Erdoğan and Modi — An uncanny resemblance, and yet so different

Both men are accused of democratic backsliding, disdain for free media, and strong-arm methods against the Opposition.

No two elections anywhere in the world are alike. Yet, when India holds its Lok Sabha elections next year, global headlines and Western media reports on Narendra Modi’s bid to become Prime Minister for the third time will be strikingly similar to the ones which have been seen or read in recent months on Turkey’s inconclusive elections which took place on May 14.

Unlike India, Turkey has a presidential system of government. Until 2017, it had prime ministers, but the post was abolished in a constitutional referendum. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is seeking re-election as President in the ongoing election — a second round of polling will take place on May 28 — was Turkey’s Prime Minister for 10 years until 2014, when he was elevated to President.

Erdoğan and Modi are often compared to one another, unfavourably in the Western media, but with adulation among nationalists and supporters of autonomy in external affairs in their respective countries. Both men are also accused within and outside their countries by people who disapprove of their policies, of democratic backsliding, disdain for free media, and strong-arm methods against the Opposition. In the current global context vitiated by the war in Ukraine, it riles critics of Erdoğan and Modi that both these leaders are friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Turkey has a unicameral parliament, elections to which produced a majority on May 14 for Erdoğan’s People’s Alliance, a coalition of nationalist parties very much like what is left of India’s ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Erdoğan’s economic policies have been unorthodox, similar to Modi’s disastrous demonetisation of high-value currency notes in 2016. Erdoğan’s currency crisis, which economists describe as ‘historic’, came five years later. Both the Indian Rupee and the Turkish Lira have depreciated under incumbent rulers, propped up by falling back on foreign currency reserves. Both the rupee and the lira are overvalued. Erdoğan and Modi have also prioritised growth, investments, and exports with success, more in talk than in reality.

In Turkey, where Erdoğan was only slightly short of the mandatory 50 percent of votes in the first round of polling, stocks and bonds have been routed this week in the expectation that the President will return to power at the month end after the second round of voting, and continue his disastrous economic policies.

There are many more similarities between Turkey under Erdoğan and India under Modi. Both governments have bought Russia’s S-400 air defence system, ignoring threats of sanctions by the United States of America under its controversial Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Turkey has been punished under CAATSA for its purchase of Russian equipment, while sanctions have not been put on India for buying the same military equipment.

If Erdoğan is re-elected, he is likely to move closer to Putin like Modi did in transactional matters in the last year-and-a-half. US President Joe Biden says, though, that Ankara is a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ally and that the S-400 exposes sensitive US equipment in Turkey to Russian espionage. The US considers the S-400 to be a vehicle for high-tech electronic spying.

Given so many similarities, it is only natural that Turkey and India are in rivalry for strategic space in some areas. This has been most pronounced in parts of the Islamic world, with Turkey cosying up to Pakistan on the false assumption that Islamabad can be a foil to New Delhi. For many years, Turkey has had a prominent role in the ‘Contact Group’ of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Kashmir. It is this Contact Group, which periodically stirs the pot within the OIC on Kashmir, and issues statements and communiques critical of India. Every time this happens, India responds as if by rote.

With India’s relations across the board in the Arab and Islamic world on the upswing, there have lately been expectations in Turkey’s strategic community that if Erdoğan wins another term as President, he could jettison his support for Pakistan on Kashmir, and open a new chapter with India. History in this regard is not encouraging. In a big diplomatic outreach in 2001, then Home Minister LK Advani visited Ankara and signed, among other things, a bilateral extradition treaty. But that initiative was left to languish by both sides after the flurry of the visit. Another attempt was made to kickstart relations in 2017, with Erdoğan’s state visit to India. In the six years since, that initiative also fell by the wayside.

KP Nayar has extensively covered West Asia and reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years.