Introduction
Democracy requires good governance, which in turn, requires high quality policies and institutions which serve as important checks and balances. What matters most for the quality of a democracy, however, is good leadership with vision, wisdom, foresight, ethics, morals, values and principles. If these attributes are either missing or in serious deficit, both policies and institutions are likely to be seriously impaired or compromised.
Turkiye (previously Turkey) and India, two strikingly different countries, have leaders with identical leadership styles, who desire similar domestic and geo-political outcomes; winning elections at any cost to stay in power and seeking geo-political influence in their regions and globally. Both have also politicized their respective religions, Islam and Hinduism, to achieve their objectives.
This confluence of leadership styles has, strangely and somewhat unexpectedly, led India and Turkiye to embark on eerily similar geo-political and domestic journeys despite their obvious religion, population-mix and other differences.
There are also parallels between the aspirations of both countries. President Erdogan has visualized what he refers to as a “new” Turkiye while Prime Minister Modi talks about a “new” India which is “Bharat” (the Hindi version of the country’s name). Both leaders have a significant faith based following and use civilizational discourse, nostalgia and “lost” national pride to resurrect a mythical or glorified, romanticized past with an attempt to rewrite history.
At the international level, both “new” India and “new” Turkiye are middle, regional powers with hopes of becoming global ones. Leadership of the Global South is “new” India’s aspiration under Modi, especially after its G-20 Presidency in 2023, while leadership of the Muslim world has been “new” Turkiye’s aspiration under Erdogan.
Similar Consequences of Common Leadership Styles
Both leaders are proponents of populist politics. “New “Türkiye has witnessed this for over two decades and “new” India for a decade.
Both leaderships also share a common approach to elections which are far from being free and fair, given that there is no level playing field. Openly majoritarian, the two political leaders continue to believe in elections, but with a “winner take all approach.” Both countries are regarded as electoral autocracies by Sweden’s V-Dem Institute which tracks democratic freedoms worldwide.
Important decisions and policies are often approved with no public discussion and little understanding of or regard for consequences. “New” India saw demonetization overnight and the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown at only a few hours’ notice. Turkey has suffered high-interest rate policies with all their hyper- inflationary and other perverse economic consequences for over a decade now.
Both leaders have an antipathy to the West and are self-confessed sectarian leaders, vindictive to critics, and with a disdain for secularism and pluralism of religion, language and culture. The discourse, rhetoric and practice in both cases has been anti-minority, especially anti-Muslim and anti-Christian in India and anti-Christian in Turkiye.
The two leaders share similar humble origins, also sharing many personality traits. Both have relied heavily on religious discourse to reinforce deepening social divides and capitalized politically on the growing sectarian/secular cleavage.
Undermining the Rule of Law and Institutions
“New” Turkiye under Erdogan is more than a decade ahead of “new” India in terms of the breakdown of institutional independence and integrity, but both have been headed in the same direction.
Both leaders have undermined the Constitution they inherited. Erdogan used the failed coup and other events in 2016 to change the Constitution through a referendum in April 2017. This led to the Office of the Prime Minister being abolished in favour of an all-powerful presidential system. This also gives the President more control over appointments to the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors. While a parliament still exists in “new” Türkiye, it has been ineffective and largely dysfunctional after the April 2017 referendum.
In “new” India, executive power has always been with the Prime Minister, but the President and State or Union Territory Governor positions, even though largely ceremonial, has been relatively independent of the executive. This is much less so now.
The Indian parliament, especially in the five years prior to the June 2024 elections when the governing party lost its parliamentary majority, was a crude display of majoritarian power. Many critical parliamentary decisions, including three recent landmark Bills relating to India’s criminal justice system, were passed without the participation of, or inputs from, the majority of Opposition members because of their arbitrary suspension, making a mockery of parliamentary procedure.
The judiciary in India is politically polarized and has increasingly taken decisions based on inappropriate interpretations of the law in favor of the ruling dispensation (eg. Ayodhya, Article 370 on Kashmir) or delayed decisions, for political reasons almost always favoring the ruling dispensation, reducing their effectiveness (eg. 2024 decision, seven years too late, declaring electoral bonds unconstitutional).
Both countries have also increasingly witnessed the breakdown of the rule of law in addition to increasing human rights and freedom of speech violations. Violations have particularly victimized independent journalists and academics.
Domestic institutions which should be non-partisan have increasingly been deployed for partisan political purposes, in both “new” India and “new” Turkiye. In “new” India, the till recently anonymous electoral bonds, have also disproportionately benefited the ruling party financially. In “new” Turkiye, the full power of the state and its resources continue to be used by the ruling Islamist Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) and its main conservative Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) ally.
While there is opaqueness about whether the top leaders and/or their close families have personally benefitted from corrupt practices and projects, this seems more than likely. In any event, both leaders and their political parties have clearly abetted and benefited from significant crony capitalism.
Foreign Policy and Geo-Politics
Foreign policy has largely become a reflection of both leaders’ personal preferences, domestic impulses and priorities which now dictate their respective country’s foreign policy and geo-political priorities.
Both Erdogan and Modi have been on record in their support for Putin in Russia and Trump in the United States. This should not come as a surprise since they share many leadership qualities and personal attributes with both. Many, especially hard-core followers, also identify their desire to resurrect a mythical Hindu kingdom in “new” India or “Bharat” or the Ottoman Empire in “new” Türkiye, in stark similarity to Putin’s desire to resurrect the Russian Empire.
Interestingly, both leaders aspire to be peacemakers in Ukraine, while remaining dependent on Russia. Erdogan has tried and failed, while “New” India, despite Zelensky’s clear message and rebuff to Prime Minister Modi in Kiev recently, unrealistically sees itself as a “neutral” interlocutor in peace negotiations.
The current Israeli-Palestinian crisis is another situation where both countries are visible. While Erdogan, despite some initial ambivalence, openly supports the Palestinian struggle, “New” India has grown closer to Netanyahu’s Isreal over recent years and has all but given up its support for the Palestinian cause which it globally led under late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Economy
Economic lunacy has created an unnecessarily huge economic burden for “new” Turkiye over the last decade. Erdogan’s stubborn insistence on using Islamic banking principles over the last decade have kept Central Bank interest rates very low for years despite high inflation, declining foreign exchange reserves and significant declines in the value of the Turkish Lira (TL). Despite the country’s forced return to economic orthodoxy because of very high inflation rates which continue to persist, “new” Turkiye’s Central Bank remains anything but independent as evidenced by Erdogan’s firing of numerous Central Bank Governors over the last decade.
In “new” India, the surprise 2016 demonetization of large banknotes with no advance notice literally shortchanged approximately 90% of the population and many micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) who were largely reliant on the cash economy.
While “New” India’s macro economy is still considerably healthier than “new” Türkiye’s on most indicators, relatively high, stubborn food inflation and demonetization’s negative impacts continue to persist. There is also considerable unemployment, underemployment, unemployability, ill-suited employment and unpaid informal work. The latter disproportionately impacts women and youth. Defying the universally agreed ILO definition, India also considers unpaid family and other work employment. The female labor force participation rate is low in both countries, but dismally so in India, partly because of the risk of rape and other security concerns. As a result, “new” India’s once in a lifetime demographic dividend is being unnecessarily squandered.
As one way to buy votes, muffle social unrest and whitewash unsustainable economic situations, both leaders provide welfare handouts as “gifts,” not as constitutional rights. In “new” India, an astonishing 800 million people (almost 60% of its population) are on such guaranteed handouts for the next five years.
