From Khilafat to quake aid: Why re-elected Erdogan must see Gandhi and Modi's India in a new light

History is full of strange coincidences, and I may add quoting American poet T.S. Eliot, "cunning passages." It has been a weekend of fascinating coincidences if you believe in watching Turkey and India in a split-screen view. Both nations have chartered somewhat similar political paths in their respective nationalist upsurge.

In New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a new parliament building, the first one built after the end of British colonial rule in 1947, in a ceremony full of Hindu symbolism as saffron-clad Shaivaite gurus from Tamil Nadu helped him symbolically install a sceptre denoting a transfer of power -- or a reminder of the morally upright rule of Dharma, depending on who you are talking to. But in doing so, Modi was boycotted by a significant majority of opposition parties, who thought he had denigrated democracy with his authoritarian, personality-oriented inaugural ceremony.

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That should ring a bell in Ankara, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won re-election in a controversial run-off marked by a shaky mandate slammed by opposition groups as unfair. Erdogan's Islamist AKP (Justice and Development Party) could be called Turkey's Muslim nationalist equivalent of Modi's proudly Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party. 

(Image: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Credit: Reuters)

The thing is, both Turkey and India are officially secular ruled by a constitution that does not discriminate on the basis of religion. But both Erdogan and Modi represent ideologies that lean heavily on religious and cultural symbols. Erdogan's electoral victory coincided with the 570th anniversary of the capture of Istanbul by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. Former Indian ambassador to West Asian countries, Talmiz Ahmad, describes Erdogan's return as a "triumph of Ottoman glory."

Modi's parliament inauguration was on the birth anniversary of Veer Damodar Savarkar, considered the father of BJP's Hindutva ideology that places emphasis on the principle of India as the homeland of Hindus in which people of other origins or religious affiliations do not have equal prominence. 

Under Erdogan, Turkey has become Turkiye, symbolising a return to the Ottoman past, while Modi's followers are keen to refer to India as Bharat, its local and ancient appellation linked to a civilisation preceding Muslim-led invasions and incursions or British colonial rule. 

(Image: Archive image of Mahatma Gandhi. Credit: AFP)

We need to back further into history for a deeper understanding. Mahatma Gandhi is considered the father of modern Indian nationalism and led the Indian National Congress that the BJP ousted from power in 2014. Modi pays tributes to Gandhi, but swears by the ideological thoughts of Savarkar, the man who opposed his secularist thought. Erdogan salutes Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the statesman who turned predominantly Islamic Turkey into a modern secular republic in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War but there is a catch. Though he says his country has "eternal respect" for Ataturk, a lot of what Erdogan does and says seems to fly in the face of Ataturk's liberal unifying outlook -- and that must sound familiar to Modi critics who say the BJP leader could not possibly be following both Savarkar and Gandhi at once. 

Image: Archive image of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. 

More interesting stuff. The road right next to the one where India's prime ministerial residence is housed is named after none other than Ataturk -- a symbol of anti-colonial solidarity between India and Turkey.  And yes, Ankara has its own Mahatma Gandhi Caddesi (Street).

Gandhi, despite his awe-inspiring stature, has been controversial in India for his support to the 1919-2024 Khilafat (Caliphate) Movement against British policy in Turkey that ended the Ottoman empire, whose glory Erdogan wants to restore. The non-violent Gandhi supported  Khilafat to help unite Hindus and Muslims in the subcontinent against British rule, but critics say the seeds of the painful, bloody Partition that led to the carving of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan from undivided India were watered by the Khilafat movement. Gandhi reluctantly agreed to the Partition and was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, an associate of Savarkar, who was tried in the murder case but set free.

So where does all this leave bilateral relations between the two countries? Turkey has long been a supporter of Pakistan in international fora on the Kashmir dispute between the subcontinent's divided nations. Its decision to stay away from Srinagar in Kashmir where a G-20 countries' meeting on tourism took place this month is only the latest in a series of such events.

Yet, it is the same Turkey that lauded India and Gandhi when Modi's government sent vaccines to help the country fight the Covid-19 pandemic. India also helped Turkey last February with "Operation Dost' -- a medical and search-and-rescue mission involving a 99-member army team, when Turkey was shaken by a severe earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people. If a friend in need is a friend indeed, it is time for Turkey to recall how from Khilafat to Covid-19 and quake aid, India has been a supporter of just causes.

(Image: Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Credit: Reuters)

One thing Erdogan could do is to stop seeing India through the Pakistan prism. If his respect for Ataturk is not lip service, and if his gratitude to India runs deep,  there are other ways to see India by engaging in meaningful conversations that recognise a new world order and stay mum on Kashmir. The Kashmir dispute is far more complex than simplistic Hindu-Muslim narratives would suggest -- and from distant Turkey, it is a blurred view.

The most bizarre of coincidences is of course, the fact that the face of the man who narrowly lost to Erdogan, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, bears an uncanny resemblance to Mahatma Gandhi, or at least Ben Kingsley who played the independence leader in the Oscar-winning biopic. "Gandhi Kemal" is also famous for his humble style resembling the Mahatma and is a leader of CHP, the Republican People's Party founded by Ataturk.

If that is what keeps Erdogan from recognising India in a new light, we should be looking at Freudian psychology than diplomatic principles to understand his mind.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

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