Paradoxical Emotion

Why do fairly educated Indian Muslims admire a majoritarian regime elsewhere but oppose Hindutva-driven majoritarianism in India?

- Hilal Ahmed

A section of Indian Muslims, especially those who are proactive on social media, celebrated the success of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Türkiye. A number of posts written on Facebook and Twitter described Erdoğan as a great Muslim figure committed to the revival of true Islam. It is also claimed that his premiership is an indication that Islam will eventually gain its lost glory and ideological supremacy in the near future. Obviously, we do not have any reliable data source to ascertain the exact number of these social media users. Their enthusiastic appreciation of Erdoğan, thus, should not be exaggerated to make any definitive comment on the attitude and anxieties of Indian Mus lim communities. Nevertheless, one must carefully examine this phenomenon to unpack a paradoxical emotion—why do a section of fairly educated Indian Muslims admire the majoritarian regime in Türkiye while opposing Hindutva-driven majoritarianism in India?

Three ready-to-use answers—Sympathetic, Critical, Polemical

Three sets of explanations are often given to answer this question. The first claim is rather sympathetic. It is argued that Muslims are facing an unprecedented crisis of identity in contemporary India. As members of a threatened and helpless community, it is obvious for them to admire the success stories of global Islam. It gives them courage, solace, and a sense of collective achievement. This line of reasoning relies heavily on the given story of Muslim victimhood in Hindutva-dominated India. It legitimises the Muslim attraction for global Islam as a Muslim reaction.

Interestingly, the supporters of this claim-a section of self-declared liberals and a few Muslim essentialists completely ignore the fact that their arguments, in a way, validate Hindutva's action-reaction theory.