, simple and an honest leader. She keeps going from place to place in her constituency. I am a seasoned smith of politics. Meenakshi sau tunch maal hai (desirable object).” 

While Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made the generous offer of giving Donald Trump a ticket to space (one-way?), wonder if there is some room left for more.