The spectacular Rajyog of Shahenshah Donald J Trump

trump-2115838_1920There is a concept called Rajyog, a period in which a king will reign and flourish, while all his enemies will perish. Those who ally with him will prosper and those oppose him will bite the dust. I had written about this in The spectacular international Rajyog of Narendra Modi.

Now one could say that the same has been happening to US President Donald J Trump. Trump has always been a bull in a china shop. First, Trump steamrolled real estate, then reality TV, then the Republican nomination process, then the US Presidential election, then America and finally the world.

trump-2815558_1920He just seems unstoppable. He’s put the first nail in the coffin of Obamacare. The “Climate Change” bogey has been kicked in its pants. Political correctness has been thrown out of the window. Jerusalem will be the official capital of Israel.

The economy is looking up along with the job prospects. He is giving a fillip to Make in America, the energy industry and he’s even trying to push manufacturing and the IT industry. He’s also the first President who’s really trying to drain the swamp.

In 2017 he has come out with one executive order after another and also pushed a fair bit of legislation and he is totally on the path to keep most of his election promises, a rarity for any politician.

As mentioned above, during a Rajyog, all your enemies perish and boy does Trump have many! A look at how all of them are faring…

america-2025465_640The Democratic Party: When Barack Obama came to the US Presidency, it seemed that a Democratic dictatorship was upon America, but when he left, it seemed like we are headed for a Republican dictatorship. Obama was the worst President ever.

The Republican Party has never been this powerful since its inception in the middle of the nineteenth century. It now controls the White House, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court and has most of the Governorships and State legislatures. That upward trend was cemented by Trump.

The extremely popular Bernie Sanders is still sidelined, lame duck Obama continues to overshadow everyone, Hillary Clinton refuses to go away as the rest of the Democratic Party is in total disarray.

black-and-white-2600678_1920Hollywood: Hollywood is hard Left, full Liberal and the ultimate Trump Hateland. Well it is now sinking in sexual molestation charges starting with the Harvey Weinstein revelations. So many stars face sexual misconduct allegations: Ben Affleck, Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Steven Seagal, Oliver Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Dustin Hoffman, Geoffrey Rush, Richard Dreyfuss, George Takei, Alec Baldwin, Roman Polanski…

Phew! What a roll call (it tops 100, according to some lists) and what a fall for a bunch of people who have been shouting from the rooftops that Trump is a Hitler, a Nazi and an anti-woman monster!

Trump haters like Shia Lebouf have seen a total mental breakdown while the likes of Jennifer Lawrence are seeing their career go up in flames. Supreme moral guardian Meryl Streep looks like a royal fool blasting Trump 24X7 but doing business and hobnobbing with Hollywood molesters 24X7 at the same time.

Hollywood is also killing off golden gooses like the Star Wars franchise. Ticket sales are also at an all-time low and US 2017 sales have matched that of those sold in 1995 even though the population has increased and there has been an explosion of multiplexes. Outright box office disaster has been saved by much higher ticket prices, especially thanks to 3D, but for how long can they sustain it? One wonders how long can they go on without an extra creativity and the same ole sequels and reboots.

news-2094390_1920Mainstream media: The biggest attackers of Trump, they were all the virtual campaign arm of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential race. Nobody told them that Hillary lost in 2016 as they continue to campaign for her even as 2018 is upon us.

The ratings of CNN have crashed. The AT&T deal with Time Warner (of which CNN is a part) has been blocked. The New York Times had to rent many floors of its office space to raise cash. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos owns Washington Post and is a CIA contractor.

Buzzfeed is under federal scrutiny for its role in the golden shower dossier. Trump hater Ariana Huffington couldn’t even hold on to her Huffington Post. A new wave of Alt Media has already beaten traditional media in terms of page views and YouTube views and one wonders how much longer the advertisers can keep them propped up.

I had written his in detail in The men who killed the mainstream media. After the Weinstein scandal, skeletons are also tumbling out of the sexual harassment cupboard of the mainstream media. The MSM is also committing suicide over the fake and bullshit Russia story.

Also read: Trump and Modi’s victories show public decides elections, not media

at-t-stadium-740537_1280NFL: What has the National Football League got to do with Trump? Well it all started with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem before a game to protest against racism. That metamorphosed into a full-on battle between the NFL (mostly through its players, some officials and commentators) and Trump.

Predictably Kaepernick soon found himself out of a job, TV viewership went into decline, spectator attendance started falling in stadiums, sponsors started developing cold feet and revenues declined. There was even a viral video of a fan burning all his NFL merchandise.

journalist-985075_640Megyn Kelly/Fox: Megyn of Fox asked this question to Trump at the beginning of the Republican nomination process…

“You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals…”

This was the beginning of an interrogation that should have ended Trump’s Presidency dreams right there. Trump would either have to deny it or apologize and both would have sunk him. However Trump raised his finger with a swagger and replied…

“Only Rosie O’Donnell!”

The crowd went wild. That was the beginning of his rise and that swagger took him straight to the White House. Megyn on the other hand went on a downward spiral being humiliated by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and then Vladimir Putin. Her show ratings plummeted.

Fox News was lagging and then jumped on the Trump train and ended up on top of the ratings. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was a Trump hater but changed tack. But the damage was done. Murdoch just announced the sale of Fox Entertainment to Disney. While he’s gained a lot of money, he’s just lost a lot of power.

terrorism-2654452_1920Islamic State: What became the Islamic State was gathering around for more than a decade and gained force in 2013. Islamic State attacked and had called for the assassination of Trump. Guess what? After Trump became President, they started waning and today control hardly any territory and have become just another declining mobile terrorist group like Al-Qaeda.

arch-745678_1280Iran: Israel is America’s best military and strategic and friend in West Asia while Saudi Arabia is the best Capitalistic-oil partner there. Obama tried to kick them both and embrace Iran, giving them tonnes of cash and letting them go nuclear.

But now Trump has put the squeeze back on Iran and embraced the above two. What’s more, Israel and Saudi Arabia have formed a sort of unofficial partnership. Jerusalem has been recognized as the official capital of Israel.

The Israel-Saudi duo is calling shots in the region and Iran has been left out in the cold. Iran is increasingly becoming powerless and could face military action against it in the long run.

sunset-2813759_1920Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal: This Saudi prince was one of the most powerful and richest men in the world, the biggest shareholder in Twitter. He also had stakes in Apple, AOL and Fox Broadcasting.

Then he Tweeted this to Trump…

.@realDonaldTrump
You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.
Withdraw from the U.S presidential race as you will never win.

Replied Trump…

Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016

In 2017, Al-Waleed was arrested, lost a good part of his income and according to one report was hung upside down and beaten. Very few Obama-Hillary sympathizers and Trump haters are left in power in the Saudi government.

cartoon-2026565_640Hillary Clinton: She had Obama, the Democratic Party, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the mainstream media, liberals, intelligentsia, academics… all eating out of her hands but now thanks to Trump she stands isolated and is a laughing stock. A lot of scandals related to Obama-Hillary are coming out of the closet and it remains to be seen whether Trump takes any action against them.

James Comey: Comey became the all-powerful FBI director in 2013 and was looking at completing his 10-year term and hired a Special Counsel to fix Trump. Well Trump shocked Comey by promptly firing him.

miley-cyrus-81867_1280Celebrities: Eminem, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Michael Moore, Lena Dunham, Cher, JK Rowling…  The huge number of Trump hating celebrities who faced total meltdown and became laughing stocks in 2017 was really alarming.

Theresa May: When the UK Prime Minister blasted Trump over some of his ReTweets over Islamic threats, Trump thundered back

.@Theresa_May, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!

(Trump is a master user of Twitter)

Today May is hated by the people of England, her own party and her own people. Add the dangerous Trump to her list. Now trade wise UK may be squeezed by both the EU and America on both sides and really suffer. People keep attacking Trump and never learn.

un-1190183_640United Nations: All world leaders hate Trump and the UN symbolizes that perfectly. Well Trump is hitting back and has started rolling back aid to the UN over the Jerusalem issue and this is just the beginning of the decline of the UN.

Angela Merkel: Another Trump hater who was at her peak of power before Trump entered the Presidential race in 2015 and is becoming more and more irrelevant as Trump’s Presidency progresses. She is struggling to stay the Chancellor of Germany in a badly fractured coalition government.

elephant-964294_1920The Republican leadership: Senior Republican leaders hated Trump, but they are being blown away. If you align yourself with Trump, you win, if you attack him you lose. This is a bitter lesson that the Republican Party is learning and is slowly moulding itself in the image of Trump.

Trump is also the biggest attacker of concepts like…

hammer-2105611_640Communism: Many political parties. Mainstream media. Academia. Colleges. intelligentsia. Film makers and artists. They all leaned severely Left and were by and large left alone by Rightist leaders like George W Bush and backed to the hilt by Obama-Hillary. However Communism is being taken head on by Trump who is and out and out Capitalist.

Political Correctness: A pet obsession of the Left, it has already been thrown into the dustbin.

Social Justice Warriors: They’ve never had it so bad and are frothing in rage 24X7 after the advent of Trump.

Globalization: Was a one-way street before Trump happened. Now the global leaders who were pushing globalization unilaterally are facing a backlash and localization is coming back, albeit slowly.

Unfettered immigration: Seemed to be the future but now many countries are having second thoughts one by one.

Climate Change: Trump withdrew from the Paris accord and is backing the oil lobby to the hilt. This lobby was always suspect.

Coming soon…

north-korea-2972195_1920Kim Jong-un: Can the North Korean dictator get away after threatening America and Trump so much?

Silicon Valley: These Trump haters have so far escaped the wrath of Trump, but is an antitrust move coming against them?

Robert Mueller: Will the Special Counsel fix Trump or himself get fixed?

2017 was an amazing year for Trump and catastrophic for Trump haters.

Let’s see what happens in 2018!

© Sunil Rajguru

Also read…

10 ways how Trump will turn the globe totally upside down

Donald Trump’s US presidency was inevitable: 10 reasons why

Star Wars is dead!

LightsaberStar Wars is officially dead. They may make dozens of more movies and make billions of more dollars, but the “galaxy far, far away” created by George Lucas is kaput. The Last Jedi is something out of a parallel universe where all the rules of the game have changed.

Where does one even begin to cover the new Star Wars instalment? (Spoilers!!!)

1. Most colourless characters ever.

daisy-jazz-isobel-ridley-2029555_1280The light side is too light: This is the saddest and least charismatic bunch of rebels ever. Rey is by far the weakest of all the main characters that ever appeared in the Star Wars universe and yet she is presented as a combination of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo. The most powerful person in the galaxy without training of any kind! A true Mary Sue!

If they used someone like Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), they might have pulled it off, but definitely not Daisy Ridley! Finn is at best above average. Poe is just about OK. Rose is in competition with Jar Jar Binks for the most irrelevant character of the entire Star Wars saga.

The dark side isn’t dark enough: Even Ben Solo looks like a pansy maybe just like Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy. But when Anakin puts the mask on, Darth Vader is God. Kylo Ren in comparison is still a pansy. A poor imitation! What about the replacement of the Emperor? Supreme Leader Snoke looks totally moth eaten without any back story and dies just like that. Even other characters like Captain Phasma look quite forced.

darth-maul-1555343_1280Prequel characters far better: You just can’t match the wonderful star cast of the original trilogy. No point in even discussing that. But no matter how much you criticize the prequel trilogy for its documentary-wooden feel and the problem with some of its characters like an anaemic Padme, jarring Jar Jar Binks and geriatric General Grievous, it nonetheless had many other excellent characters… a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, a rejuvenated Yoda, Darth Sidious, Darth Maul, Darth Tyranus, Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu.

2. They keep leading you to something and then dupe you.

alfred-hitchcock-393745_1920I was once watching an Alfred Hitchcock documentary where the great director said something to the effect of: If you’re leading the audience to something and they expect it and it doesn’t happen, then they’ll hate you for it. Well that happens here all the time.

Rey: Despite being totally colourless, Rey’s redemption came when she almost joined hands with Kylo Ren to go to the dark side. The whole film was leading up to that point. Even Luke tells her on Ahch-To that she couldn’t even resist the dark side during training.

Rey seemed to be a long lost Skywalker or Solo or related to some other well-known Star Wars character the way they kept bringing up her origin and her parentage throughout The Force Awakens and the first half of The Last Jedi. But we are suddenly told out of the blue told that she is a total nobody.

kylo-rens-lightsaber-1193161_1280Kylo Ren and Rey team up brilliantly to beat all of Snoke’s guards. But she doesn’t want to join hands with Kylo and won’t go to the dark side. The redemption came and went. The director and story writer just snatched it away from her and she became totally colourless again.

Kylo Ren looked like a whining cry baby in front of Snoke in The Force Awakens. But in The Last Jedi he stands up and kills Snoke and his character becomes far more complex with his psychic link with Rey. Going forward this would have saved both the characters, but the link was brutally broken.

bb8-droid-1141513_1920Finn: Finn seemed to have no role in this entire movie except being bullied by maintenance worker Rose for no rhyme or reason. Then his redemption also came. On Crait the cannon is the only thing that can get through to the Resistance fortress.

When all speeders fail to foil the cannon, Finn goes on a suicide mission and that seems the only option left. It’s a great scene where he’s heading straight into the beam and getting closer and closer. It’s getting hotter and hotter and the scene is getting blurred.

There’s great tension in the air and just when he’s about to hit the cannon and save the day, Rose comes out of nowhere and bangs her speeder with his. (A maintenance worker who happens to be a better pilot than both Poe and Finn. No training of any kind is required in this trilogy!) So the save vanishes. The redemption vanishes.

It’s ridiculous. When an incredulous Finn asked Rose why she would do that, she moronically replies, “We’re going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!”

That’s utter crap and makes no sense at all. Why would you do that?

Luke: OK, they were making way for Luke after the above scene. So Luke pops out of nowhere on Crait. (How did he get there?) He has a tender moment with Leia and gives her some random golden dice which make no sense at that particular moment.

Then he comes out and takes all the rebel fire and comes out of it totally unscathed. That’s cool. He even can let a light sabre go through him. That’s cooler. Then a let-down! He’s actually a hologram or astral projection or whatever. When it all happens it looks cool but later you feel totally let down.

Then we have the following dialogue…

Kylo Ren: I’ll destroy her. And you. And all of it.
Luke Skywalker: No. Strike me down in anger and I’ll always be with you. Just like your father.

You think Kylo Ren will “kill” Luke the way Darth Vader “killed” Obi Wan Kenobi. However nothing of the sort happens and back on the island Luke vanishes into the sunset. If he had to die, why not die at the hand of Kylo Ren?

spaceship-2841276_1280Vice admiral Holdo: She is presented as a selfish incompetent character, but then made a martyr in the end. She looks to hate Poe. But when he’s unconscious and stunned she tells Leia that she likes him. Star Wars keeps trying for twists and turns to surprise you but they are not really that. They are a character’s 180 degrees which absolutely make no sense at all.

Finn Rey Poe Rose: In the original trilogy there was a potential love triangle between Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo before they quickly resolved it because the former two were siblings. Here we are shown the potential of Finn and Rey getting together. Then there’s a potential Finn Poe bromance with Poe taking Finn’s jacket and awkward hugs and all.

Finally out of the blue Rose comes, commandeers Finn and decides his destiny and they kiss. Again this is not a twist but a nonsensical 180 degree turn.

3. They made a conscious decision to kill off the old Star Wars.

millenium-falcon-1627322_1920They have killed the old universe and tried to make a new one, but is it any better?

Usage of the Force: The Force used to be a mystical fantastic concept which you could master only with great training and meditation and mentored by a great Jedi master. The prequel trilogy diluted this by bringing in midi-chlorians.

But The Last Jedi puts everything into the dustbin. Now anyone like Rey can master the Force by clicking her fingers and all Jedi masters can simply go to hell. Also the Force can be anything you want it to be. Use your imagination and keep expanding it, it seems.

Even Leia using the Force to get out of the vacuum of space was like nothing she’s done in the entire series till now.

darth-vader-1207142_1920The Rule of Two: The Emperor Darth Sidious first had Darth Maul then Darth Tyranus and finally Darth Vader. Each master-apprentice was a masterpiece combo, especially the last. The Emperor even tries to take Luke as his next apprentice.

That way Snoke keeps insulting Kylo Ren and the relationship is uncertain and totally unlike the above. When Kylo Ren kills Snoke, he is shown as taking no apprentice. He tries to join hands with Rey but she can’t be his apprentice for she’s apparently more powerful than him.

star-wars-1181724_1280A Stormtrooper rebels: For six movies Stormtroopers are obedient dumb weapons of war who all just keep shooting and shooting. But out of all those hundreds of thousands of Stormtroopers Finn rebels. Why? Why only one? Why after such a long time? Why not many more after him? Why not any more rebellions in The Last Jedi now that the trend has been started?

Light speed into another ship: This is the gravest error ever made in the Star Wars universe. It throws all the rules of galactic warfare out of the window. Any ship capable of light speed suddenly becomes the most powerful weapon in the universe. The ultimate galactic Suicide Bomber.

I am referring to the incident where Holdo rams Snoke’s fleet at light speed. So now you can just ram any vehicle at light speed into a Death Star or Death Planet or Empire/First Order base or Emperor/Snoke residence and kill anyone or anything you want.

This is a recipe for disaster. This is like having potentially thousands of suicide nuclear bombers. The civilization in the entire galaxy can end due to this flaw. It would lead to total chaos in the galaxy.

Kill the Jedi: This should be the actual name of the movie. Burn all the Jedi books as Yoda chuckles. Finish off the Jedi order as if it’s a joke. Kill off Han Solo just like that. Kill off Snoke just like that. Kill off the lovable Admiral Ackbar just like that. Kill off the entire legacy without having anything concrete replace it!

Luke: This was the worst of all. If you watched the original trilogy, then Luke’s future should have been grand. He should have either become President of the Republic or Grand Master of the Jedi Council or simply gone to the Dark Side out of sheer boredom.

Absolutely nothing of the sort happened. He opened a Jedi school which went wrong and then became a coward and a hermit in some obscure corner of the galaxy collecting the milk of strange sea creatures directly out of their teats.

Is this how you treat the greatest hope at the end of the original trilogy?

Han is dead. Luke is dead. Leia may not return. Rey-Kylo Ren didn’t get together. One really wonders how they are going to redeem Episode IX.

4. No real storyline.

writing-1209121_1920The Force Awakens was nothing but a rehash of A New Hope and The Last Jedi is a mish-mash of many things masquerading as goodness knows what. And as mentioned above, they keep leading to a story path and then totally diverting from it. Even the prequel trilogy also had a clear story which went forward.

The initial Resistance attack with the Dreadnaught and its alleged weaknesses and bombs falling down on it in the absence of gravity made no sense. The whole gambling den codebreaker diversion could have been avoided altogether. Holdo’s holding back information of Crait made no sense. The tracking itself is contrived.

Finn’s aborted suicide mission makes way for Luke’s hologram. Luke’s hologram cannot die, but he still dies at the end of it. The whole story is riddled with one contradiction after another.

Obi-Wan Kenobi trying to kill Anakin Skywalker made sense.
Darth Vader killing Kenobi made sense.
Darth Vader and Luke trying to kill each other made sense.

Ben Solo killing Han Solo made no sense.
Luke trying to kill Ben made no sense.
The way Snoke was killed made no sense.

5. Everything reminded you of…

alan-rick-man-1915292_1920For some reason everything in the movie reminded me of the Harry Potter Universe, especially the gambling outpost imagery. Rey’s mirror scene reminded me of the mirror scene in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. When Rey meditates into a blackish well kind of thingy I almost imagined Voldemort saying in his raspy voice, “Harry Potter!”

The scene in which Snoke is killed is very remeniscient of Harry Potter too. Voldemort practices Legilimency to pry into Severus Snape’s mind and he successfully uses Occlumency to thwart him. Here too: Snoke practices a Legilimency type technique to pry into Kylo Ren’s mind, who successfully uses an Occlumency type technique to thwart him.

Both Voldemort and Snoke look like withered dark lords. Both Kylo Ren and Snape look the same with their pale troubled faces and hairstyle to boot. The Force is also metamorphiszing into the Magic of the Harry Potter universe and can now be used to do everything. They might as well replace the lightsaber with the magic wand in Episode IX.

Even Luke disappearing into the sunset is something like the way Oogway goes in Kung Fu Panda.

6. Politically Correct Star Wars for Social Justice Warriors?

communism-17143_640Is this a PC SJW Star Wars? Sadly that is what it appears to be. The cast looks to be filling diversity quotas instead of being picked on raw talent and there’s a lot of forced feminism throughout the movie.

Luke and Han abdicate everything to make way for Leia to gain total control.

Kylo Ren defeats Snoke but is totally subordinate to Rey.

Poe is at the mercy of Holdo.

Finn is henpecked by Rose.

All the males have been emasculated.

At the gambling outpost on Canto Bight it’s all about capitalism, arms dealers and animal rights.

The First Order is modelled on the Nazis.

Everyone knows that Hollywood leans Left, but they are bordering on outright Communist propaganda nowadays and will go bust one day at this rate.

In summation a great watch, but…

red-1556342_640Of course all Star Wars movies will continue to make billions. Why? Visually they’re all awesome. Among the three trilogies, The Last Jedi one by far has the best special effects (naturally, the budget is bigger and it’s the latest instalment) and that’s what keeps it going forward.

It’s also one great scene after another (even though the scenes may not have a real connect and make no sense when you analyse them critically). Superficially brilliant. I never thought I’d say this, but it’s a Bollywood movie. Why? Because in a Bollywood movie you are supposed to leave your brains at home to enjoy it thoroughly and forget about it afterwards!

So the Star Wars franchise may be dead, but hey, even zombies can make billions in Hollywood!

© Sunil Rajguru

The political death of Narendra Modi is greatly exaggerated…

fake-2355686_12802002.
Gujarat goes to polls amidst the cloud of Godhra.
Forecast: Modi is finished!

2007.
Gujarat goes to the polls in the “absence of polarization”.
Forecast: Modi is finished!

2009.
Gujarat: Congress wins 15 MPs in Gujarat, BJP 11.
Forecast: Modi is finished!

2013.
Modi made campaign chief and decks cleared to become Prime Ministerial candidate.
Forecast: Modi is finished!

2015.
BJP royally plastered in Bihar and Delhi.
Forecast: Modi is finished!

2017.
BJP gets landslide in Himachal Pradesh but wins narrowly in Gujarat.
Forecast: Modi is finished!

india-get-166300_1280The reports of my political death are grossly exaggerated.
—Modi.
(Coming soon: How 2019 will end the Modi story)

© Sunil Rajguru

Modi’s electoral success set to surpass even Nehru and Indira

borders-2099205_1280Modi’s electoral performance in terms of size of electorate (population) where the BJP was in power or the opposition or at least had an outside chance to win…

1. Lok Sabha 2014 — Won.

2. Uttar Pradesh 2017 — Won.

3. Maharashtra 2014 — Won.

4. Bihar 2015 — Lost but converted to “Won” in 2017.

5. Madhya Pradesh 2013 — Won.

6. Rajasthan 2013 — Won.

7. Gujarat 2017 — Won.

8. Gujarat 2012 — Won.

9. Gujarat 2007 — Won.

10. Gujarat 2002 — Won.

11. Jharkhand 2014 — Won.

12. Assam 2016 — Won.

13. Chhattisgarh 2013 — Won.

14. Haryana 2014 — Won.

15. J&K 2014 — Won.

16. Uttarakhand 2017 — Won.

17. Himachal Pradesh 2017 — Won.

18. Manipur  2017 — Won by default.

19. Goa 2017 — Won by default.

20. The biggest defeat of his career and his absolute annihilation is Delhi. Kejriwal got a whopping 67/70 seats. But here’s the thing. Delhi is the 30th largest province of India by population and the Chief Minister there is a glorified mayor.

parliament-2028311_640Note: BJP has no presence in States like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala and is a junior partner in States like Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. But even that is changing.

Curious for a man who has won almost all his biggest challenges and lost some of his smaller ones is always on test for the mainstream media for his abilities and he will still be attacked in 2019.

© Sunil Rajguru

The spectacular international Rajyog of Narendra Damodardas Modi

bright-1866986_640There is a concept in India called Rajyog, a period in which a king will reign and flourish, while all his enemies will perish. Those who ally with him will prosper and those oppose him will bite the dust.

Narendra Modi saw a spectacular rise from 2012–14 during which he won almost every State Assembly election he campaigned for and he made Prime Minister of India by reducing a party which had ruled much of India to a record low and abysmal 44/543 seats (8%) in Parliament while he led his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to 282 seats in the May 2014 general elections.

All his regional rivals perished one by one but when he looked at the international stage, the same thing started happening there too. Probably his biggest regional rival when he took over was Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. India first backed the dreaded LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and then fought them with disastrous results, losing a war and then former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Rajapaksa beat the LTTE and then warmed up to China, much to the chagrin of India who looked on helplessly. When Modi took over, Rajapaksa was at his peak and looked good to win in 2015 and rule till 2020. And then in January 2015, out of the blue, Rajapaksa lost. Absolutely nobody saw that coming. Rajapaksa tried to be Prime Minister the same year, but lost that too. The new Sri Lanka leadership is much more amenable to working with Modi and is not openly baiting Modi the way Rajapaksa was.

israel-2131247_640India was a rare non-Muslim country which opposed the creation of Israel in the United Nations and did nothing to mend ties with that country till 1991. Till 2014 the ties between the two countries got better and better but they didn’t create much fuss.

Then it all came out of the closet after Modi took over and he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formed a mutual admiration society and started praising each other and promising everyone their ties would be taken to the next level.

A few months after Rajapaksa was defeated, Netanyahu went to the polls and the consensus was that he would be defeated. In a surprise verdict he wasn’t. Against all odds, he emerged triumphant and now he and Modi are seriously cementing ties between India and Israel.

A few months after Netanyahu’s victory, there were elections in the United Kingdom. David Miliband is a good friend of Modi’s rival and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi. When David visited Rahul, the two spent the night in a Dalit’s hut in an Uttar Pradesh village. Rahul also posted photos of the two on social media when they met in Aspen.

Prime Minister David Cameron on the other hand seemed more aligned with Modi. #AbKiBaarModiSarkaar (This time a Modi government) was a catchy slogan of the 2014 polls. When Cameron met an Indian journalist, he said #AbKiBaarCameronSarkaar! In the UK elections Cameron was either supposed to lose or a hung Parliament was to favour Labour led by David’s brother Ed Miliband.

In a shocker, Cameron thrashed Miliband 330–232 as the former did well even in Labour bastions and the latter was forced to retire. Another friend of Modi had won a surprising victory. Another Modi catchy slogan was #AccheDin (Good days). When Cameron stood with Modi in Wembley Stadium, he declared, “Acche din zaroor aayenge” (Good days will definitely come)

Then Theresa May replaced Cameron and surprisingly she started moving Left and away from both the ideologies of Modi and US President Donald Trump and she is quite on shaky ground.

Talking of Trump and the US Presidential elections. Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton could be classified as a Modi hater. As Secretary of State, she ensured that US President Barack Obama was lukewarm to India.

hillary-41775_640Hillary has been a known Modi baiter and if she became US President, their ties would be quite rocky. While Trump has made a few digs about outsourcing, he has by and large been appreciative of the India story under Modi and praised him publicly on many occasions.

Modi and Trump have many things in common. Both are from the Right, have been attacked by the media, liberals and intellectuals. Both have a keen business sense and are straight talkers.

Read: Eerie similarities between reactions to Modi and Trump…

There is no doubt that Modi would have rather done business with Trump rather than Hillary. And guess what? Before the campaign began in 2015, most analysts said that Trump would not even make it to the Top 5 in the Republican race and Hillary would clinch her nomination in no time. Well Trump officially secured his nomination before Hillary and then thrashed her in the polls.

donald-trump-2005343_640Today Trump will be regularly found rubbishing Pakistan and praising Modi. Trump is growing more powerful by the day no matter what his haters are trying to tell you. Most world leaders have already warmed up to Modi. Even Trump’s predecessor Obama is a fan and actually installed a White House hotline with India. At a meet long ago he ran up to Modi, got hold of his hands and declared, “You’re the man!”

The two got together and revived the almost dead Indo-US nuclear deal. Modi surprised everyone by inviting Obama to be chief guest at India’s Republic Day parade in 2015. Obama surprised everyone by accepting the decision almost immediately.

While Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have had good ties for decades, no Pakistani head of State got the highest civilian honour, but it was bestowed on Modi. With that he joined an elite group of international leaders who had won that award. While America-Israel-Saudi Arabia is forming a troika in West Asia and isolating everyone there, India needn’t worry because it has excellent relations with all three.

Modi then got Afghanistan’s top civilian honour too. And to think he was dismissed as anti-Muslim once upon a time! Underworld Dawood Ibrahim operated with impunity in Karachi, but after Modi came to power, he may have been shifted to the border (if he’s not already dead) and his assets have been neutralized in Dubai because even UAE is warming up to Modi!

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was facing problems with Turkey, he asked Modi whether he could pick up Turkey’s business in case of a crisis. While a Russia-Turkey patch-up is underway, Putin still wants a special relationship with Modi.

abe-shinzo-867817_1280Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe follows very few people on Twitter. The third person he followed was Modi. It is difficult to believe that Modi was an unknown quantity on the world stage till 2014. After Abe signed a Bullet Train with Modi, he also got a surprise victory at the hustings. He has completed 5 years in office, a rarity for Japan premiership wracked by non-stop resignations.

In a Rajyog your friends do well and your rivals don’t. In the 2014 elections the previous Congress low was 114 seats in 1999 but with 44 in 2014 they couldn’t even officially claim the Leader of the Opposition status in the Lok Sabha. The next largest party was the ADMK and its leader Jayalalithaa died unfortunately but her successor Sasikala was convicted. A post-Sasikala ADMK has warmed up to Modi. After that comes the TMC and its leader Mamata Baneerjee too is under a cloud in the Saradha scam case and a total law and order break-down in West Bengal.

JDU’s Nitish Kumar split with the BJP and actually won the Bihar elections in 2015, but he was also forced to return to the BJP despite being a Modi hater once upon a time. The Shiv Sena allied with the BJP in Maharashtra but keeps attacking Modi and is getting weaker in the State. In fact in the recent statewide rural elections, BJP came first and the Congress distant second. Sena was behind the Congress!

india-712575_1920Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrabau Naidu warmed up to Modi and saw a surprise victory in 2014. New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal may have beaten Modi in Delhi, but he stands totally neutralized at the national level. From 1947-2013, the Congress had the most MLAs in India save for a brief period in 1977-1980 when the Janata Party went ahead, but they weren’t really single party but a coalition.

Modi took over as campaign chief in 2013 and for the first time ever the BJP overtook the Congress in 2015. It didn’t stop there. Today the Congress has around 800 MLAs while the BJP is in the region of 1400. It’s a no contest and that’s one factor hardly highlighted by the media. In fact in the Top 15 Indian States by population, Congress rules only 1, unprecedented for the Grand Old Party. If they lose Karnataka in 2018, it may be Game Over for them.

narendra-modi-2112081_640Modi is supreme in India and has no rival. On the world stage he stands tall too.

It is only the Indian mainstream media, Civil Society  and so called intellectuals who is trying to create a fake narrative that he is on shaky ground and faces tests every day and they are coming out with fake campaigns like the one related to intolerance.

Meanwhile, the spectacular Rajyog of Modi marches on!

(This is an updated version of an article that first appeared in June 2016)

Spectacular rise & rise of Pappu

profits-1953616_19202003: Armed with qualifications from Harvard and Cambridge he is a total no-one in politics.

2004: Enters politics and immediately becomes Lok Sabha MP in his very first attempt.

2007: Triple whammy! Promoted to Congress General Secretary, Chairperson of Indian Youth Congress and National Students Union of India!

2009: His magic leads to a whopping 42% growth of the Congress in the Lok Sabha: Great future hope for the media, intellectuals and Civil Society of India.

2013: Promoted to Congress Vice President by his sheer hard work and daring.

2017: Promoted to Congress President unanimously with no other option even remotely in sight.

2019: Presumptive official Prime Ministerial candidate of the Congress for the general elections and will still be the Great Hope for the anti-Modi brigade.

2024: Doesn’t matter what happens in 2019, for many he will still be the knight in shining armour if he should still happen to be around in this year or 2029 or 2034 or…

© Sunil Rajguru