The symbolism was not missed by observers. On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was shaking hands with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even as US President Donald Trump was having a “very friendly conversation” with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and inviting the latter to visit the White House.
Duterte, who The New York Times says is overseeing a campaign of mass murder, is like Erdogan. Both are hailed by their supporters as new, muscular leaders who would stop at nothing to achieve their ends. They both have given their security forces blanket powers to shoot and detain people and, as Duterte said in relation to alleged drug dealers, ‘slaughter them all’.
President Erdogan’s two-day visit to India saw him pledging his support to India on its war on terrorism. The two grim-faced leaders—Modi and Erdogan—declared their determination to jointly take on terror of all kinds.
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The Turkish President also received an honorary doctorate degree from Jamia Millia Islamia University, which is the only institution in India to offer courses in Turkish language. A futile bid was made to stop the function by ex-students of Jamia and on change.org, a petition was initiated by one of them, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, who said, "Erdogan, who has won a fraudulent plebiscite in order to crown himself an unchallenged dictator of Turkey, is a toxic influence in Turkish public life, in west Asia and in the world. He has stifled dissent, cracked down on the rights of working people, women and minorities in Turkey and is conducting a brutal war on the people of Kurdistan."
There is little doubt that Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are not shy of using strong-arm methods to stifle dissent. A few landmarks provide sufficient insight into the kind of regime he heads back in Turkey:
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