The Telangana government has announced that the road leading to the US Consulate in Hyderabad will be renamed as the ‘Donald Trump Avenue’. The name will be unveiled on June 23, ahead of America’s Independence Day on July 4. This act of sucking up to the American president is ostensibly meant to fulfil a promise the chief minister, A Revanth Reddy, made to something called the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum.
Typically for this publicity-seeking government, the decision came with PR packaging: The tribute to a foreign president is supposed to be a favour to the people of Hyderabad, a move to position their city as a magnet for international investments. In the months ahead, the government intends to similarly honour international corporations as well. So, we’ll perhaps see a Google Road, a Microsoft Avenue and an Eli Lilly Boulevard in Hyderabad soon.
By this act of neocolonial flattery, Revanth Reddy is hoping to join a host of other government leaders in the good books of the Trump administration. But he’s late to the party and rather misinformed about the efficacy of such unctuosity. Others before him have sung the Trump hosannas and still found themselves nudged aside.
He needs to only ask Narendra Modi, whose Howdy rally in Texas and other such endearments for Trump bore no fruit for the nation. Jair Bolsonaro once famously said ‘I love you’ to the American President and now languishes in a Brazilian jail. The Philippine dictator Rodrigo Duterte sang a Filipino love song to Trump at a formal reception and lives in obscurity today.
As an ode to vanity — Revanth’s and the President’s — Donald Trump Avenue is unlikely to catch the attention of the man intended. For one thing, he may not be able to locate Hyderabad on a map. Even if he were to seek the help of Google Maps, a man whose sights are set on Mount Rushmore is hardly likely to be impressed by a street sign. If anything, Revanth’s overture might help the consulate staff of Hyderabad in scoring brownie points at the State Department for some impressive public relations work.
By going in for this low-intensity PR blast, the government of Telangana is, in fact, advertising its tone deafness. It’s odd that Hyderabad should get excited about naming a street after Donald Trump at a time when his own people can’t wait to get rid of it. Last week, Trump’s name was removed under court orders from the John F Kennedy Center of Performing Arts in Washington, DC. It was a hugely popular erasure: Thousands of Washingtonians turned up at 3 am to celebrate it even though the effacement took place, under White House orders, behind masked scaffolding.
Tone deafness has become a defining trait of the Revanth Reddy government. It was not long ago that it took great pride in hosting the Miss World pageant in Hyderabad at a time when global cities were shooing it away for misogyny. The event was supposed to be a showcase for Telangana culture and a fillip to foreign tourism. It proved to be a disaster on both counts: Dalit women were made to wash participants’ feet before entering a temple, and one participant said she felt like a prostitute when she was nudged to give company to senior gentry.