Erdogan's juggernaut rolls on as ‘Kemal Gandhi’ and his secular approach and relatively non-divisive rhetoric does not sway the masses
Moral template Mahatma Gandhi is not just undergoing a crisis of relevance in the land of his birth, but also in the distant land with which India had relations since the Vedic ages (Pre 1500 BC), i.e., ancient Anatolia or modern Turkey. Much later, Gandhi supported the Khilafat movement as a measure of anti-colonialism and expression of India’s Hindu-Muslim unity, and not as a religious matter. However, Gandhi subsequently insisted on realism for Indian Muslims when Mustapha Kemal Pasha (sobriquet of ‘Ataturk’ or Father of all Turks, came later) abolished the Caliphate. However, for a generation of Turks, Gandhi had become an inspirational and moral reference with principles of nonviolence (Ahimsa) and passive insistence (Satyagraha).
Ataturk refashioned and emancipated the staid religious-centric moorings towards a secularist brand of nationalism. He refused the title of Caliph and instead made a mission to secularise Turkey and reform its creaky education system by promoting science and mathematics, instead of religious texts. The progressive statesman advanced women’s rights by giving women the right to vote (20 years before France!). Ataturk’s Turkey soon became stable, progressive, and booming. Years later, Bill Clinton put it succinctly, “Shakespeare wrote, Einstein thought, Ataturk built”.
Ataturk’s decision to re-open Hagia Sophia as a museum in 1935, reinforced Turkey’s urge to ‘open’ to visitors from all nations and religions. The secularist and reformist caught Nehru’s eye as he noted in an article, “Those stones and walls had seen a lot of Juma Mamaz and Sunday Services. On their worn-out faces is an apparent smirk and mellow voice: how ignorant and foolish is this human creature who does not learn by his thousands of years of experience”. Ataturk’s Turkey survived till an Ottoman revivalist, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, took over as Prime Minister in 2002.
Erdogan is an unabashed strongman, with antithetical sensibilities and preferences to that of Ataturk, and has dismantled the guardrails of Ataturk’s secular and progressive outlook, since 2002. Institutions of ‘checks-and-balances’ in the Turkish narrative like the Military, Judiciary, Media et al, have been compromised. Polarising admixture of majoritarianism, religious puritanism and tactics that include imprudent populism, fear and repression have ensured an autocratic regression, of the once forward-looking Turkey. Inflation is a crippling 44% and repeated governance mismanagement notwithstanding, Erdogan’s hardline cadre remains mesmerised by his distractions, hatred towards ‘others’, and reimagining of history with statements like, “For 200 years, they tried to tear us away for our history and from our ancestors. They tried to get us to disown our claim”. Erdogan’s spiel works brilliantly with the uneducated masses, especially in the heartland with religious preponderance. Overall, there is a freefall of economy, freedom of expression, media, and U-turns on issues like gender rights, minority rights etc.
The vicelike grip on virtually all levers of society, politics and governance has ensured that there was virtually no opposition to Erdogan – anyone who did was vilified, mocked and bundled out of contention. While Ataturk ruled for a little over 15 years, the Erdogan era has already clocked in 21 years and will pump in another 5 dark years, as just re-elected.
Erdogan’s mad rush to take Turkey down the slippery slope was given a possibility of checkmate, with the advent of the soft-spoken, moderate, and seemingly reconciliatory person who not only seemed ‘Gandhian’ in approach but even had an uncanny resemblance to the Mahatma i.e., Kemal Kilicdaroglu, also called, ‘Kemal Gandhi’!
Erdogan had pulled all stops to ridicule and defame (with lies, exaggerations, and hyperbole) his opponent. Dictatorial instinct disallowed a fair play of media space to the two contesting candidates. Erdogan pandered to blatant majoritarianism, ‘othering’ and divisive sectarianism when he jabbed at ‘Kemal Gandhi’ to be an Alevi Muslim (technically akin to the Shia denomination). Manufactured hatred and fear-mongering helped Erdogan’s cadres forget that the national currency, Lira, has fallen 80% in value since 2018! Erdogan’s economic profligacy, populism and even imprudent economic promises are designed to crush whatever is left of the beleaguered Turkish economy, but with winning as the sole motive, everything and anything can be put on stakes.
‘Kemal Gandhi’ as the proverbial underdog with his educated appeal, secular approach and relatively non-divisive rhetoric fell short of Erdogan juggernaut and only time and consequences will inform Turk citizens of the poorer choice made. Noises about Erdogan’s tactics and majoritarian populism fell on deaf ears and even those concerns were spun into ‘anti-Turkey’ attributions of the ‘West’, even though Turkey remains a NATO power. Importantly while Erdogan flirted with Russia, it was the US-led ‘West’ that had offered maximum support to the earthquake-hit Turkey.
Erdogan’s anti-India agenda is also part of his calculus and therefore the loss of ‘Kemal Gandhi’ is not just a loss for Turkey but to Indian values of moderation, democracy, and secularism. The loss of ‘Kemal Gandhi’ is a stark warning about the era of strongmen who recklessly destroy the past and attempt to rewrite history and the future, albeit, unsuccessfully, always.
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal)
