A cult of personality that translates well
In a pro-trump nation, a farmer’s shrine would be a final gift to his ‘god’
NEW DELHI— In India, where throngs admire U.S. President Donald Trump, one rural farmer worshipped him like a god, praying to a life-size statue of Trump in his backyard every morning.
His village’s headman said that the young farmer, Bussa Krishna, had been drawn to Trump’s “straightforward ways and blunt speech.”
When Trump announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, it devastated Krishna. The farmer posted a tearful video on Facebook, in which he said: “I feel very sad that my god, Trump, has contracted the coronavirus. I ask everyone to pray for his speedy recovery.”
He stopped eating to show solidarity with his idol’s suffering from COVID-19, his family said. He fell into a deep depression. A week ago, he died of cardiac arrest.
Krishna’s devotion had made him into a minor celebrity in his country, and he was the subject of national headlines. His death made news across India.
One of his cousins, Vivek Bukka, said Krishna had been physically fit and had no health problems or history of heart disease. There is no evidence linking Krishna’s death to his fasting.
There is no indication that the White House or Trump — who said he had recovered from the virus and felt “powerful” after being treated with a cocktail of drugs — was aware of his biggest
fan in India.
Many of the country’s urban intellectuals dislike the American president, and he is regularly mocked on Indian social media platforms. But Trump has broad support among Indians: A February study by the Pew Research Center found that 56 per cent of people surveyed in India said that Trump would “do the right thing when it comes to world affairs,” up from 16 per cent when he was elected.
Trump’s popularity in some parts of India is notable because the cult of personality he has tried to cultivate — an unapologetically brash figure leading the United States to a bright new future while espousing “America First” — mirrors how India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, projects himself to his own supporters.
Krishna, a widowed farmer in his 30s who lived in the village of Konne in the southern state of Telangana, had been a Trump devotee for about four years.
He became a fan when the president appeared to him in a dream, his relatives said, and predicted that India’s national cricket squad would beat its arch-rival, Pakistan, in a match the next day.
India won, “and from that day he started worshipping Donald Trump,” said Vivek, Krishna’s cousin.
“At first everyone in the family thought he was mentally disturbed, but he kept at it, and everyone eventually came around,” Vivek said.
The farmer deeply admired the president as a leader, said Vivek, 25, who lives near the southern city of Hyderabad. Neighbours did not know much about U.S. politics and had no opinion of Trump, he added. But since Krishna was such a huge fan, they embraced his cause as a courtesy, even if it struck them as a little odd.
As Krishna’s devotion to Trump intensified, he began fasting every Friday, and he commissioned the construction of a shrine in his backyard with the life-size statue, Vivek said. He worshipped it with Hindu rituals for an hour or two each morning, as one might when praying to Krishna, Shiva, Ganesha or other gods in the Hindu pantheon.
One video of Krishna that has circulated widely online shows him performing a prayer ritual, or puja, before an altar that holds a picture of Trump.
Krishna’s obsession with Trump echoes that of people in other countries. In Afghanistan, a couple named their third child Donald Trump. The father admired the tycoon in Trump. But later, saying he no longer felt safe as a Trump supporter, he and his family fled Afghanistan. Krishna’s creation of a statue of Trump is also not unique. An architect built a giant wooden statue of Trump with vampire’s teeth in Slovenia, the native country of the first lady, Melania Trump. Some critics denounced it as a “waste of wood.”
That statue’s creator, Tomaz Schlegl, an architect, told Reuters, “I want to alert people to the rise of populism, and it would be difficult to find a bigger populist in this world than Donald Trump.”
A life-size wooden sculpture of Melania Trump, meanwhile, near the town of Sevnica, Slovenia, was set on fire. The commissioning artist replaced it with a bronze statue.
When Krishna learned of Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis, he locked himself in his room, Vivek said. “We tried to force him to eat, but he barely ate anything,” he said.
On Sunday, Krishna collapsed, and his relatives took him to the hospital.
He was pronounced dead on arrival.