Could Trump’s large midterm defeat mean that the anti-tolerance, exclusionary, and pro-autocracy tide the world has faced for some years is beginning to reverse? Was that also the message, not many days earlier, from Lula’s comfortable victory over Bolsonaro in Brazil?
When, on Nov. 4, Vice President J. D. Vance blamed the war in Iran for the Republicans’ sweeping losses in the U.S., did he indicate that he shared this reading? “The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote in a lengthy post on X. He also pointed to Trump’s remarks acknowledging that the war had played a role in the Republican setback.
A Democratic-led Senate means that the party will have more power to launch investigations into the Trump administration and can stymie his nominations to Cabinet posts and lifetime federal judgeships, says an analysis by PBS. This analysis expects the new Congress to focus, among other things, on (a) interactions between government officials and private corporations who’ve tried to wield influence with the White House, (b) the Trump family’s business dealings, and (c) the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
What U.S. Reporters Are Able to Do
I was struck that despite its record of risky waywardness, the Trump presidency allowed, late in the night of Nov. 3, reporters of the oft-critical New York Times to ask the lame duck president for his reactions as he was receiving news of defeat after defeat. This video where Tyler Pager and Erica Green speak to President Trump while he learns to his disappointment that the late Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline too has lost her Senate battle (in South Carolina) showed that at least the tradition, accumulated over a long period, of honest conversation between the country’s most powerful individual and young journalists has endured in the U.S. In most countries, such conversations do not occur.
Trump told Pager and Green that he was “absolutely willing to accept the results and to work with the Democrats” in the new Congress. But will a “boxed-in” Trump “lash out internationally,” most likely in Iran and Cuba, an article in Foreign Affairs asks?
On the other hand, as the damage from some of his policies sinks in, will Trump desist from further attempts at forcing distant nations to do his bidding?
The world looks at tough challenges. Continuing demonstrations across France, which began over the condition of high schools and then went wider. Similar demonstrations in Germany. Unending war between Russia and Ukraine. The Strait of Hormuz stalemate, which has raised prices everywhere. Ceaseless aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere in their occupied lands. And much more.
Where Are the Leaders?
Where are our world’s leaders? Sharply divided global powers have removed the U.N.’s teeth. You scan the globe again and again but fail to see an influential party truly engaged in finding solutions, restoring peace, or protecting coexistence.
We the people can look at ourselves, too, and ask if we are applying to different conflicts the same standards of right and wrong, of what’s acceptable and what’s not.
That Palestinians are not our planet’s only sufferers is not reason enough for forgetting them. Even though the U.N. hasn’t been able to mount a credible effort to give them justice, at least it has demanded a flow of some aid to Gaza, and it has set up an Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
According to The Hindu of Nov. 2, Justice Srinivasan Muralidhar, the chair of this commission, has said that “Israel’s policy is to maximize the occupation of Palestinian territories and minimize the Palestinian population.” Speaking on “The View from India” podcast of The Hindu, Justice Muralidhar added that the commission has concluded that the intent of the Israeli government is “to prevent Palestinians from existing as a group.”
Incredible Courage
No high-level commission is needed to recognize the incredible courage of Israelis who continue to oppose their government’s policies towards Palestinians. Withstanding mounting pressure, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz continues to ask for bare justice for Palestinians. Exercising their democratic right, brave Israeli journalists have made documentaries in defense of Palestinian children, women and men that are honored by the world.
Should we distinguish between polities where relatively free elections occur and other places where dictatorships extend from decade to decade? People who think that we can and should make this distinction, and who think, moreover, that in private and in public a yea should be a yes, and a nay a no, are disappointed when the president of the world’s richest and strongest democracy regards greed as a virtue and employs bluffs and bombs as negotiating tools.
Rally in Delhi
I.N.D.I.A. stands for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, a bloc of opposition parties formed in 2023 to arrest what was seen as the tide of authoritarianism spearheaded by the BJP, the political party that has dominated India from 2014, along with the supposedly cultural RSS, which for more than a hundred years has been injecting Hindu superiority into all sections of Indian society.
Mounting evidence of tampering with voter lists caused this “INDIA” bloc to call for a mass rally in Delhi on Sunday Nov. 1 to demand the ouster of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Since October had seen the swift seizure and removal in Delhi of demonstrators who made the same demand under the banner of the pressure group formed in May this year, the Cockroach Janta Party, two questions were asked before the INDIA rally. Would people show up? Would the regime allow them to show up?
Well, hundreds of thousands did show up at the historic Ramilila Maidan, filling many adjacent streets as well, and the regime didn’t or couldn’t stop them. On Nov. 2, the headline in The Telegraph of Kolkata read: “Batman, Spider-Man, Class VI boy, 93-year-old, sadhu, farmer, all at INDIA’s Delhi rally.” A second headline revealed the crux of popular grievance: “A long chain of people held up a cloth banner that was at least half a kilometre long and bore the names of 90 lakh deleted voters.” (90 lakh = 9 million)
The INDIA bloc alleges that a clear majority of deleted names are of people who would vote against the BJP: Muslims or “lower-caste” Hindus. BJP supporters claim that Muslim protests will only consolidate Hindu votes in Modi’s favor.
How Real Is the “Infiltration”?
On Nov. 2, Home Minister Amit Shah said at a public meeting in the city of Hyderabad (which has a large Muslim population) that the country’s election commission had “identified three crore (30 million) people as non-voters or infiltrators.” He further said: “Who are these three crore people? They are infiltrators. These votes were those of Bangladeshi infiltrators. Should we not remove them from the rolls? But [Rahul Gandhi] says we shouldn’t remove them.” Shah added that the Bharatiya Janata Party would remove “every infiltrator from the electoral rolls”.
Opposition leaders claim that not thirty million but less than one thousand infiltrators have been identified, most of them Hindus arriving from Nepal, not Bangladeshi Muslims. They also ask about the efficiency of a regime that cannot stop millions of allegedly hostile foreigners from allegedly entering India. Shah and Modi have reckoned that bombarding India with the specter of large-scale Muslim infiltration, when no such thing exists, will benefit the BJP at election time.
At least partially, the debate may be settled by state-level elections due in February or March next year in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Manipur. Elections to the national parliament, the Lok Sabha, will only come in 2029.
Judging by the Nov. 1 rally, the INDIA bloc can be expected to put up a good show in U.P., India’s largest state, which extends eastward from Delhi’s border. There the Samajwadi Party, led by Akhilesh Yadav, a former chief minister of the state, bears a rejuvenated look, and to the SP the Congress Party can be expected to provide solid support. Akhilesh Yadav made a powerful speech to the Nov. 1 rally and his partnership with Rahul Gandhi of the Congress Party was in full display.
Also central to the rally was Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress, the party that ruled populous West Bengal for 15 years before the BJP defeated her earlier this year. The Delhi rally, it may be added, received unambiguous support from the Cockroach Janta Party.
The reality of voter deletion and the large-scale thefts of donations at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya could hurt the BJP in U.P. Opposition hopes have been raised by the BJP’s defeats in elections at October-end to the upper house of the U.P. legislature from the graduates’ and teachers’ constituencies of Varanasi, the ancient city, sacred to Hindus, which Narendra Modi chose as his seat for entering the Lok Sabha. The SP handily defeated the BJP in both the Varanasi seats. In the state as a whole, the BJP won 6 seats as against the SP’s 5 in this fringe election.
The Telegraph’s report on the Delhi rally, written by Amiya Kumar Kushwaha, went on to say:
“If some of the younger participants seemed to have come out of curiosity, the rally was serious business for Dhanush Yadav, 93, of Aurangabad, Bihar. He was part of a group of RJD supporters. (The RJD is the BJP’s principal rival in Bihar state.) ‘I’m old but I won’t rest. I have come to save the Constitution,’ he said.
“Many had clearly put a lot of thought into how to present themselves and drive home their message. In this, the footprint of the June-July Cockroach Janta Party protest was evident, with many youngsters donning T-shirts inscribed with memes.
“Vanish, Mr. Gyanesh”
“One tee had Andhbhakt (blind follower) emblazoned across it. Another protester displayed a soft toy monkey with ‘56-inch’ written on it. Some carried Che Guevara banners, some held up placards saying ‘Vote chor, gaddi chhod’ (Vote stealer, leave the throne) and ‘Vote bachao, desh bachao’ (Save the vote, save the nation).
“Banwari Lal, a 72-year-old farmer from Haryana, said no one could stop him from raising his voice against discrimination. An 80-year-old retired teacher from Varanasi, Vidhya Dhar, said: ‘I shall keep raising my voice as long as I am active.’
“People came from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand. They arrived on buses, trucks and trains waving party flags of the Congress, Samajwadi Party, RJD and the Left. Huge applause greeted Rahul and Mamata Banerjee as they began their speeches.
“Many picked up Mamata’s jibe at Gyanesh — “Vanish, vanish, yes Papa” — and kept repeating it. Police detained several students on Minto Road as they marched towards Connaught Place.
Arpita Das, who works with a publishing house, posted on X: ‘The walk from CP to Ramlila Maidan via Minto Road was nothing short of electric today. In my life in Delhi, I have been part of many protest marches but this was unprecedented. It was joyous, carnivalesque, powerful, unforgettable.’ She signed off: ‘What a show of strength and unity I.N.D.I.A. bloc! Seriously impressed and inspired!’”
They might be citizens of other nations, but people of Indian origin anywhere on the planet have been assured by the Modi regime, and by earlier governments, of a cordial welcome in India. They are entitled to an Overseas Citizen of India (or OCI) card, which among other things does away with the need for an Indian visa.
Not on an Indian Street
But when Imran Khan, a well-known Indian actor, joined a protest in Mumbai over vote deletion, a prominent BJP figure in the city, Kirit Somaiya, complained, asserting that Khan couldn’t protest in India because he was a U.S. citizen, even if he held an OCI card. The police agreed with Somaiya and so did the Bombay High Court. An apology was demanded and tendered, as also an undertaking not to protest again. We don’t know whether Khan will lose his OCI card.
On the screen, Imran Khan can charge anyone with any crime and people watching him in India will applaud. But he must not say on an Indian street that deleting citizens’ votes is wrong. He may be forced onto a flight out of India if he does.
Last week I wrote about the hunger-strike by students of one of Delhi’s premier universities, founded in 1920, the Jamia Millia Islamia. I am glad to report that that hunger-strike has been called off. The university authorities, who function under the education ministry of the Indian government, have agreed to key demands raised by the protesting students, including setting a timeline for the implementation of the students’ union constitution and revoking disciplinary action linked to the protests.
All disciplinary actions, show-cause notices, suspensions and campus bans linked to students’ participation in the protests have been revoked.
