As India opens its universities for foreign collaboration, a new threat has emerged from Turkey as it is looking for ways to expand its soft power by spreading radical Islam in India.
Turkey is reportedly pumping in a lot of money through different fronts in India and some of the investment has direct links to the Turkish President and his family.
By offering “lucrative scholarships” to educational institutes, Turkey is trying to lure Indian Muslims into radical Islam who are then put in touch with Pakistani proxies.
Indian intelligence agencies have brought this to notice to the government’s attention.
State-sponsored NGOs in Turkey are giving scholarships and exchange programs for Indian Kashmiri and Muslim students. Once the students land in Turkey, they are approached by Pakistani proxies i.e. the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). This operation is strongly supported by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkey youth foundation or T.U.G.V.A run by his son Bilal.
Intelligence agencies have identified some of the individuals and groups and their links with Pakistan’s ISI.
It has been alleged that the T.U.G.V.A has developed strong links various with Islamic outfits, like Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamic student organization.
Turkey has been using education as a tool to spread its influence around the world. One Turkish entity educated 30,000 students in 34 countries.
The Maarif Foundation is the international education front of Turkey and receives full funding from the government. This foundation is active in 43 countries and is supporting almost 40,000 students.
There are reports that the Maarif Foundation has a radical Islamist curriculum that promotes the radicalization of Muslim youth and drives them towards extremism.
In January, this year, German lawmakers had stopped Turkey’s decision to open three schools in Germany the major cities of Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt. The German lawmakers were worried because Turkish schools are “driving the Islamization of the German education system”. Also, many Europian countries are not happy with Erdogan undermining democratic values in Turkey and leading the secular nation towards and Islamic theocratic rule.
One of the lawmakers of the left party said that Erdogan polarizes and divides the society and that his schools are “poisonous for integration and democracy”.
France was even more aggressive when the French President Emmanuel Macron denounced Turkish schools in France as it was seen as a platform to promote hard-line Islam among the Turkish population in France.
Indian Intelligence agencies have the same concerns in India with regards to the growing influence of educational institutions from Turkey and China in India.