Rethinking Religion's Interaction with Neoliberal Ideology

RETHINKING RELIGION’S INTERACTION WITH NEOLIBERAL IDEOLOGY: A COMPARISON BETWEEN INDIA AND TURKEY

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities

2019 Esra Elif Nartok School of Social Sciences

Contents List of Figures and Tables ...... 6 List of Abbreviations ...... 7 Abstract ...... 10 Declaration and Copyright statement ...... 11 Dedication...... 12 Acknowledgements ...... 13

Introduction ...... 15

Literature on the Political Economy of Religion ...... 16 Comparing Turkey and India ...... 20 Notes on the Case Studies ...... 22 The World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) ...... 23 The International Business Forum (IBF) ...... 26 Research Questions ...... 27 Research Design and Research Methods ...... 28 Significance of the Thesis and Research Findings ...... 31 Scope of the Thesis and Its Limitations ...... 35 Structure of the Thesis ...... 36

Chapter 1 ...... 40

Framing Religion in Contemporary Neoliberalism

1.1- Mainstream Approaches to Religion: Weberian and Liberal Approaches ...... 41 1.1.1- Weberian Approaches: Religion as a Constitutive Element ...... 42 1.1.2- Liberal Approaches: Religion as a Variable ...... 46 1.2- A Historical Materialist Approach to Religion ...... 50 1.2.1- Marx on Religion: Thinking through Religion with Class Relations ...... 51 1.2.2- Gramsci on Religion: Fragmented Religion and Religion as an Active Conception of the World ...... 54 1.2.3- Bringing Religion into neo-Gramscian IPE: Religion as a Social Process . 62 1.3- Concluding Remarks ...... 69

Chapter 2 ...... 73

Historical Sedimentations and Hinduism Under Neoliberalism in India

2.1- The Founding: Hinduism is National, Hindu Nationalism is Marginal ...... 74 2.2- The Period of the Planned Economy: Hindu Nationalism as a Significant Site of Opposition ...... 78 2.2.1- Jan Sangh, Searching for an Alternative, and the Licence Raj ...... 78 2.2.2- The Janata Party, the First Non-INC Government and the Establishment of Bharatiya Janata Party ...... 81 2.3- Neoliberalisation: the Mainstreaming of Hindu Nationalism ...... 84 2.3.1- Neoliberalism as the Only Alternative ...... 85 2.3.2- Neoliberalism and the BJP ...... 88 2.4- Concluding Remarks ...... 94

Chapter 3 ...... 96

Historical Sedimentations and Islam Under Neoliberalism in Turkey

3.1- The Founding: Breaking with the Islamic Legacy, a New Islam and a New State 97 3.2- The Period of the Planned Economy: Islam as a Part of Populism and the Rise of Political Islam ...... 99 3.2.1- The Democratic Party and Bringing Religion Back in ...... 100 3.2.2- The National Vision Movement and Its Political Representations ...... 103 3.3- Neoliberalisation: Mainstreaming Political Islam ...... 106 3.3.1- Neoliberalism as the Only Alternative ...... 107 3.3.2- Neoliberalism and the Justice and Development Party ...... 111 3.4- Concluding Remarks ...... 116

Chapter 4 ...... 118

Unpacking WHEF And IBF Networks: Revealing Strategic Relations

4.1- Grasping the Main Channels of the Broader Network: Crafting a Business Platform for Ideology and Knowledge Production ...... 120 4.1.1- The WHEF People ...... 120 4.1.2- The IBF People ...... 126 4.2- WHEF and IBF in Operation: Reaching out to Hindu/Muslim Communities

across the World ...... 132 4.2.1- WHEF: Searching for the Unknown Immigrant, Funded by the Well-known Patron ...... 133 4.2.2- IBF: Searching for Muslim Communities, Creating a Business Ummah ...... 139 4.3- Concluding Remarks ...... 147

Chapter 5 ...... 150

WHEF’s And IBF’s Articulations of Neoliberal Ideology: Conceptualising the ‘Correct’ Form of the Global Political Economy

5.1- Criticism of the Existing Form of the Global Political Economy ...... 151 5.1.1- Mainstream Economic Practices ...... 151 5.1.2- The Western Moral Values ...... 159 5.2- Two Alternative Models Based on Hinduism and Islam? ...... 165 5.2.1- Hindu Civilisation: Knowledge Production, Spiritual Enrichment, and Community Finance ...... 165 5.2.2- Islamic Civilisation: The Charitable Sector, Islamic Financial Culture, and Participatory Finance ...... 171 5.3- Concluding Remarks ...... 179

Chapter 6 ...... 182

WHEF and IBF as Permanent Persuaders: Manufacturing Consent from Subordinate Parts of the Business Community

6.1- Reasons for Focusing on the Subordinate Parts of the Business Community ..... 183 6.1.1- WHEF: SMEs as a Disadvantaged and Disorganised Majority ...... 184 6.1.2- IBF: SMEs as Cells in the Body ...... 189 6.2.- Mobilising Subordinate Groups, Creating Tools, Ideas and Activities ...... 195 6.2.1- WHEF: Helping Subordinate Groups Find the Right Business Guru, Improve Their Skills and Connect with the World ...... 195 6.2.2- IBF: Developing Subordinate Groups’ Self-Esteem and Creating a Transborder Synergy for Business ...... 204 6.3- Concluding Remarks ...... 214

Conclusion ...... 217

Answering RQ2 ...... 218 Answering RQ3 ...... 222 Organising and Connecting Religiously-Oriented Elites ...... 223 Constructing Neoliberalism as the ‘Correct’ Form of the Global Political Economy ...... 225 Persuading Subordinate Groups within the Business Community ...... 227 Answering RQ4 ...... 229 Summing up the Overall Argument: Answering RQ1 ...... 231 Avenues for Future Research ...... 232

Appendix 1 ...... 234 Appendix 2 ...... 235 Appendix 3 ...... 236 Appendix 4 ...... 238 References ...... 239

Word count: 79, 922

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1 The WHEF circle ……………………………………………………………...24

Figure 2 IBF’s old and new symbols ……………………………………………………26

Figure 3 The WHEF network ………………………………………………………….133

Figure 4 The IBF network ……………………………………………………...... 140

Figure 5 WHEF’s depiction of the percentage of India’s GDP over the centuries…….152

Figure 6 WHEF’s periodisation of India’s history ………………………………...... 153

Figure 7 Fees according to category of attendee (WHEF) ………………………...... 196

Figure 8 The WHEF’s operation …………………………………………………...... 197

Figure 9 Hindu Growth Fund proposal ………………………………………………..198

Figure 10 Planned networking session in WHEF 2018 ……………………………...... 202

Figure 11 Business matching session at the 16th IBF …………………………………...209

Figure 12 MÜSİAD’s questionnaire at the 13th MÜSİAD EXPO ……………………...209

Table 1 List of the forums under WHF …………………………………………...... 121

Table 2 Distribution of enterprises in categories in India ………………………...... 184

List of Abbreviations

With original versions and English translations. The version used in the text (either original or English translation) comes first.

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations BJP Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People’s Party) BBI Bosna Bank International B2B Business-to-Business CEO Chief Executive Officer CII Confederation of Indian Industry COMCEC Standing Committee for Economic Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation D8 Developing Eight DP Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti) DRA Directorate of Religious Affairs – Turkey EEC European Economic Community EU European Union FP Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi) FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry FISME Federation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises GDP Gross Domestic Product G8 Group of Eight G20 Group of Twenty HBN Hindu Business Network HEF Hindu Economic Forum IBF International Business Forum IDB Islamic Development Bank IIT Indian Institute of Technology IIT-KGP Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur IMF International Monetary Fund INC Indian National Congress IPE International Political Economy

IR International Relations ISI Import Substitution Industrialisation IT Information Technology JDP Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) JP Justice Party (Adalet Partisi) KOSGEB Küçük ve Orta Ölçekli İşletmeleri Geliştirme ve Destekleme Dairesi (Small and Medium Industry Development Organisation) LCC London Chamber of Commerce LSBU London South Bank University LSE London School of Economics MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology MNC(s) Multinational Company(-ies) MP Motherland Party MPS Mont Pelerin Society MSME(s) Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise(s) MÜSİAD Müstakil Sanayiciler ve İş Adamları Derneği (Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association) NAM Non-Aligned Movement NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NDA National Democratic Alliance NGO(s) Non-Governmental Organisation(s) NITI Aayog National Institution for Transforming India NOM National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi) NRI Non-Resident Indians NSP National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi) NVM National Vision Movement (Milli Görüş Hareketi) OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OIC Organisation of Islamic Cooperation OIC-ISIP OIC International Student Internship Programme PBF Pakistan Business Forum PM Prime Minister RCC Roman Catholic Church R&D Research and Development RPP Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi)

RQ(s) Research Question(s) RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organisation) SME(s) Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise(s) SSI(s) Small-Scale Industry(-ies) TINA There Is No Alternative TL(s) Turkish Liras TOBB Türkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birliği (Union of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Maritime Commerce and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey) TSK Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri (Turkish Armed Forces) TÜSİAD Türkiye Sanayiciler ve İşadamları Derneği (Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association) UK United Kingdom UPA United Progressive Alliance US United States VHP Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) VP Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi) WHC World Hindu Congress WHEF World Hindu Economic Forum WHF World Hindu Foundation WP Welfare Party (Refah Partisi)

Abstract

Esra Elif Nartok A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities

Rethinking Religion’s Interaction with Neoliberal Ideology: A Comparison between India and Turkey

2019

This thesis provides a political economy analysis of religion, with particular attention to its interaction with contemporary neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey. Highlighting religion’s particular importance to the neoliberal transformations of both countries from the 1980s on, it traces religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology using two religion- based business forums as its case studies: the World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) in India and the International Business Forum (IBF) in Turkey. The thesis is based on qualitative research involving the triangulation of document analysis (using the forums’ own documentation) with interviews (with the forums’ elites). It reveals striking similarities between India and Turkey and between their respective business forums in terms of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology therein, none of which have yet received any academic interest in the social sciences. The thesis adopts a historical materialist approach based on a Gramscian framework. It combines Gramsci’s own discussions of religion with neo-Gramscian International Political Economy (IPE) approaches to understand the global political economy within which these religion-based business forums operate.

Locating WHEF and IBF as collective organic intellectuals which participate in the intellectual and moral leadership underpinning neoliberal hegemonic projects in India and Turkey, this thesis claims that religion interacts with neoliberal ideology by mediating it through the activity of organic intellectuals. As seen in the cases of both WHEF and IBF, which represent particular class fractions in their respective countries, these intellectuals (1) organise and connect religiously-oriented elites worldwide, (2) construct neoliberalism as the ‘correct’ form of the global political economy and (3) act as permanent persuaders of subordinate groups within the business community to secure their class interests. The thesis therefore highlights the elite agency and class character of religion in its mediation of contemporary neoliberal ideology. It ultimately reveals that although India and Turkey represent relatively different historical contexts and although WHEF and IBF are built around fundamentally different religions, the role of religion in mediating neoliberal ideology explained via both forums’ intellectual projects presents unexpected but significant similarities. The thesis claims that these similarities reflect neoliberalism’s variegated political-ideological expressions. It shows that religion is a key component of these expressions because as an important part of common sense, it enables religiously-oriented elites to universalise their particularistic interests, make sense of neoliberalism in the Indian and Turkish national contexts, and stabilise neoliberalism’s discontents.

Declaration and Copyright statement

Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning

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To Nezihe Nartok,

who taught me what religion is not

Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors: Dr Stuart Shields and Dr Ian Bruff. Stuart Shields was not only a supervisor of this thesis, but he was also someone whom I felt comfortable to talk with and learn a lot from. Every time I got lost, he reminded me of what I was actually doing, patiently. This PhD started with an email that I sent to Ian Bruff. Since day one, he contributed to my project by discussing issues from different angles passionately and teaching me to think differently. I am indebted to both of my supervisors for their constant support, encouragement and patience. But more than this, I thank them for their collegiality, leaving me with good memories of my PhD despite all the hardship of the process.

This thesis became possible with the funding that I received from the Ministry of National Education of Turkey (Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı). I would like to thank the Ministry for helping me to reach my objectives and the Ministry personnel for their technical and managerial support along the way. My friends Sadrettin Karabeyeser and Çağlar Dölek signed a contract for me without any hesitation as guarantors of my debt in exchange for the funding. I owe them a debt of gratitude. I am also grateful to the School of Social Sciences (SoSS), which provided me with the fieldwork bursary that made my work in India and Turkey possible. I am also thankful to all my interviewees, for making time for my research and for providing me with quality information.

I would like to thank Dr John Zavos, who familiarised me with the Indian social sciences literature and helped me to find my case study for India. I am indebted to Professor Smita Tewari-Jassal, who assisted me during my fieldwork in Delhi and helped me to understand the Indian context. Thanks to her, I received a visiting research fellow position in the Sociology department at Ambedkar University Delhi, and became connected to the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. I also thank both institutions for providing me with these research opportunities.

Special thanks go to Andrew Eggleston. In addition to being such a good colleague of mine, he did me a great favour by not only proofreading this thesis but also discussing each and every point with me, patiently making comments and answering my repetitious questions. I also owe big thanks to Sinem Barut, for translating my interviews in Turkish to English. Being a friend of mine since primary school, she was also the one with whom my UK journey started. Thanks Sinem and Russell, for keeping your doors wide open for me every time.

I would like to thank the academic staff of SoSS, particularly those whom I had the chance to work with as a teaching assistant: Dr Véronique Pin-Fat and Dr Greig Charnock. Working with them was a solid contribution to my professional career. I am extremely thankful to the administration and management team of SoSS. Ann Cronley was always very helpful from the beginning until the end. I rarely met people like her, doing administrative work while being so helpful and positive. Val always cheered up the workplace and Hannah was extremely helpful.

When I first started my PhD, people kept telling me that a PhD was a very lonely process. But I always had people around me. I am glad that we made an otherwise boring process fun with each other’s company. Fadıl was always next to me from day one, through good and bad days, with his precious support: çok teşekkürler! Caroline was always by my

13 side, not only physically but also mentally. Merci boucoup, for all the strong/hyper/inspiring feminist discussions and for the things we shared, created and loved! I most enjoyed smoking breaks with Alikimou, when we sorted out PhD problems, life problems and created/breathed Mediterranean air: eυχαριστώ! Pelin, canım, thanks for being a perfect flatmate and friend, for opening your heart to me and sharing endlessly. I also thank others who made me feel so comfortable in the study/workplace: Anh, Giacomo, Vittorio, Sofia, Johnny, Olatz, Malte, Ana, Jana, Jenn, Sabrina, Anne, Maddi and many more. And, Jasper, dankjewel, for your love and patience, for all the mental – and technical – support. Without you, it would have been much harder.

I would like to thank the people that I met in India. Thanks Soma, for being so unique and inspiring. Thank you and Anirban for taking care of me in Delhi from the beginning to the end in every possible way, ধন্যবাদ! Thanks Tanu for being a very good friend and Swapan for your company! Vikas hosted me in his grandmother’s beautiful house. And the amazing family who took care of me there, cooked for me, and practiced Hindi with me in the garden every morning: thanks Amod for all the delicious food, Soni for smiling every time you saw me, Nilam for making chai every time I wanted, Anand for helping me with technical stuff, and Amit for teaching me a bit of cricket. I am also thankful to the people of the street, 17 Banarsi Das Estate/ Vishavidyalaya.

I am grateful to the Turkey team. Yeşim kept being more than a friend. The sisterhood we had kept me alive when I was miles away from her. Pınar sent me lots of voice recordings and never gave up sharing stories with me and listening to me. Gülriz and Başak were already like my mentor-sisters for more than ten years; their support was precious during my PhD too. Çınla was my professor once, then became my editor, and finally became my first ever professor-friend during my PhD. Thanks Kübra, Anda, Hakan, Ayşe, Zeynep, Necmiye, Güzin and Gül, who were always there whenever I needed it. And Resmiye, thanks for sending letters to Manchester and for the amazing summer in Datça!

I would like to thank my cousins: Fuat Kasımcan, for always being curious about my project and ready to help. Alper Asma and his wife Hülya, for their hospitability and honesty. With you, I rediscovered our broader family, who were neither in our hometown, Çorum, Turkey, nor in our historical homeland, the North Caucasus, but in an unexpected place: Toronto. Nurşen Nartok and Meral Nartok, thanks for loving me for who I am. Apart from them, thanks Sema and İlyas Karaman, for your support. I am thankful to Dr Özge Orbay’s companionship throughout the last four challenging years. Sometimes we went deep, sometimes we stayed on the surface and we finally made it together. And, thanks Yaşar Kayışoğlu, we will celebrate it in another lifetime.

Most of the burden was borne by my family. This thesis would not have been possible without the inspiration I received from two committed teachers in my life: my mum, Nezihe Nartok, and my dad, Bilâl Nartok. I learnt a lot from mum’s endless love, compassion, and unique methods of sorting things out. I am indebted to my dad who, I am sure, is watching me from somewhere in the heavens with an ironic smile on his face. And lastly, I would like to thank my brother, Yusuf Mahir Nartok, who always had a faraway big sister because of my whole educational journey, but who never stopped being so close to my heart and ready to meet all my needs. Despite being a perfect engineer, he is the only free, authentic, and brave one in this education-obsessed little family. I will join him and Nisan very soon, and we will learn together not from papers but from life itself.

INTRODUCTION

This thesis sets out to understand religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology.1 It is an important topic because as neoliberalism has been deepening worldwide since the 1980s, many countries have drawn attention by turning towards religion, and specifically the religion of the majority. Religion has become instrumental in managing neoliberalisation in different contexts varying from the replacement of social welfare policies by faith- based organisations in the United States (US) (Hackworth 2012; Kahl 2005) to the rise of right populism and neo-conservative politics backed by religious institutions, particularly in times of neoliberal transition, as seen in Eastern and Central Europe (Shields 2014: 117; Korkut 2017). Cases such as evangelical Pentecostalism and its adherents’ activities in sub-Saharan Africa illustrate how free market ideology and entrepreneurial common sense are supported and spread to various parts of the world by religious transnational movements (Murray 2012). These actors bring religious and neoliberal economic moralities together, and in so doing have taken a prominent place in global governance (Worth 2013; Rethel 2019). This does not mean that we can expect religion to have the same effect (or equal significance) everywhere, yet under certain circumstances – particularly when neoliberal hegemony fails to be established based on its economic premises – religion finds more space to stabilise its discontents.

This thesis presents a political economy analysis of religion to understand its interaction with contemporary neoliberal ideology. It is an empirically-focused thesis bringing two new cases and new dimensions to the study of the political economy of religion. It focuses on India and Turkey, two countries which have never been compared in the political economy of religion literature and rarely compared in the social sciences in general, but which present significant parallels in terms of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology within (and across) their borders. Both are secular nations established upon Western principles, and both experienced a rise of religious politics from the 1980s onwards, when neoliberal transition started through the World Bank’s and International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) policy interventions. Both have been registering significant

1 By saying interaction, I do not mean an external relationship between religion and neoliberal ideology. I will elaborate this issue later in this introductory chapter and Chapter 1.

15 economic growth rates under neoconservative political parties’ absolute majority governments, of which religion has in both cases been a crucial part.2

Dwelling on this commonality between the two countries, this thesis investigates how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology, with particular attention to two major transnational religion-based business forums: the World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) based in Delhi and the International Business Forum (IBF) based in İstanbul.3 No focused academic attention has been paid to either of these forums yet, let alone any comparison made between them in terms of their religion-based intellectual projects. However, both are organic to particular fractions of capital leading neoliberalism in India and Turkey, and despite being based upon totally different religions, their intellectual projects and the functions they play in their respective countries’ state-society complexes are significantly similar. This thesis compares these forums’ intellectual projects, both of which employ religion in the production of neoliberal common sense, and elaborates upon the similarities between them.

Literature on the Political Economy of Religion

Religion is generally considered an object of study for sociology, particularly with respect to its place in society and its economic relations (Stark and Finke 2000; Wach 2019). Understanding religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology, however, requires interdisciplinary engagement which goes beyond conventional understandings. This is because of recent developments (e.g. the rise of transnational religious organisations, the influence of neoconservative politics upon religion) that have made the literature on religion highly variegated across multiple disciplines.

2 Turkey is currently experiencing an economic crisis, which started in late 2018; for details, see Akçay and Güngen (2019). However, from the early 2000s up until the crisis, it was considered one of the world’s fastest growing economies (The Economist 2018).

3 The name IBF originally stood for “Islamic Business Forum”; however, organisers decided to change the first word to “International” (retaining the “I”, so that it could continue to stand informally for “Islamic”) following concerns about the negative effects of Islamophobia on their transnational activity (TU5). For further detail, see Chapter 4.

Religion’s growing significance in politics has become a subject of growing interest, particularly in relation to religious groups’ economic activities and the role of religious identities in national and international settings (Fox 2013). Religion has therefore become an important topic in the field of international politics, which has particularly focused on the role of transnational religious networks as important non-governmental organisations (NGOs) participating in global governance (Lynch 2009, 2014; Fox and Sandal 2010; Sandal and Fox 2013, Rethel 2019, Murray and Worth 2013). It has also made its presence known in development studies, with regards to its effects on recent economic developmental issues (Jones and Petersen 2011; Rakodi 2012; Roberts 2015).

For this thesis, I have selectively examined these above-mentioned bodies of literature (sociology of religion, international politics, and development studies), reviewing mostly studies which (a) theorise religion’s political-economic function in the contemporary era and (b) support their claims based on one or more case studies. Studies theorising only one religion to explain one specific case are left out of the thesis, as I deal with two different religions and neoliberal ideology comparatively.4

In the mainstream accounts within these literatures, religion is conceptualised either as a ‘constitutive element’ of recent developments – particularly in those accounts following the Weberian theoretical tradition – or else as a ‘variable’ externally related to these developments, especially by those following the liberal tradition. Weberian approaches highlight religious groups’ and actors’ growing role and importance in the global political economy and how they construct its reality (Abou El Fadl 2004; Lindbeck 1984; Lynch 2009, 2014). Religion (its guidelines, practices, and moral values) is understood as constitutive of these groups’ and actors’ subjectivities, and therefore their interactions with the world. Thus, on the one hand, these (religious) subjectivities, when translated into action, make religion dynamic, lead social change and create important space for religion’s presence in society, politics and the economy (Salvatore 1997; Lynch 2009, 2014). On the other, religion still depends on social, political and economic contexts and on actors’ reactions to these contexts, as its meaning and interpretation change over time (Lynch 2009: 402).

4 Typical examples are studies in theology or the philosophy of religion, such as Turner (2002) and Singh (2011).

However, for these approaches, firstly, it is not clear to what extent religion has actually played a constitutive role in recent developments, because it is also believed to be dependent on other (social, political and economic) contexts. Therefore, it is not clear whether religion is constitutive of these developments, based on religious actors’ subjectivities, or whether it reflects these developments, which affect religious actors and their reactions to it. Secondly, the absence of class analysis – and, therefore, ignorance of the effects of structural changes rooted in the social relations of production – in these approaches results in an excessive focus on religion’s role, and in the attribution of too much autonomy to religious actors’ subjectivities in interpreting social developments. Hence, who these actors are, whether religious elites and subalterns practice their subjectivities in the same way, and whether any kind of religious subjectivities could become prominent in the global political economy remain unanswered questions (see sub-section 1.1.1 for a detailed discussion of these approaches).

Studies following the liberal tradition, meanwhile, see religion as a variable confined to its own realm, such that it can only interact with other such realms in an external fashion (Fox and Sandal 2010, Sandal and Fox 2013). Religion’s effect on socio-economic development can thus be analysed either qualitatively (Rakodi 2012; Jones and Petersen 2011) or quantitatively (Iannaconne et al. 1998; Stark and Finke 2000). As religion has one certain meaning and stands on its own for these approaches, any change in religion’s meaning or role in society and development happens within its own realm, separate from both politics and the economy. For these accounts, transnational religious organisations grow in their own religious networks and then affect other realms externally, i.e. creating more space for religious forms of expression and for their involvement in globalisation (Micklethwait and Woolridge 2009), as well as enhancing development (Rakodi 2012).

These approaches have problems too, however. Firstly, locking religion in its own place as a separate variable and letting it interact with other realms only from outside results in ignoring its internal connections to other social phenomena. By understanding religion as a strictly non-governmental issue, liberal accounts leave almost no space for seeing religion as a part of political projects. In this sense, they fail to explain why religious elites are getting enough space within state institutions and bureaucracy to become prominent in the global political economy. Secondly, again, an absence of class analysis

18 presents problems for understanding religious groups’ practices and these practices’ meaning beyond religious contexts. Moreover, a lack of historical analysis results in their adopting a transhistorical definition of religion (see sub-section 1.1.2 for a detailed analysis of these approaches).

Unlike mainstream approaches, historical materialist approaches based on a Gramscian framework have recently developed political-economic analyses of religion (Roberts 2015; Murray and Worth 2013, Murray 2012; Worth 2013). Based on Antonio Gramsci’s discussion of religion, Philip Roberts defines religion as “a social process” which is closely related to the social relations of production and which “takes on different roles, functions and meanings at specific historical moments” (2015: 1663-1664). In this way, he clarifies the interrelationships between religion, politics and capitalist development, drawing upon the case of Brazil. Kyle Murray and Owen Worth, on the other hand, open up the question of religion in neo-Gramscian International Political Economy (IPE) by highlighting how religion is related to neoliberal hegemony and to the intellectual and moral leadership underpinning it (2013: 731). By focusing on the global Prosperity Gospel movement’s activities in sub-Saharan Africa, they explore how this movement has “helped to harmonise the processes of free market capitalism … through mobilising popular consent” (ibid.: 732). For them, conceptions of the world constructed around religion are no less important than other “competing conceptions of the world”; therefore, their importance in state-society complexes and social forces should not be neglected (ibid.: 732-733).

Such analyses solve the two main problems of the mainstream approaches explained above. Religion is here neither free from class relations in constituting religious subjects and their participation in the global political economy, nor does it intervene from ‘outside’ or possess the same meaning throughout history. For this reason, I use a historical materialist approach based on a Gramscian framework to make sense of the data I have collected from two religion-based business forums in India and Turkey. In doing so, I show that the intellectual and moral leadership underpinning neoliberal ideology is founded upon religion, and the entire process is mediated by religion in both countries.

Using this approach, I contribute to the study of the political economy of religion by explaining the way religion interacts with neoliberal ideology, presenting two empirical cases which have not previously been discussed by the academic literature: the religion- based intellectual projects of WHEF (India) and IBF (Turkey). In making this contribution and in making sense of the data collected from these religion-based business forums, I combine Gramsci’s own discussion of religion with neo-Gramscian IPE. This serves particularly to: 1. focus attention on the fact that each religion in question is an elite articulation of religion, and that such articulations differ depending on class strata (Gramsci 1971: 325-326, 328-329; Fulton 1987: 203), 2. highlight elite agency and reveal elite organisations as (collective) organic intellectuals of capitalist class fractions in contemporary neoliberalism (Shields 2012, 2016, 2019; Bruff 2008; Macartney 2008; van der Pijl 1998; van Apeldoorn, 2000),5 3. understand the general logic of the global political economy within which these elites and elite business organisations operate, which is neoliberal and variegated (Macartney 2009; Macartney and Shields 2011; Shields 2019).6 None of the studies cited in relation to the last two points above particularly focus on religion; however, once religion and religion-based organisations are defined with respect to class relations, and especially once religion is not thought of separately from political society, taking such an approach opens up new aspects of the discussion of religion and helps to explain how it interacts with neoliberal ideology (see section 1.2 for a detailed analysis).

Comparing Turkey and India

Indian author Amitav Gosh published an article in The Times of India titled “Erdoğan and Modi: Parallel Journeys?” following his visit to Turkey in 2014, just after the

5 I acknowledge ideological and methodological differences between these studies. However, what I am trying to achieve by using these works is simply to contextualise religion-based business organisations as elite organisations and ultimately as organic intellectuals, and to demonstrate that they are no less important than any other elite organisation in mediating neoliberal ideology.

6 The discussion on variegated neoliberalism is broader than these studies. Within the context of this thesis, only the mentioned studies are taken into consideration in terms of relating the ideological dimensions of neoliberalism to – and drawing an overall picture of its general logic. For institutionalist and policy analysis perspectives, see Peck and Tickell (2002) and Peck (2013).

Bharatiya Janata Party’s (Indian People’s Party; BJP) electoral victory shook India. For Gosh (2014), the two parties’ leaders – Narendra Damodardas Modi and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – mirrored each other in many ways, ranging from their personal and professional histories to the religious social movements in which they had important responsibilities, and from their paths to leadership – starting at the grassroots, then reaching the local and ultimately national levels – to their establishment of business- focused governments.

The 2014 Indian general election also attracted the attention of intellectual circles in Turkey. A Turkish scholar, Korkut Boratav (2014), asked the question “A new India?”, echoing the “new Turkey” discussions of approximately ten years ago subsequent to the Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) electoral success in 2002. Boratav’s focus was more on the structural similarities between BJP and JDP: full commitment to neoliberal reforms guided by the World Bank and IMF, the promotion of minimum state and maximum governance, and nationalism expressed more in religious terms and accompanied by a discourse of turning back to the country’s ‘essential’ (religious) values and away from Western secularism. The 2019 Indian general election featured a focus on the “new India” in the BJP manifesto, and ended with a landslide (Shekhar 2019). Hinduism (in the form of Hindu nationalism) has crystallised as a significant part of this ‘new India’ under BJP, just as Islam (in the form of political Islam) has done for the ‘new Turkey’ under JDP (Boratav 2019).7

Despite their cultural, geographic and demographic differences, such similarities make India and Turkey interesting cases for a comparative investigation of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology, with Hinduism and Islam featuring heavily in the neoliberal hegemonic projects led by BJP and JDP elites, respectively. Beyond this, there are two more points which make this comparison even more interesting. Firstly, such a comparison lets us deal with two completely different religions, namely Hinduism and Islam, and their differing articulations in intellectual projects backing neoliberal hegemonic projects. Looking at these two religions of major developing countries – both described as “rising powers” in their respective regions (Göçer-Akder and Benli-

7 I take Hindu nationalism and political Islam as elite articulations of Hinduism and Islam, fort Hinduism see Chapter 2, for Turkey see Chapter 3.

Altunışık 2018: 141) – and at the intellectual projects built upon them highlights that neoliberalism is variegated in terms not only of its technical applications, but also its ideational underpinnings. Although neoliberalism’s economic-structural and political- ideological dimensions are internally related, the references to neoliberalism and its variegated manifestations in this thesis only cover the latter dimension. This is to say, such a separation between the economic-structural dimension and political-economic dimension and the particular focus on the latter in the thesis are only for didactic purposes.

Secondly, both India and Turkey are eligible to serve as examples of religion’s particular role in securing consent for neoliberal ideology. This is because neoliberalism as a political project (Harvey 2016) was not put into practice by the religiously-oriented elites in question. Rather, neoliberalisation was planned and carried out in the 1980s by other groups of elites in each country, namely the ‘old elites’ representing large (secular, Western-oriented) fractions of Indian and Turkish capital. Throughout the process of neoliberalisation, however, these countries witnessed the rise of religiously-oriented fractions of the capitalist class – the ‘new elites’ – which assumed leadership of their neoliberal projects.8 Whereas the old elites failed to manufacture consent for their neoliberal projects, the new religiously-oriented elites did so successfully. In this sense, both countries allow us to track religion’s and religion-based intellectual projects’ interaction with neoliberal ideology.

Notes on the Case Studies

Four brief notes on the case studies are worth making here. First, WHEF and IBF are forums that host religiously-oriented business elites in India and Turkey. To show that religion cannot be locked away in some self-contained ‘cultural’ realm, I have selected forums which explicitly aim to bring business strategies based on Hinduism and Islam to prominence in the global political economy. Second, the elites of these forums are not

8 In this thesis, I maintain as primary within each country’s capitalist class the distinction between Western- oriented and religiously-oriented elites/fractions of capital; however, I offer these not as ‘definitive’ categories of capitalist classes but as explanatory of the main political polarities of both countries. See Hoşgör (2013) for a similar usage.

22 men of religion, but men of profession possessing strong religious identities and commitments.9 They are businesspeople, academics, bureaucrats, technocrats, investors and entrepreneurs, and not necessarily monks, gurus, imams, priests, or missionaries. For this reason, I prefer to call them “religiously-oriented business elites” rather than simply “religious elites”. Religion is not confined to faith-based organisations; rather, its complex nature manifests itself in many organisations which define their projects with reference to religion, including WHEF and IBF.

Third, to avoid any instrumental or functionalist understandings of religion, I highlight the organic nature of these forums: the religiously-oriented elites which lead them are organically connected to particular fractions of capital in India and Turkey which lead neoliberalism today, including ruling elites, and occupy a significant place in their state- society complexes.10 Fourth, as this thesis sheds light on the similarity between these two different intellectual projects – in the sense of their interaction with neoliberal ideology despite the differences between their national contexts – it is necessary to note that both forums operate within separate transnational networks and have no relationship with each other.

The World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF)

WHEF is an elite forum and knowledge-sharing platform based in Delhi which organises annual forums.11 It is the first and most important of the seven forums under the roof of the World Hindu Foundation (WHF), established by members of the Hindu nationalist

9 I do not use the word ‘men’ neutrally. Rather, I do so to focus upon the masculine character of these forums and their participants. Women are not in the decision-making cadres of either forum, and their participation rates are much lower than those of men. However, the gender politics of these forums are outside of the scope of this thesis.

10 In saying that these religiously-oriented elites are organic to domestic ruling elites, I mean that both groups were part of the same Hindu or Islamic socialisation processes prior to the 1980s. I thus only focus on those who occupy the same social circles as BJP and JDP elites. I do not take into consideration those who also had religion-based agendas but who collaborated with ruling elites from outside, such as the Gülenists in Turkey. They could have both been considered organic to capital and also been accurately categorised as a religiously-oriented elite; however, their relations with JDP elites were not organic but instrumental, as seen in their previous relationships with other parties of government.

11 These forums are referred to in the thesis by their year, following WHEF’s own convention: e.g. WHEF 2012, WHEF 2013. For more information about each forum, see Appendix 2.

23 organisation the World Hindu Council (Vishva Hindu Parishad; VHP).12 The idea for WHEF’s foundation goes back to 2008-2009 (IN5), and the first forum took place in 2012 in Hong Kong. WHEF

brings together financially successful elements within … Hindu society such as traders, bankers, technocrats, investors, industrialists, businessmen, professionals, along with economists and thinkers, so that each group can share their business knowledge, experience, expertise and resources with their fellow brethren (WHEF 2015a).

FIGURE 1: The WHEF circle

Source: WHEF (2016c 00:02:06)

WHEF is a “global platform for Hindu businesses” having “no branch or membership anywhere in the world” (WHEF, n.d.a). Membership and connections are managed through other platforms, such as the Hindu Economic Forum (HEF) and Hindu Business Network (HBN). HEF is an organisation with chapters in various cities in India as well as other parts of the world. As well as facilitating face-to-face connection, HBN offers a digital platform similar to other social media platforms like LinkedIn, and helps Hindu

12 For details of other forums, see p.119.

24 businesspeople worldwide to stay connected virtually (WHEF 2016b: 13). All these networking efforts aim to “create market access across geographical zones and countries, spreading from Auckland to Alaska and Oslo to Johannesburg, cutting across the entire globe” (WHEF n.d.b), along with establishing a system for increasing credit availability, accessing affordable capital, and developing new technologies (WHEF 2013a).

WHEF’s people fall into three main categories. The first is the forum’s ideologues, who communicate the ideas behind WHEF’s project and establish its ideational base. The second is wealthy businesspeople in India and abroad, who fund WHEF events and act as mentors in their areas of expertise. The third category, then, is the people who attend the events, who are generally those new to either their business field or WHEF’s project. This category mainly consists of members of subordinate groups within the business community: owners of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), young start-up entrepreneurs, and students (‘future entrepreneurs’), who sometimes make presentations, but who generally remain simply attendees to be persuaded into greater participation in WHEF’s project.

WHEF’s establishment was declared a response to an “urgent need”, in the first forum, to “harness the business acumen of the large and diverse group [of] Hindus as well as the particular advantages Hindu[s] possessed [sic] in the area of knowledge based society and economy” (WHEF 2012b: 4). An “immediate goal” of the organisation, as presented in its first brochure, was thus creating “a new group of entrepreneurs, by developing business related and other such skills that can aid in generating new streams of wealth” (WHEF 2012a). WHEF introduces itself as endorsing four generic principles:

Philosophy: Dhamasya Moolam Arthah (Economy is the Strength) Vision: Making Society Prosperous Mission: Creating and Sharing Surplus Wealth Action: Fostering and Mentoring Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (WHEF 2014a; WHEF 2015a; WHEF 2016a)

Confronting Western capitalism, WHEF stands for the creation of a supposedly unique business strategy based on Hinduism and rooted in ancient Indian and Hindu teachings, which are understood as applicable to today’s global world (IN4, IN5).

The International Business Forum (IBF)

IBF was founded in 1995 under the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (Müstakil Sanayici ve İş Adamları Derneği; MÜSİAD), in order to establish a global network between Muslim businesspeople all around the world (IBF, n.d.; IBF 2000).13 MÜSİAD was founded by businesses from the political Islamist circles and played a key role in the establishment of JDP. IBF represents this group’s transnational dimension. Its headquarters is in İstanbul, the historical capital of the Ottoman Empire and of the caliphate for approximately 500 years: “East of West, West of East, [and the] best way to access [both]” (MÜSİAD, n.d.a).

FIGURE 2: IBF’s old and new symbols

Source: OIC (2010) and IBF (n.d.)

IBF is described as “an economic platform like Davos”, bringing together Muslim businesspeople and letting them discuss potential business opportunities (MÜSİAD 2015a: 133-134). This discussion is intended to turn into actual trade agreements between participants through special panels and sessions. After more than twenty years of activity, IBF’s Board of Governors currently encompasses twenty-four countries.14 IBF organises annual forums, alternating each year between İstanbul and one of the other member

13 The same trick with IBF’s “I” as explained in Footnote 2 is also at work in MÜSİAD’s “M”, which continues to informally stand for the word Müslüman [Muslim] but which was officially changed to Müstakil, [Independent]. This time, the reason for this change was to secure itself against the strictly secular constitution of Turkey at that time (TU5). For further detail, see Chapter 3.

14 For the full list of member countries, see Appendix 4.

26 countries.15 When organised in İstanbul, these take place together with MÜSİAD’s business fair MÜSİAD EXPO. Although the primary focus is on business opportunities, other “economic, social and political issues related to member Muslim countries and potential solutions to existing problems” are also important topics of discussion (ibid: 134). IBF has become the official business forum of the Standing Committee for Economic Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) since 2006, and its parent organisation the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) since 2008.16

IBF’s people fall into four main categories, three of which parallel those of WHEF. Of these three, the first is again ideologues, who advance the ideas behind the IBF project and carry it out. The second is again wealthy businesspeople, particularly those with expertise in their chosen fields and the potential to act as mentors for those having less expertise. The third is SME owners, young start-up entrepreneurs, and students who attend these forums for access to networks, social and financial support, and new trade agreements. The fourth category is bureaucrats and technocrats, generally from the chambers of commerce of host countries; although these can also be found at WHEF events, their concentration and importance within IBF warrants special mention.

Similarly to WHEF, IBF stands for a supposedly unique business strategy guided by Islam and its holy book, the Quran. Confronting Western capitalism and the West’s dominance globally, it advocates the union of Islamic countries in order to achieve prominence in the global political economy (IBF, n.d.; TU3; TU5).

Research Questions

As mentioned earlier, the main research question (RQ) underpinning this thesis is:

RQ1: How does religion interact with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey?

15 These forums are referred to in the thesis by their number, following IBF’s own convention: e.g. 1st IBF, 2nd IBF. For more information about each forum, see Appendix 3.

16 OIC is “the second largest inter-governmental organisation after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents” (OIC n.d.).

In order to answer this question, it addresses three related subsidiary RQs:

RQ2: What role has religion played at particular historical junctures in India and Turkey? In other words, what are the historical legacies behind WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects?

RQ3: In what ways do WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion? Why is religion important for neoliberal ideology?

RQ4: What are the similarities and differences between WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects? And what is the wider global relevance of these similarities/differences?

None of these questions are answered in a specific chapter. Instead, they are answered throughout the next seven chapters. Roughly speaking, Chapters 2 and 3 are responsible for RQ2. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal with RQ3 and RQ4. Each chapter makes it possible to solve the main research puzzle and build up the main argument of the thesis.

Research Design and Research Methods

In order to answer my RQs I first reviewed relevant literatures, as mentioned above, to develop a political economy analysis of religion. I then reviewed the two case countries’ contemporary histories in order to place religion and religiously-oriented business elites in context with respect to neoliberal ideology. WHEF and IBF emerged as case studies at this stage. I next conducted preliminary research on these forums, mostly based on secondary data accessed online (i.e. websites, news, etc.) and subsequently obtained primary data through planned fieldwork in both countries (i.e. reports, interviews, field notes, etc.). I spent six months in total on fieldwork between the beginning of July 2017 and the end of January 2018, with three months spent in Delhi and three months in İstanbul, these cities being where each organisation is headquartered.

In India, I secured a visiting researcher position in the Sociology department at Ambedkar University Delhi, working with Professor Smita Tewari-Jassal. In Turkey, I managed the whole fieldwork process on my own. During the fieldwork, most of the data were collected from WHEF and IBF documentation (annual reports, participants’ presentations in the forum events, audio-visuals, etc.), along with significant contributions from interviews with the forums’ elites and from other material (e.g. media speeches, autobiographical books, news in the media about the forums or elites, and field notes before and after the interviews, etc.).17

This thesis is based on qualitative research involving the triangulation of document analysis with interviews. Document analysis is “a systematic procedure for reviewing or evaluating documents” (Bowen 2009: 27). Documents are important and official texts that are “produced, shared, and used in socially organised ways” (Atkinson and Coffey 1997: 47) and which do not include the researcher’s intervention (Rapley 2007). Document analysis consists of examining the “rhetorical work of the text [to see] how the specific issues it raises are structured and organised” (Rapley 2007; original emphasis). For this reason, my research into these case studies mostly relied on the forums’ documentation before and during the fieldwork. It specifically focused on the self- representations of the forums in relation to the global political economy, the issues that they raised most frequently, and the specific ways in which they interpreted these issues.

Documents, however, are not “transparent representations of organisational routines, decision-making processes or professional diagnoses”; instead, they produce particular representations with their makers’ material and intellectual means (Atkinson and Coffey 1997: 47). Thus, the question of what is not there is as important as the question of what is there (Rapley 2007). For that reason, document analysis is frequently used in combination with other qualitative research methods to “seek convergence and corroboration” (Bower 2009:28). Triangulation is crucial for any research dealing with document analysis “to secure an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon in question” (Denzin 2012: 82). In this sense, triangulating document analysis with interviews and other material (including field notes, autobiographical books, media speeches and news

17 Most of WHEF’s documentation is available online at www.wheforum.org. Most of IBF’s documentation was provided to me by IBF managers. Some documentation is available online at www.ibforum.org.

29 in the media) contributed significantly to this thesis in the process of achieving “a comprehensive understanding of a complex social situation” (Flick 2018: 528).

Considering that most WHEF and IBF documentation is in the form of annual reports written from a third party perspective, summarising forums’ activities and the discussions conducted therein, interviews brought elite agency to the analysis as well as their own expressions of the activity they carry out (Kvale 1996: 1; Kvale and Brinkman, 2009: 35; Devine, 2002: 198). I therefore conducted ten semi-structured in-depth interviews in total, five with WHEF elites and five with IBF elites.18

Interviewees were chosen in two stages. First, I sent general queries to each forum’s official email address, not specifying any individual but requesting anyone who would be willing to discuss the forum. Second, I targeted specific people who I was familiar with from the preliminary research. There were four main challenges in conducting interviews, and in convincing WHEF and IBF elites to talk about the forums’ intellectual projects and their individual contributions. First, participants preferred to lean on the so-called ‘transparency’ of the forums’ documentation, and some of them even refused to talk, saying that everything they thought was in the reports and they agreed. Second, given that these forums incorporate transnational networks, the forums’ elites are generally businessmen who are not necessarily based in Delhi and İstanbul and who were often on business trips and/or too busy to talk. Third, more than five people preferred to take written questions and give written responses but became unresponsive despite many reminders. Fourth, some of the interviewees frequently disrupted interviews with questions about me and my project (e.g. asking what I thought about a particular issue).

Despite not experiencing any snowball effect and facing the reluctance of the respondents to speak, I ultimately managed to conduct interviews with the top cadres of both forums, including founders, managers, financiers and academics. Even if the number of interviews stayed lower than expected, the information received from these interviews was significant because I spoke to those who decided to establish the forums, who took active roles in their establishment in terms of networking, who provided funding with their own reasons and means, and who helped the founders to produce knowledge. Semi-

18 See Appendix 1 for interviewee details.

30 structured in-depth interviewing helped make the best use of these interviews, not restricting respondents with strictly defined questions and instead letting them respond to open-ended questions from whichever starting point they felt comfortable with (Bryman 2012). I also took field notes about the places in which the interviews were conducted (e.g. cafés, offices, etc.), the content of interviews (e.g. rejected questions, repeated points, etc.) and the relationships between them as interviewees and me as a researcher (e.g. recording restrictions, questions about research purposes, etc.). These notes helped me to develop a rich understanding of the agency of the elites and forums. Other material (autobiographical books, media speeches by the elites, and news about the elites and forums) was also synchronised with document analysis and interviews, and therefore fed this understanding.

In this respect, triangulation prepared the ground for this thesis as “an important asset on the route to a broader, more differentiated, and comprehensive understanding of what [was] studied” (Flick 2018: 530). Put concretely, what was in WHEF and IBF documentation provided the building blocks and main points of discussion for my research, and what was not there was then instrumental in commenting on these building blocks and points of discussion. This latter category was what I came to understand through the interviews and other material.

Significance of the Thesis and Research Findings

As stated earlier, this thesis contributes to the study of the political economy of religion with two new empirical cases and new aspects of discussion. It is particularly engaged with the recent historical materialist literature on religion based on Gramscian analysis, which acknowledges religion’s role within neoliberal hegemony. This thesis takes this discussion one step further, in the sense that it not only shows religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology, but also reveals the stages and reasoning behind it on a political- ideological level.

This is achieved by comparing India and Turkey, which is another significant contribution in itself, because it is not typical to compare these two countries in existing social-scientific scholarship. The first steps of the research for this thesis were taken in

31 early 2015, and it officially started late in the same year. Back then, there were only two newspaper articles – by Gosh (2014) and Boratav (2014), mentioned earlier – comparing India and Turkey, and one journal article by Leon et al. (2009) which focused on political parties and the construction of cleavages by comparing the US, India and Turkey. However, the period encompassing the research process saw an increasing number of studies specifically comparing India and Turkey, either focusing on recent developments or else engaging with issues in Indian and Turkish histories. For instance, Leon et al. (2015) deal with the significance of political parties (including BJP and JDP) in organising society, and Berland (2017) engages with religious party moderation in Indonesia, Turkey and India.

In addition, a book edited by Tewari-Jassal and Turan (2018) contains a number of comparative studies, with Göçer-Akder and Benli-Altunışık (2018) dealing with the similar representations of these countries in global politics, Köşer-Akçapar (2018) engaging with the Indian and Turkish diasporas in the US and Ergenç (2018) focusing on middle-class-based social movements in both countries. Whereas this last group of studies do not particularly focus on recent religious politics in each country, Leon et al. (2009, 2015) and Berland (2017) do so by bringing neoconservative political parties to the fore, albeit without developing a political economy analysis of the situation. However, in this thesis I relate religion to neoliberalism without reducing the rise of religious politics to the successes of particular political parties and their leaders. Although this is the most visible side of the situation, its underlying social forces and the role of social classes (in the context of this thesis, elites) still remain unexplained in the existing literature. For this reason, not only does this thesis represent a timely response to recent ideological implications of neoliberalism in India and Turkey, but it is also a timely intervention into contemporary academic discussions.

With respect to the main research question (RQ1) of the thesis, which is interested in how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey, the thesis’s overall argument is that religion mediates neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey by religiously- oriented elites’ involvement in intellectual and moral leadership, specifically by creating intellectual projects reproducing neoliberal common sense.

As religion is neither straightforwardly constitutive of political-economic developments nor a simple (external) variable affecting them, this elite agency and its class character is crucial in mediating neoliberal ideology through an elite articulation of religion.

Looking at WHEF and IBF specifically, this thesis shows that these forums are collective organic intellectuals of the religiously-oriented fractions of the capitalist class (including BJP and JDP) that are leading neoliberalism in India and Turkey, respectively. Their intellectual projects place religion at the centre of mediating neoliberal ideology by a) organising religiously-oriented business elites and connecting them with each other on a transnational level (Chapter 4), b) constructing a ‘correct’ form of global political economy based on their particularistic interests, thereby reproducing neoliberal common sense (Chapter 5), c) persuading subordinate parts of the business community (i.e. SMEs, young start-up entrepreneurs and students) into their projects (Chapter 6). These three aspects or stages are complementary in Gramsci’s definition of the intellectual function, in which the organic intellectual is not “a simple orator” but an “organiser”, “constructor” and “permanent persuader” (1971: 10). At every stage, the organisational power of the forums is mobilised and reinforced based on religion and a supra-denominational transnational religious community. In addition to RQ1, these stages are also central to answering RQ3, particularly with respect to the question of how the forums operationalise their intellectual projects.

This thesis also argues that religion provides a solid ground for universalising capitalist class fractions’ particularistic interests and stabilising their discontents. As religion connotes “a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct” (Gramsci 1971: 325-326), it is able to provide this ground for religion-based forums in the process of knowledge production, enabling their (religiously-oriented) elites to express their particularistic interests as universal, which is a crucial stage in the production of neoliberal common sense (cf. Shields 2012: 362; Macartney 2008: 430). This unity of faith is key to obscuring the class relations underlying religion and its fragmentation, and therefore to constructing a ‘coherent’ and ‘inclusive’ whole out of neoliberalism’s contradictory and exclusionary ideology (Chapter 5). Relatedly, religion helps these forums to create a collective coherent identity and to construct a particular

33 conception of the world among many competing ones (cf. Murray and Worth 2013) as they join global struggles over wealth, power and knowledge production (cf. Murphy 2000).

This gives both forums a chance to define themselves in the global political economy as different to and, most importantly, set against Western capitalism, which in their conceptualisation imposes itself from outside, with its own values that are alien to both societies. However, this thesis argues that their criticisms do not address themselves to the building blocks of neoliberal ideology stemming from the social relations of production – i.e. capital’s dominance over labour – but instead only to Western values. They therefore only reproduce neoliberal common sense, mediating it with religion, and thus pave the way for the idea that neoliberalism is ‘fixable’ once blended with the ‘correct’ (Hindu and Islamic) values (Chapter 5).

The discussion above highlight substantial parallels between India and Turkey in terms of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology, illustrated with respect to WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects. In answering RQ4, the thesis finds that despite fundamental differences between Hinduism and Islam – one is non-Abrahamic, the other is Abrahamic; one is largely condensed in one country, the other is common across a region; one takes its legitimacy from ancient scriptures and deities, the other from a single holy book – their articulation in their forums’ intellectual projects exhibit significant similarities (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). The main basis of these similarities is the transnational dimension of neoliberalism, which does not rule out national specificities, but does restrict them (cf. Macartney and Shields 2011: 35). Ultimately, both WHEF and IBF aim to make sense of neoliberalism in order to strengthen their (religion-based) transnational business networks, by mobilising more people around them. They thus re- interpret this transnational dimension with religious ideas. As is shown, religions change, but the ‘correct’ form of global political economy remains neoliberalism (Chapter 5), with (Hindu or Muslim) businesspeople in India and Turkey connected to businesspeople abroad for investment and trading purposes (Chapters 4 and 6).

In constructing these arguments, this thesis does not posit any general and/or transhistorical role for religion. Instead, taking on Roberts’ (2015) evaluation of religion as a social process, it explains the transformation of the role of religion with reference to

34 contemporary Indian and Turkish histories in answering RQ2 (Chapters 2 and 3). It shows that under regimes based on Western-style secularism, religion (and particularly its political expression) was formerly perceived as marginal in both countries, only becoming mainstream through the efforts of religiously-oriented elites. However, rather than treating these elites as actors who appeared suddenly after the 1980s, this thesis takes into consideration the processes and social forces that paved the way for their significance under neoliberalism. It thus argues that religion mediates neoliberalism today in a manner contingent upon historical sedimentations. This highlights the importance of acknowledging historical context and the cumulative (as well as contradictory) nature of common sense in approaching the religiously-oriented business elites’ intellectual projects (Bruff 2008: 48).

Scope of the Thesis and Its Limitations

This thesis provides an empirically-focused comparative account of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology, with particular attention paid to two religion-based business forums in India and Turkey and their intellectual projects. In doing so, it adopts Gramsci’s understanding of religion as a fragmented concept, with different meanings depending upon class relations. It is therefore, firstly, about elite articulations of religion and their internal relationship with neoliberal ideology. Subaltern articulations of religion are left outside of the scope of this thesis; while acknowledging that these also play a part in the rise of religious politics in the respective countries and that they can also mediate neoliberal ideology or resist it,19 the thesis restricts itself only to religiously-oriented business elites as organic intellectuals of particular class fractions.

Secondly, the thesis pays attention to the way in which religiously-oriented business elites make sense of neoliberal ideology and reproduce neoliberal common sense. In other words, it is not about the policy applications of neoliberalism or economic- structural dimensions of it in their national contexts. Therefore, when this thesis discusses neoliberalism, it prioritises its ideological dimensions for didactic purposes.

19 For a study of subaltern articulations of religion see Tuğal (2009), and for an account of resistance coming therefrom, see Roberts (2015).

Thirdly, the thesis focuses on how religiously-oriented business elites present their intellectual projects as coherent and universal, while demonstrating how these projects actually include contradictory elements and reflect elites’ particularistic interests. It focuses on ‘coherent’ narratives of neoliberal ideology – as mediated by religion – and unpacks them, revealing the contradictions of the knowledge they produce and how these stem from class relations underlying neoliberalism (Chapter 5). However, it does not focus on conflicts internal to WHEF and IBF elites, which do indeed exist.

Fourth, despite focusing on religion-based business forums and religiously-oriented business elites, this thesis does not focus on sectoral differences between the businesses in which these elites are engaged. When focusing on the subordinate parts of the business community, mainly SMEs, the same logic is followed. This thesis is only interested in political constructions of “businesspeople” and “SMEs” (cf. Perren and Dannreuther 2012), however, rather than focusing on their actual businesses.

Finally, challenges during fieldwork – especially in conducting interviews, as mentioned earlier – posed limitations to the elaboration of certain issues, such as the policy implications of these forums’ activities, conflicts within the forums, and the sectoral information listed above.

Structure of the Thesis

This thesis comprises six main chapters, in addition to this introductory chapter and a concluding chapter at the end. Overall, its main parts consist of one conceptual (Chapter 1), two contextual (Chapters 2 and 3) and three empirical chapters (Chapters 4, 5 and 6).

Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical framework of the thesis. I start by explaining two mainstream approaches to the political economy of religion, namely Weberian and liberal approaches, and showing their limits in understanding religion’s complex interaction with neoliberal ideology. I then argue for a historical materialist analysis of religion based on a Gramscian framework. In doing so, I first review Karl Marx’s discussion of religion in order to relate religion to the social relations of production. After this, I turn to review Gramsci’s analysis of religion and explain specific concepts and discussions that I adopt in this thesis to make sense of the data. Finally, I combine these with recent contributions

36 from neo-Gramscian IPE on religion, along with other work from this body of scholarship, to locate WHEF and IBF within the global political economy with reference to variegated political-economic expressions of neoliberalism.

Chapters 2 and 3 are the contextual chapters of the thesis, and serve to place WHEF and IBF elites in historical relation to the traditions from which they take their roots, as well as to clarify the historical sedimentations they employ to shape and stabilise their intellectual projects. These chapters examine the transformation of the roles of Hinduism (Chapter 2) and Islam (Chapter 3) in their respective countries and clarify Hindu nationalism and political Islam as elite articulations of their respective religions. They show that these articulations were understood as marginal in the establishment of the nation-state, but became main sites of opposition to founding (Western-oriented, secular) ideologies in the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, in both cases their mainstreaming started along with neoliberalisation in the 1980s, being connected to the increasingly effective involvement of religiously-oriented elites in the global political economy.

Having made this context clear, empirical chapters 4, 5 and 6 argue for WHEF and IBF’s specific function as collective organic intellectuals in mediating neoliberal ideology, based on Gramsci’s (1971: 10) definition of this intellectual function. Each chapter draws out one aspect of this function, highlighting both forums as “organisers” of neoliberal hegemony (Chapter 4), “constructors” of neoliberal common sense (Chapter 5), and “permanent persuaders” of subordinate parts of the business community (Chapter 6).

Chapter 4 highlights the connective and organising capacity of these forums among the religiously-oriented business elites. I illustrate that both forums first utilised their interpersonal relationships on the national level, before transcending this level by establishing strategic relations between religiously-oriented elites across civil society (Hindu nationalist/political Islamic NGOs), political society (bureaucrats/technocrats) and academia on the transnational level. I unpack both forums’ networks, and highlight the elite agency and particularistic class interests underpinning them. I illustrate that the “class cadre” (van der Pijl 1998) running WHEF’s intellectual project consists of wealthy businesspeople, high-ranking bureaucrats/technocrats, and academics from well-known global institutions in India and from the broader Indian diaspora. These same groups dominate IBF’s intellectual project, only drawn from Turkey and other Islamic or

Muslim-majority countries. This chapter thus introduces both forums as organic intellectuals of capitalist class fractions that are both religiously- and transnationally- oriented, based on this organisational and connective component of the intellectual function.

Chapter 5 sheds light on how these forums construct the ‘correct’ form of global political economy in line with neoliberal ideology, and how they present this construction as universally beneficial. I show how WHEF and IBF situate themselves in the global political economy by confronting Western capitalism. Both suggest an alternative political-economic model – based on Hinduism for WHEF and on Islam for IBF – to the existing Western-dominated one, criticising the latter for its economic practices and underlying values. I argue, however, that neither forum has any problem with the social relations of production underpinning the existing global political economy. For WHEF, the three building blocks of the alternative are knowledge production, spiritual enrichment and community finance. For IBF, they are the Islamic charity sector, Islamic financial culture and participatory finance. Both agree, however, upon neoliberalism’s core logics, such as financialisation, privatisation, and minimal government. The chapter thus argues that they reproduce neoliberal common sense, mediating it with religion and constructing it as universally correct, and that this is therefore illustrative of their fulfilling the second component of the organic intellectual function.

Chapter 6 shows how WHEF and IBF also act as permanent persuaders of subordinate parts of the business community and mobilise them for their intellectual projects. In this last empirical chapter, I reveal that WHEF and IBF not only produce neoliberal common sense but also expand it, manufacturing the consent of these groups as organisers of neoliberal hegemony. I show that they construct these groups as ‘backward’ parts of the business community, and themselves as mentors who help them to find networking, investment and trade opportunities. By developing ideas, tools and various activities, they link these subordinate groups with the world under their intellectual projects. These ideas, tools and activities range from arranging trade partnerships to creating funds, and from arranging internships for students to organising training programs. This chapter argues that they thus fulfil the last component of the intellectual function, in the sense of persuading these groups into their intellectual projects.

The Conclusion of the thesis summarises its key original contributions to academic knowledge. I return to the main and subsidiary RQs of the thesis, and re-organise and answer them in accordance with key contributions from my empirical findings. I also highlight the new avenues for future research that they imply.

The following chapter turns to outline the theoretical framework of the thesis.

CHAPTER 1

FRAMING RELIGION IN CONTEMPORARY NEOLIBERALISM

In this chapter, I provide the theoretical framework employed by this thesis in answering its key research question: how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey. The chapter therefore outlines a number of theoretical concepts and arguments in order to situate religion within a political economy analysis in responding to neoliberal ideology and make sense of the empirical data. Confronting mainstream approaches to the political economy of religion, the chapter suggests a historical materialist approach to religion based on a Gramscian framework. This framework provides us with analytical tools and concepts to relate religion both to elite agency and to the underlying social relations of production, and then to relate them both to social forces underpinning neoliberal ideology. This analysis will set the stage for: 1. the analysis in the following contextual chapters (2 and 3), which grasps religion as a social process, and shows both (a) its different meanings and roles at different junctures in the histories of India and Turkey and (b) how, in its current form, it mediates neoliberal ideology; 2. the analysis in the empirical chapters (4, 5 and 6), which argues that this mediation happens through the activity of organic intellectuals of neoliberal hegemonic projects. By locating the religion-based business forums WHEF and IBF as collective organic intellectuals in each country and analysing their intellectual projects, it shows how they construct neoliberalism as the ‘correct’ form of global political economy and manufacture consent amongst the subordinate parts of the business community.

In the first section (1.1) of this chapter I critically engage with mainstream approaches to religion, namely the Weberian (1.1.1) and liberal (1.1.2) traditions. I outline general tendencies in how academic scholarship conceptualises religion from a political- economic perspective. Broadening certain aspects of the discussion of religion briefly outlined in the Introduction, this section illustrates the limits of these approaches in terms of understanding religion with respect to the complex dynamics of neoliberal ideology and highlights the need to go beyond them.

The second section (2.1), then, sets the stage for the critical approach towards religion that I use in the rest of this thesis. I start by reviewing Marx’s discussion of religion (1.2.1) in order to connect religion with the social relations of production, the conditions necessitating religion, and, therefore, ruling classes. After that, I turn to Gramsci (1.2.2) to develop a more dynamic understanding of religion in relation to hegemony. With the help of Gramsci’s theory, religion is not only related to the social relations of production, but also linked with elite agency in a clearer way. This is key to locating religiously- oriented business elites as organic intellectuals of particular capitalist class fractions leading neoliberal hegemony in India and Turkey. Lastly, I bring religion into discussions in neo-Gramscian IPE, in order to discuss it with respect to the contemporary neoliberalism in which religion and religion-based business forums operate.

1.1- Mainstream Approaches to Religion: Weberian and Liberal Approaches

This section deals with mainstream approaches to the political economy of religion, which attempt to understand religion’s role in capitalist development and the contemporary global political economy. In doing this, I do not review and discuss each and every work on religion, but instead examine some of the works that recent mainstream approaches take their roots from in order to grasp the reasoning behind their arguments. The section therefore engages two general tendencies derived from Weberian and liberal approaches: seeing religion as a constitutive element of capitalist development for the former, and seeing it as a simple variable in the global political economy for the latter.

I have two main reasons to focus on these tendencies. Firstly, they dominate the discussion on the political economy of religion. It is therefore important to understand them and their limitations before setting up the approach that I adopt in the next section, which is critical of both. Secondly, not only are these two tendencies prominent in scholarly discussions, but they are also observable in WHEF’s and IBF’s discourses as well, as will be seen in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. In this sense, understanding them is crucial to unpacking the forums’ discourses.

1.1.1- Weberian Approaches: Religion as A Constitutive Element

Weberian approaches take their roots from Max Weber’s ideas on religion, as presented in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1958[1905]). Looking at these ideas briefly, two interconnected issues emerge as crucially important: the question of rationality and, accordingly, the question of religion’s role (either positive or negative) in economic development. Contemporary discussions take shape around these two interrelated issues.

While discussing several factors that produced capitalism, Weber writes:

In the last analysis the factor which produced capitalism is the rational permanent enterprise, with its rational accounting, rational technology and rational law, but again not these alone. Necessary complementary factors were rational spirit, the rationalisation of the conduct of life in general and a rationalistic economic ethic (1983: 128).

Weber contends that it is not any spirit embodied by any religion, but the rational spirit that is complementary with capitalist development. Religions can either have a positive or negative impact on societies’ economic development. Whereas Calvinist Protestantism, having this rational spirit in the sense of seeing capitalist work ethic as a God-given task, “was uniquely catalytic in creating moral and political conditions favourable to capitalist accumulation” (Harriss-White 2005: 160), other religions, specifically Hinduism and Islam, failed to play that role in the societies that they dominated due to the lack of this rational component. Although they engaged with capitalist practices, for Weber, “all this was pariah capitalism, not rational capitalism such as developed in the West” (1983: 131).

Hinduism carried a “double burden”, in the sense of both lacking a rational work ethic compatible with capitalist development and being steeped in magic (Munshi 1988: 29- 31). Because it referred to an assimilative social system marked by castes “in which every change of occupation, every change of work technique may result in ritual degradation”, for Weber, it was “certainly not capable of giving birth to economic and technical revolutions from within itself” (1962: 112). Similarly, Islam, particularly its Sufism side, offered believers a form of “mystical flight” from harsh realities (Husain 2004), with similar negative effects on economic development. With Islam representing a patrimonial form of domination in which the warrior group – as its main carrier – use

42 religion in accordance with their interests, autonomous institutions other than militaristic ones could not spring up within Islamic societies, unlike in Europe (Weber 1962: 262).

Remembering that his work is still prominent in studies focusing on religion, even in this short explanation of Weber’s approach there are two main problems. Firstly, despite his significant interest in religions other than Christianity, his Eurocentric viewpoint overshadows the ways in which he sees these religions interacting with social forces. Western capitalism and values are seen as the ‘natural’ forms of capitalist development. Moreover, religions are enclosed in the societies that adopt them, lacking any sense of dynamism. This results in the oversimplification of religion; not only of Protestantism (Sombart 2001) but also of Hinduism and Islam.

Secondly, many capitalist institutions predated the Protestant reformation (Tawney 1926), calling Weber’s straightforward link between the two into question. Moreover, capitalist development is historically uneven, meaning that the backwardness of certain countries does not simply express religious differences, but is fundamentally related to factors such as colonialism and interaction of various social forces on the domestic as well as international levels. Thus, there is not a serious obstacle intrinsic to these religions for capitalist activity (for Hinduism, Harriss-White 2005; for Islam Rodinson, 1987). As a result of his neglecting the socio-economic organisation of capitalism and over-focusing on economic and social thinking (ibid.), religion appears to Weber as not only complementary to but also constitutive of capitalist development – depending on its level of rationality – resulting in his attributing to it an overdetermining role in society. This is again seen in contemporary Weberian approaches, but in the form of religion being constitutive of religious actors’ subjectivities first, and then of economic developments through these actors, as this chapter elaborates later.

A “neo-Weberian transformation” in academic thought came with a move from “Weber the idealist” to “Weber the conflict theorist” (Sanderson 1988). Presented as “an approach (or ‘perspective’) rather than ‘a grand theory’” (Lynch 2014: 274; original emphasis), early neo-Weberian contributions accepted religion as a constitutive part of society in terms of values and tradition, despite its role being considerably smaller in legislation and governance (Berger 1963, 1967; Wilson 1966; Martin 1978). Later contributions, however, were more convinced of religion’s constitutive power even with

43 regards to legislation and governance. Religious doctrines, in this sense, were linked to their evolving practices in time and in the public sphere (Abou El Fadl 2004; Asad 1993; Lindbeck 1984; Lynch 2009, 2014; Hathout 2006; Salvatore 1997). Whereas early contributions failed to explain religion’s gaining more space in governance and legislation in the Indian and Turkish examples, these recent contributions are worth closer attention in terms of appreciating religion’s dynamism.

Neo-Weberian approaches provided a broader definition of rationalisation:

Rationalization, therefore, refers to a religion’s bureaucratization and its ability to connect patterns of everyday social, economic, and political life– in other words, to the way in which religion shapes social organisation through routinization, rules, and ritual, and the way in which this systematization can spread to contexts other than that of its original development (Lynch 2009: 392).

In the context of this definition, religion (depending on its level of rationalisation) still has the ability to shape other social contexts than itself – i.e. capitalist development – but in a more dynamic manner, because this approach links religion to both individuals’ and groups’ changing subjectivities without restricting it to religious doctrines or any corresponding laws. Lynch (2009: 402) outlines this approach:

[S]uch an analysis first situates a religious group’s practices within the socio-political and economic context of its adherents. Next, it asks how adherents define the common good and attempt to achieve it, given the intertwining of religious, social, political, and economic traditions.

As seen in the quote, the focus is shifting towards the religious actors’ subjectivities and interpretations, also leaving some space for uncertainty:

[A] neo-Weberian analysis probes these places of uncertainty and contestations in linking religious guidelines to action in the public sphere, and looks at the range of interpretations that are legitimized within a religious tradition as well as those that may result in a hybrid or new form of religious ethic (ibid.).

Bringing forward adherents, actors, and practice in different contexts and rooted in various traditions with a level of uncertainty and hybridity is also what makes religion “historically specific” (Asad 1993: 29). Aiming to bridge the gap between religious doctrine and practice by employing ethical intentionality, therefore, religion is dependent upon “how actors interpret it” in everyday contexts and other situations such as suffering, violence, and crisis, but it also defines ethical struggles, prevalent socio-economic forms

44 and institutions, which is the key to understanding the intersection between belief and action (Lynch 2009, 2014).

This is the point where neo-Weberian approaches become problematic. Despite bringing two important issues into the analysis – religion’s dynamism and its different roles in specific historical moments – they fail to explain religion’s actual role and content in contemporary societies because of the confusion in their explanations over whether it is a historical construct or a constitutive part of socio-economic contexts. While neo- Weberians discuss religion’s dependency on social and economic contexts and actors’ or groups’ interpretations, they also mention religion as constitutive of actors’ or groups’ ethical intentions. In this sense, not only religious doctrine but also religious practice intersecting with other contexts remains blurred in terms of whether it is constructed or constitutive. When this point is unclear, it becomes impossible to approach religion and religious elites in a coherent way.

In terms of the RQs of this thesis – which problematises Hinduism/Islam, Hindu/Muslim businesspeople and neoliberal ideology – it would therefore not be clear from a neo- Weberian perspective whether Hinduism and Islam in their current form and practice are constructed by this religiously-oriented business elite, or whether Hinduism and Islam in their contemporary context have already been constitutive of their business activity and neoliberal engagement.

This aside, the neo-Weberian perspective on religion not as a fixed or unchanging concept but as a dynamic one is very important for this thesis too; however, placing this dynamism on the subjectivity of actors or groups results in problems. It obscures many other mediating factors, such as the state or global capitalism, and the social relations of production underlying them. In the absence of class analysis, neo-Weberians ultimately place religious dynamism on actors’ and groups’ subjectivities, ending up with the creation of several ‘ideal types’ in accordance with each religious group’s own subjectivity. In the context of this thesis, as stated in the Introduction, Hinduism and Islam are fundamentally different religions and the subjectivities stemming from each are completely different. However, as will be seen in the empirical chapters, the business strategies that Hindu and Muslim businesspeople under WHEF and IBF employ are significantly similar. This approach is therefore firstly misleading and secondly

45 insufficient to explain why these two separate cases adopt almost the same strategy. For this reason, the Gramscian approach, which will come after the following sub-section, highlights social forces under contemporary neoliberalism more in relation to religious actors’ agencies, without erasing the latter.

1.1.2- Liberal Approaches: Religion as A Variable

Alongside Weberian approaches, liberal approaches represent another important tendency in the mainstream literature on religion: that is, seeing religion as a variable in political economic contexts. The roots of liberal approaches to the political economy of religion go back to Adam Smith’s ideas in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (2010[1759]), where he relates economic mindsets and interactions with morality. For Smith, religion, as a mental framework, is a constituent in political economic structures resulting from natural human interactions. Market norms should also be applied to religion, as discussed in The Wealth of Nations (2007[1776]), to create an open religious ‘market’ in which various sects and religions can exist together without domination by any single one. In this religious laissez-faire, pure and rational religion could emerge and “rational discourse among religious groups would generate a public display of ‘good temper with moderation’” (McCleary and Barro 2006: 50).

When the contemporary histories of India and Turkey are analysed (Chapters 2 and 3), it is obvious that Smith’s aforementioned conceptualisation is no more than an idealisation. Despite both countries’ formal secularism and freedom of religion, certain religions – and even certain sects or interpretations20 – have become far more dominant throughout history, and clashes between different religious groups and between these groups and those adopting a secular lifestyle still continue in both countries. Furthermore, the discourse used to describe or mention ‘the other’ – which is generally the most significant religious minority in the country, i.e. Islam in India, or else Christianity (which is linked to the Western values of which both WHEF and IBF are critical) – is very negative, as will be seen in Chapter 5.

20 Brahminic Hinduism in India and Sunni Islam in Turkey.

Although it stems from an idealised conception, the application of market logic to religion still inspires liberal approaches. Seeing religion as “a relatively new variable” in the global political economy (Fox and Sandal 2010: 18), these approaches attempt to figure out this variable’s role in politics and the economy.21 Developing a two-way interaction model (van Staveren 2001; Jones 2006; McCleary and Barro 2006), they aim to see the effects of religion on political and economic choices and vice versa. Religion is treated alternately as a dependent and independent variable in order to see the effects on the interplay between religion and the economy (Fox and Sandal 2010: 19): in the first instance religion is taken as a dependent variable, and the effects of economic development on religious participation are examined; in the second, religion is considered as an independent variable, and the way it affects individuals’ economic performance is interrogated. The “two-way interaction” between religion and politics/the economy presents problems for the analysis in terms of apprehending the complexity of religion, and results in ignoring the relations within it, as this chapter elaborates later.

Built upon this conceptualisation of religion as a variable, supply-side and demand-side approaches to religion place emphasis on the relationship between government, religion, religious institutions, and religious participation by conducting quantitative research (Iannaconne and Stark 1994; Iannaconne et al. 1998; Stark and Finke 2000). In a religious market that tends toward equilibrium without government intervention, believers are consumers while religious institutions and organisations are suppliers. From a public choice perspective, for instance, believers can access greater public goods depending on their religious choices (Iannaconne 1992). Such an understanding is not restricted to quantitative studies. There are a great number of qualitative studies reproducing this same logic, namely “cost-benefit calculus” bringing forward the issue of transnational identity formation through the activity of transnational religious organisations operating in the global political economy (Sandal and Fox 2013: 102). For Fox and Sandal (2010: 18) religion is an “identity-related variable” and works in the following way:

Religious groupings bind people together and they influence the patterns of cooperation by increasing trust in the community and the willingness to

21 I maintain this distinction between ‘politics’ and ‘the economy’ at certain points here in order to focus on these approaches’ style of discussion, which understands politics and the economy separately. In the rest of the thesis, there is no separation between them and I therefore refer to ‘political economy’.

participate in social and economic life. Social capital, which is enriched by faith communities, can be integrated to Neoliberal perspectives that focus on ways to decrease cheating and to increase trust in transnational dealings. … Social capital in this case is consolidated by the religious fraternity, and it links religious identity to collective action (Sandal and Fox 2013: 103-104).

Therefore, this collective action matters in terms of transnational identity formation, and it finds a response in transnational civil society thanks to the changing scope of governance, which for liberal approaches erodes the state’s importance (ibid.; Fox and Sandal 2010; Micklethwait and Wooldridge 2009; Rudolph 1997; Shah and Toft 2009; Wolfe 2008).

As will be seen in the empirical chapters, which primarily trace the way religion interacts with neoliberal ideology – particularly through the transnational religion-based business networks formed by WHEF and IBF – this form of explanation is actively promoted by these organisations in mediating neoliberal ideology. The self-representation of these forums is mainly built upon being Hindu/Muslim and creating wealth by establishing religious business communities (Chapters 4 and 5), aiming to encourage more people – especially subordinate groups (i.e. SMEs) – to connect to and benefit from this community by putting their religious identity forward (Chapter 6). However, this explanation obscures many underlying relations, and most fundamentally, class relations. As this thesis shows, with the help of the Gramscian framework explained in the next section, the community which is created and which supposedly benefits believers is not only a religious one but a religious neoliberal one.

The changing scope of governance is particularly important for liberal studies attempting to understand transnational religious organisations and their importance in international politics (Fox 2013; Fox and Sandal 2010; Sandal and Fox 2013). Such studies are built upon the idea that transnational organisations and actors have gained more importance as states’ power has deteriorated in the current era. Sandal and Fox (2013: 107) explain:

With the changing scope of governance thanks to the advances of technology, religious actors take part in global civil society, transcending the distinction between the domestic and the international. Individuals, who share the same religious conviction around the world, come together to challenge the premises of transnational state structure.

Giving priority to non-state actors, therefore, this new scope welcomes religion as an identity-related variable and “makes space for [transnational] religious organizations and groups” (ibid: 89). For instance, Fox and Sandal (2010: 19) argue that

Among the transnational religious organizations that impact upon local and international politics are the Catholic Church, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, religious NGOs that operate in parts of the developing world and the lobbies of ethno-religious groups that operate in major powers in the system.

These organisations, for liberal approaches, are very important and they can also correct market failures (Sandal and Fox 2013: 100).22

This is an important point because, firstly, this thesis’s case studies fit the above description and examples. For instance, IBF is the official business forum of the abovementioned Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which since 2011 has been renamed the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Meanwhile, WHEF is the first openly transnational Hindu organisation. Secondly, the organisations themselves aim at correcting market failures at both discursive and practical levels (Chapters 5 and 6), as liberal approaches argue. Therefore, they exactly address the case studies of this thesis; however, their explanations are not convincing because they fail to consider the class relations underlying religion-based business organisations. Related to this, these approaches are also theoretically insufficient because they posit religion as a variable interacting with other contexts from outside as modelled in two-way ‘interaction models’. This results in the neglect of other relations within religion. As a result, these approaches end up over-focusing upon religious identities, and understanding religious organisations and their communities as monolithic and coherent wholes. They present religion as a class-free category, and obscure the fragmented nature of religion and the class conflicts and interests within religious communities.

As for the separation of religion from other contexts (politics, the economy, etc.) as a variable, these approaches create a self-enclosed space for religion within civil society and strictly separate it from political society (states, governments, etc.). Because class relations – which are also enmeshed in the state – are ignored, a clear line is drawn

22 Notice the discussion on the dichotomy between mainstream approaches and critical approaches based on the problem-solving manner of the former (Cox 1981).

49 between state and civil society, and transnational religious organisations become non- state actors interacting with the state in an external fashion. This is misleading in the sense that, while WHEF and IBF are non-state actors, they have a close relationship with the BJP and JDP governments. Indeed, they act as organic intellectuals of the neoliberal projects currently led by these governments, as will be shown in Chapter 4. For this reason, liberal approaches fail to explain such key relations, which are not external but organic. By contrast, the Gramscian framework outlined in the following section is capable of fully apprehending this organic relationship.

A final problem with locking religion in its own realm is that it relates it only to religious activity. However, religion is not only present in religious matters. With reference again to WHEF and IBF, elites organised under these forums are not men of religion but professionals, as stated in the Introduction. They are capitalist elites (businesspeople, bureaucrats, technocrats, etc.) who also hold strong religious identities and commitments. In other words, they are not active in a separated ‘religious market’, but in conventional industrial and financial markets as religiously-oriented businesspeople. In the following section, a Gramscian framework is developed which relates these elites to class relations and locates them as fractions of the capitalist class.

1.2- A Historical Materialist Approach to Religion

The previous section examined mainstream approaches, and found that neither Weberian nor liberal approaches could grasp the complex ways in which religion interacts with neoliberal ideology. It showed that both approaches present a superficial understanding of religion and do not sufficiently comprehend the nature and role of religiously-oriented businesspeople and religion-based business forums. Because of a lack of class analysis, both Weberian and liberal approaches fail to see the complex nature of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology. These deficiencies will be corrected in this section.

I first review Marx’s discussion of religion (1.2.1) relating it to the social relations of production, which is also the root of the Gramscian framework that I adopt in the rest of this thesis. I then explain Gramsci’s discussion of religion (1.2.3), and explain the necessity of employing a Gramscian approach which posits religion as fragmented and as

50 an active conception of the world, relating it to the role of organic intellectuals and to the international. Finally, I incorporate the discussion of religion into other discussions in neo-Gramscian IPE (1.2.3), in order to form a broader perspective on the global political economy within which these religion-based forums operate. The reading of contemporary Indian and Turkish histories in the following two contextual chapters (2 and 3) and the empirical analysis of the religion-based business forums in the last three chapters (4, 5 and 6) will be based on the framework outlined in this section.

1.2.1- Marx on Religion: Thinking Through Religion with Class Relations

Marx’s discussion of religion in Toward the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1970[1844]), in which he describes it as the “opium of the people”, is still a reference point for many discussions on religion. Marx’s discussion goes beyond simply this description, however. Two important points, hinted at in this definition and in his elaboration of the topic, are crucial to this thesis and to its RQs questioning the enmeshing of religion and class relations.

The first point concerns religion’s relation to socio-economic structures and changes. In contradiction to Weberian frameworks, religion (or religious change) cannot constitute economic and social conditions; rather, it is determined with respect to them (Ling 1980: 77-78; Harriss-White 2005: 165-166). Each religion, Protestantism, Hinduism and Islam etc., is underpinned by the present socio-economic conditions of the corresponding society. Trevor Ling explains,

For Marx, religious change followed economic and social change but never inaugurated it. The type of religion which was adhered to in any given society was the type appropriate to that society and economy. Folk religion such as that of India was associated with societies having a simple structure and economy, just as Protestantism was the appropriate form of religion for a bourgeois-capitalist society. The type of religion present was significant, therefore, as an indication of the present state of the society, but had no significance as a pointer to what social and economic changes might or might not occur in the future. The theory that a religion can, by its own ideology and organization, inhibit economic development – as for example Islam is sometimes alleged to have done – would not have been countenanced by Marx. For in the Marxian view religious ideas and practices do not effect anything in the social and economic sphere; they are simply the reflection of social and economic realities (2005: 77-78; original emphasis).

Therefore, religious ideas and practices differ with respect to socio-economic realities but the common point between these different ideas and practices is the role that they play in people’s making do with these realities.

As socio-economic realities are meshed with contradictions resulting from the social relations of production, religion serves as the opium, an “analgesic”, “‘veiling’ the pain caused by the irrationalities of production” (Harriss-White 2005: 166). In other words, religion is the “spiritual aroma” of “the unspiritual situation” (Marx cited in Feuer, 1959: 304); thus, it cannot be effective without socio-economic conditions needing its spirituality. Continuing with Engels (cited in ibid.: 236), the focus of any analysis related to religion should be on “the conditions making religion indispensable”. This simple statement directs our attention to the socio-economic conditions and interaction of various social forces existing prior to the emergence of current religious politics in India and Turkey, and to the rise of religion-based business forums in the neoliberal era. For that reason, the following two contextual chapters will focus upon these conditions that have played a key role in today’s politics.

The second point related to Marx’s elaboration of religion as the “opium of the people” is religion’s ideological dimension. For him, the conditions necessitating religion are the conditions requiring illusions at the same time. Without illusions, religion cannot continue to affect society. Religion, thus, is “the perverted world consciousness”, and its spirituality shadows the unspiritual conditions which make people oppressed and exploited. In an illusory world, religion seems to be making people’s fates, and in the meantime, it becomes the opium used to survive the abnormalities of this fate. In reality, however:

Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man, who either has not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being, squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society produce religion, a perverted world consciousness, because they are a perverted world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification (Marx cited in Feuer 1959: 303; original emphasis).

Therefore, in Marx’s conceptualisation, religion is bound up with what it reverses, and how it obfuscates, consoles and justifies. It is particularly important to see Marx’s focus on the state’s role in bringing religion to the stage, a point also developed further by Gramsci, as seen in the following subsection. Departing from the Prussian state, Marx argues that the state protects its own variety of religion, a certain kind of Christianity, and represents not the entire population but a special section of the population, the bourgeoisie. In this sense, religion appears as “a bulwark of the state”, which is meshed with the exercise of state power in support of an ideology defending the bourgeois parts of society (Ling 1980: 9).23

For this thesis, Marx’s focus on socio-economic conditions and ideology in conceptualising religion is crucial. Religion, in his analysis, is neither a set of beliefs having the power to affect socio-economic structures – as Weberian approaches argue – nor a self-enclosed variable entering relations with other fields of activity externally, as liberal approaches suggest. It is not free from class relations; rather, its presence is dependent on these relations in order for dominant classes to lead society. Neither does it occupy a completely separate space outside the state and, therefore, political society. However, the function of the state, the exercise of state power in support of an ideology, as well as the interpretation of religion, have become more complex in contemporary neoliberalism. Therefore, though Marx’s account underlines the use of religion for the sake of ruling classes’ ideology and its protection by the state, these are no longer as direct as they used to be in the past.

Moreover, despite linking it to the dynamic nature of the social relations of production, Marx’s views on religion sound not very dynamic in terms of its usage by the ruling classes to pacify the masses. He does not, for instance, talk about alternative ways of understanding religion. In Marx’s account, religion refers to a passive conception of the world, which gives us less room to analyse its active and dynamic nature. This account therefore does not fully cover the complex ways in which religion interacts with

23 This ideology does not have to be religious in Marx’s analysis. The point that Marx is critical of is “the exercise of state power in support for an ideology, whether or not this [is] conventionally ‘religious’” (Ling 1980: 29). However, his experience, i.e. being targeted by the German state of his time for criticising religious issues, gives a good example of the usage of religion as a justification for the exercise of state power.

53 neoliberal ideology. For this reason, although Marx’s insights are useful for thinking about religion with respect to class relations and class interests, the ways in which religion-based business forums and religiously-oriented business elites incorporate it into their intellectual projects need a more complex framework. This is to be found in Gramsci’s approach, in the next subsection.

1.2.2- Gramsci on Religion: Fragmented Religion and Religion as An Active Conception of the World

Gramsci develops Marx’s discussion of religion further, and relates it to his discussion of hegemony. He describes religion in a more active sense than Marx did. While analysing concrete historical struggles, “his appreciation of the role of religious factors in Italian history” shaped his expansion of Marx’s historical materialist approach (Gilks cited from Roberts 2015: 1664). This subsection discusses Gramsci’s theory with respect to three analytical aspects deployed in this thesis: 1) religion as fragmented, 2) religion as an active conception of the world which is part of intellectual and moral reform, 3) religion as connected to intellectuals and the international.

Fragmented religion

In Gramsci’s discussion, popular religion “refers to the beliefs, morals, and practices which express in a religious way the needs and experiences of various groups of people, such as the subaltern or dependent classes: workers, peasants, as well as middle class groups etc.” (Fulton 1987: 203). Therefore, religion does not have a single or static meaning valid for every social class; rather, it has various interpretations related to these classes’ social and economic conditions. This means that religion can bear a contradictory meaning marked by the conflicts between these social classes (Gramsci 1971: 429). From the very beginning, then, it is important to understand that it is specifically an elite articulation of religion that is incorporated into WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects and that interacts with neoliberal ideology.

Religion, therefore, is a “collective noun” (just like “common sense”) that is an important part of the practical knowledge and “the incoherent set of generally held assumptions and beliefs common to any given society” (Gramsci 1971: 323). These assumptions and

54 beliefs involve historical sedimentations of previous philosophies. As Gramsci explains, common sense does not have to be religious; however, religion is

an element of fragmented common sense. Moreover common sense is a collective noun, like religion: there is not just one common sense, for that too is a product of history and a part of the historical process. … Religion and common sense cannot constitute an intellectual order, because they cannot be reduced to unity and coherence even within an individual consciousness, let alone collective consciousness. … Note the problem of religion taken not in the confessional sense but in the secular sense of a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct. But why call this unity of faith “religion” and not “ideology”, or even frankly “politics”? (Gramsci 1971: 325-326).

Gramsci underlines an important point in this passage. Despite its fragmentary and contradictory nature, and therefore the impossibility of reducing it to any kind of unity and coherence, religion is seen as if it refers to a unity and problematically is not linked to either ideology or politics.

For Gramsci, this is for a practical reason: the need to make religion a class-free concept. He de-reifies the so-called “unity of faith” by discussing the Roman Catholic Church (RCC):

The strength of the religions, and of the Catholic church in particular, has lain, and still lies, in the fact that they feel very strongly the need for doctrinal unity of the whole mass of the faithful to strive to ensure that the higher intellectual stratum does not get separated from the lower. The Roman church has always been most vigorous in the struggle to prevent the “official” formation of two religions, one for the “intellectuals” and the other for the “simple souls”. … [All religions] only serve to emphasise the organisational capacity of the clergy in the cultural sphere and the abstractly rational and just relationship which the church has been able to establish its own sphere between the intellectuals and the simple (Gramsci 1971: 328-329; original emphasis).

In referring to “two religions”, Gramsci differentiates between the Vatican’s cosmopolitanism, that is, the “narrow perspective of a small elite, ‘that of the bourgeois’” (Ives and Short 2013: 632, 638), and the simplicity of the masses. He highlights the class character of religion, as well as religious institutions’ (i.e. the church’s) organic relationship with the higher intellectual stratum. This class character, however, is obscured by means of religion presented as a unity of faith.

In so obscuring class relations, as will be argued in the Chapters 4 and 5, religion paves the way for the universalisation of WHEF and IBF elites’ particularistic interests. Despite representing fractions of the capitalist class, their business activities are presented as being for the benefit of all Hindus and Muslims. By contrast, understanding religion as fragmented enables us to see religion’s different practical meanings for different classes, rather than understanding it as the same thing for all. This is a perspective which is lacking from the mainstream approaches explained in the previous section. It is also important to notice that, in Gramsci’s discussion quoted above, the clergy are described as “intellectuals”. I revisit this issue later in this subsection.

Religion as An Active Conception of the World, Part of Intellectual and Moral Reform

In contrast to Marx’s, in Gramsci’s analysis religion is understood in a more active sense, in which the subalterns (i.e. the “simple souls”) are not totally passive in their relationship with religion. Instead, religion is

an active conception of world and an expression of class not merely in narrow economic terms, but in the broader sense of production, including the mental and the expressive; therefore including groups distinct through the division of labour, language, other cultural specificities, groups who have their own practical sense of dealing with the world, nature, human relationships and so on (Fulton 1987: 203).

Defining religion as an active conception of the world is of crucial importance, and it is necessary to add that this is also the case for elites: they are in an active and organic relationship with religion when they articulate it through their intellectual projects. As will be seen in Chapters 2 and 3, WHEF and IBF elites consist of individuals who were involved in particular Hindu nationalist and political Islamic socialisation processes in the 1960s in India and Turkey, respectively. Thus, they did not come together when religious politics marked both countries and plan out, in an instrumental manner, how religion might work well with neoliberal ideology. Rather, it was an active and organic relationship which brought together today’s religious politics and the religiously-oriented businesspeople whose intellectual projects are involved in it.

Although this thesis does not extend to examining subaltern articulations of religion, it does show how religiously-oriented elites’ articulations disseminate through subordinate groups within the business community in Chapter 6. The same chapter also shows how

56 these groups actively participate in the process of production of neoliberal common sense. In this way, religion is neither a constitutive element in capitalist development nor a simple variable affecting it. It is an active conception of the world, with which both elites and subordinate groups identify themselves.

“Conception of the world” is another Gramscian concept, and one which is of crucial importance to understanding WHEF’s and IBF’s elite articulations of religion in their intellectual projects. A conception of the world is “a cohesive framework for understanding the world and guiding practical activity” formed through intellectuals’ interaction with the masses in the creation of a new political and ideological project, with respect to any change in the organisation of the social relations of production (Roberts 2015: 1665). There is not one conception of the world; instead, there are many competing conceptions, with each social group developing their own “through processes that produce forms of individual and collective ‘contradictory consciousness’” (Murray and Worth 2013: 733). The formation of a new particular conception of the world and its dissemination among subaltern classes is referred to as “intellectual and moral reform”, the completion of which determines the nature of the state-society relationship.

Any failure in the establishment of intellectual and moral reform results in “passive revolution”, in which one fraction of capital, led by the state, has control over the whole capitalist class structure despite the fact that the consent of the subaltern classes has not been fully manufactured (Roberts 2015: 1665). Otherwise, a hegemonic project is established, resting upon “an ensemble of the class relationships referred to as an ‘historical bloc’” (ibid: 1666) and “the articulation and justification of a particular set of interests as general interests” (Morton 2007a: 113).

Through this Gramscian lens, Chapters 2 and 3 will show that the establishment of neoliberal hegemony in India and Turkey was founded upon the formation of a new conception of the world based on the promotion of free markets along with religion-based (social, cultural, economic) agendas. The way in which the neoliberal project was made sensible to the masses, therefore, was through its (religiously-inflected) articulation by religiously-oriented elites. For this reason, it will therefore be argued in the empirical chapters that religion mediates neoliberal ideology by way of elites’ intellectual projects, specifically focusing on WHEF and IBF.

Religion, Intellectuals and the International Dimension

In the Gramscian sense, a hegemonic project is developed through a complex process in which political society – the state – and civil society are only methodologically distinct, and in which intellectuals play an important part. Gramsci talks about two different categories of intellectuals, namely traditional and organic intellectuals. In contrast with traditional intellectuals, organic intellectuals are those who have organic ties with the social group that they belong to. Intellectuals are not understood as a homogeneous group; rather,

[e]very social group, coming into existence on the original terrain of an essential function in the world of economic production, creates together with itself, organically, one or more strata of intellectuals which give it homogeneity and an awareness of its own function, not only in the economic but also in the social and political fields (1971: 5).

Gramsci highlights not only intellectuals, but also a particular social function in his discussion. Although everybody is “a philosopher” and “an intellectual” participating in “a particular conception of the world”, not everybody “in society [has] the function of intellectuals” (ibid.: 9). This function is performed through

active participation in practical life, as constructor, organiser, ‘permanent persuader’ and not just a simple orator … from technique-as-work one proceeds to technique-as-science and to the humanistic conception of history, without which one remains ‘specialised’ and does not become ‘directive’ (specialised and political)” (ibid: 10; original emphasis).

Owing to this function, for Gramsci, intellectuals are also therefore an “organisational and connective” group (ibid.: 12). They organise and connect elites and masses through the construction of a particular conception of the world, employing their specialised knowledge and persuading subordinate groups of this construction. This specialised – not directive – knowledge is key to manufacturing the consent of the masses.

For this reason, the empirical chapters of this thesis are structured in accordance with the three key components of the organic intellectual’s function. Locating WHEF and IBF elites as organic intellectuals, these chapters show how they act as organisers of religiously-oriented business elites (Chapter 4), as constructors of neoliberalism as the ‘correct’ form of global capitalism (Chapter 5), and as permanent persuaders of subordinate groups within the business community (Chapter 6).

As Gramsci says, intellectuals fit within the dominant order by acting as “the dominant group’s ‘deputies’” (ibid.), supporting “the existing order by disseminating ideas, which come to permeate the common sense of the masses” (Roberts 2015: 1665).24 In this sense, the intellectual function is not restricted to the cultural realm. A capitalist entrepreneur is a part of the capitalist class and can well be an organic intellectual of the capitalist order because

[t]he capitalist entrepreneur creates alongside himself the industrial technician, the specialist in political economy, the organisers of a new culture, of a new legal system, etc. … the entrepreneur himself represents a higher level of social elaboration, already characterised by a certain directive … and technical (i.e. intellectual) capacity[.] … He must be the organiser of masses of men; he must be an organiser of the “confidence” of investors in his business, of the customers for his product, etc. If not all entrepreneurs, at least an elite amongst them must have the capacity to be an organiser of society in general, … because of the need to create the conditions most favourable to the expansion of their own class (ibid: 5-6; original emphasis).

Hence, business elites are considered organic intellectuals by Gramsci himself, not only because of their advantaged position in society, but also because of the way that they consolidate this position through an organisational and connective logic based on their technical, cultural, social, etc. knowledge. Their activity is part of the intellectual and moral reform underpinning hegemony.

Religion can be part of this process in two different ways in Gramsci’s work. The first is through religious elites – i.e. clergy – acting as organic intellectuals, as seen in Gramsci’s evaluation of RCC mentioned earlier. Based on its organic relationship with the state and dominant classes in Gramsci’s analysis, the clergy elaborate religion in line with their own class interests, presenting an elite articulation of religion as universal to the masses (Adamson 2013: 474). Therefore, when dominant class fractions enact “intellectual and moral reform” in the process of establishing hegemony, religion is a part of this process. Religion, therefore, is a considerable hegemonic force and one of the three indissoluble

24 The opposite is also possible for Gramsci; for instance, attaining counter-hegemony through the Communist Party’s performing the role of organic intellectuals. As this thesis deals with elite-driven hegemonic processes, however, this issue is not handled here. For further information, see Gramsci (1971: 15-16).

59 elements of historical political development, together with the state and party (Gramsci 1971: 266).

Rather than being restricted to Italy or any other national setting, the way religion works is also contingent upon “the interpenetration of ‘national’ and ‘international’ politics and contexts” (Ives and Short 2013: 631). As Gramsci (1971: 182) explains,

international relations intertwine with these internal relations of nation- states, creating new, unique and historically concrete combinations. A particular ideology, for instance, born in a highly developed country, is disseminated in less developed countries, impinging on the local interplay of combinations.

This means that, similarly to Gramsci’s other concepts ranging from hegemony to class, religion is also a result of the historically determined social relations of capitalism, which have an international dynamic. Therefore, the distinction between the international and domestic domains is only an analytical distinction in Gramsci’s approach (Bruff 2008: 10; Ives and Short 2013: 622; Morton 2003: 120; 2007:615), similar to the analytical distinction between the state and civil society. RCC is an example of this in action, in the sense that it has a transnational nature while also contesting its diverse manifestations in different cultures (Ives and Short 2013: 632).

Keeping this international dimension in mind, the second way in which religion becomes part of hegemony formation through the activity of intellectuals is more complex. Religion enters the process by way of international organisations that are not necessarily religious, but which aim to stabilise capitalism by creating a new ‘spirit’. Gramsci argues:

Religion, for example, has always been a source of such national and international ideological-political combinations, and so too have the other international organisations- Freemasonry, Rotarianism, the Jews, career diplomacy … A religion … can be subsumed into the social category of “intellectuals”, whose function, on an international scale, is that of mediating the extremes, of “socialising” the technical discoveries which provide the impetus for all activities of leadership, of devising compromises between, and ways out of, extreme solutions (1971: 182).

Gramsci focuses on the Rotary Club, which is not a religious organisation (despite having clerics under its roof), but a transnational organisation carrying out business activity and establishing its own network around the world. Considering its members as intellectuals who have an organisational and connective capacity based on their technical and

60 specialised knowledge, the Club advances “an agenda of disseminating ‘a new capitalist spirit’, replacing the ‘capitalism of plunder’ with the ‘idea that industry and trade are social service even prior to being a business…’, as per their motto, which Gramsci quotes: ‘To give of oneself before thinking of oneself.’” (Ives and Short 2013: 640; original emphasis).

WHEF and IBF can be thought as a mix of these two categories. They are transnational organisations with a focus on religion, which they think separates them from other (secular) transnational organisations. References to service are characteristic of both WHEF and IBF, which claim that these framings represent a break from classic capitalist discourse focusing on maximising profit and rent-seeking behaviour. However, as will be shown in Chapter 5, they are also part and parcel of the capitalist spirit, stemming from the dynamic nature of capitalism, which contests itself in various forms in diverse domestic contexts, as Gramsci notes in the case of the Rotary Club.

In brief, the three aspects of Gramsci’s approach explained in this subsection are particularly important to setting the stage for a political economy analysis of religion in India and Turkey. Firstly, religion’s fragmentation brings about its different meanings with respect to class relations and lets the thesis deal with elite articulations of religion in mediating neoliberal ideology. Secondly, understanding religion as an active conception of the world paves the way for seeing religion’s place in the intellectual and moral leadership underpinning neoliberal hegemony, as will be explained in Chapters 2 and 3. Thirdly, Gramsci’s discussion of intellectuals, and their role in articulating neoliberal hegemony with respect to the international dynamics of capitalism, is key to locating religiously-oriented business elites as organic intellectuals of capitalist class fractions and to understanding their activities under the transnational religion-based forums WHEF and IBF.

Having said this, solving the entire research puzzle necessitates one more step: a more contemporary engagement with neoliberal ideology, befitting the changing dynamics of the global political economy and social classes that it has inaugurated. For this reason, this research sticks to the idea of thinking through problems “in a Gramscian way” (Hall 1988: 161-162; Morton 2003: 121), but at the same time it aims to go a step further, by

61 deploying neo-Gramscian IPE approaches in order to place religion within contemporary neoliberalism.

1.2.3- Bringing Religion into neo-Gramscian IPE: Religion as A Social Process

This subsection combines Gramsci’s discussion of religion with the analytical framework provided by neo-Gramscian IPE. I contend that there is space for religion in neo- Gramscian IPE, and that this can be fruitfully used to enrich debates on religion. This is for three main reasons: first, neo-Gramscian IPE’s focus on ideas together with material capabilities constituting historical structures; second, its focus on elite-driven hegemonic practices and on grasping elites as organic intellectuals of capitalist class fractions; and third, its emphasis on the power of global capital and its effort to conceptualise transnational social forces under contemporary neoliberalism. In the meantime, agreeing with Murray and Worth (2013: 732), placing religion into discussions within neo- Gramscian IPE also benefits the latter, particularly in grasping the complex nature of hegemony in which “different narratives can be harmonised across different levels of international society”.

This sub-section, therefore, elaborates three analytical aspects of neo-Gramscian approaches, in terms of their practicality for discussing religion and religiously-oriented business elites with neoliberal ideology. First, it looks at ideas, religion and hegemony; second, it considers religion-based business forums with an up-to-date discussion of organic intellectuals, and third, it places religion within contemporary neoliberalism, underlining the variegated political-ideological expressions of the latter.

Ideas, Religion and Hegemony

The case studies of this thesis – through which it traces how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology – are platforms for businesspeople not for commerce, but for producing and sharing ideas and spreading them among Hindu and Muslim communities worldwide, thereby boosting their business activity. For this reason, neo-Gramscian IPE’s focus on ideas and their role in the global political economy provides useful insights. Deploying Gramsci’s approach to develop a critical framework in IPE, Robert Cox (1981: 135-138) identifies three categories of social forces – material capabilities, ideas,

62 and institutions – which stand in a reciprocal relationship to each other in constituting particular historical structures. This relationship is established in and through three levels of activity in the historical processes that construct hegemony: the organisation of production, forms of state, and world orders. Rooted in Gramsci’s theory, all social forces and levels of activity are internally related (ibid.: 138). As mentioned in the introduction, this thesis focuses on political-ideological dimensions of neoliberalism rather than its economic-structural dimension; therefore, it prioritises the discussion of ideas for didactic purposes.

Ideas, for Cox (ibid.: 136), have mainly two appearances: first, expressions of “intersubjective meanings”, and second, “collective images of social order held by different groups of people”. More importantly, the reciprocal relationships between social forces and the multilinear relationships between spheres of activity translate into a broader sense of production, which “covers the production and reproduction of knowledge and social relations, morals and institutions” (Cox 1987: 39). In this sense, there is an organic relationship between those dominating production processes and those producing ideas.

Following Gramsci, ideas are not independent from material conditions and capabilities, and hegemony itself is an “opinion-moulding activity” (Cox 1992: 151). Filtering through “structures of society, economy, culture, gender, ethnicity, class, and ideology” (Bieler and Morton 2004: 87; Morton 2007b), hegemony is a consensual order of capital over labour in which coercion is obscured and consent is achieved through various interactions of social forces, which does not exclude ethnic, nationalistic, religious, gender or sexual identity forms (Cox 1987: 353). These identities and subjectivities and their structuring are “embedded in the class struggles constitutive of transformations to capitalist modernity” (Morton 2007a: 607), and depending on this, certain ideas – i.e. intersubjective meanings as well as collective images of social order – become predominant at a particular time (Bieler 2006: 124) along with particular hegemonic projects.

Therefore, it can be argued that religious ideas, their production, and religious identities are no exception in securing consent for neoliberal hegemony. Moreover, as argued previously, those who are producing or combining religious ideas with economic

63 strategies suitable for contemporary neoliberalism are not free from the relations of production. In this sense, it is important to situate ideas critically “in and beyond their context” (Morton 2003: 119) to capture these underlying relations. To do this, it is important to conceptualise them with respect to their materiality engendered by the social relations of production, but also to see the ways in which this materiality is realised.

This occurs through the “intellectual organisation” of ideas (Hall 1986: 21) in the process of formation of a historical bloc; that is, through intellectual and moral leadership. As Shields (2012: 362) argues:

For Gramsci, hegemony was not just about the role of ideas but of material dominance linked to ‘intellectual and moral leadership’, with the ‘same energy as a material force’, a complex dynamic process of incorporating other classes through a combination of coercion and consent through moral leadership. Subordinate classes are co-opted into suppressing their interests through the operation of hegemonic ideologies and granting of material concessions. The universalisation of a particular knowledge is a crucial factor in the construction of class hegemony to formulate a coherent mode of accumulation, an internal division of labour, and a legitimate political order in any historical conjuncture[.]

Therefore, ideas become material through intellectual organisation in a particular historical context (Bruff 2008: 48), and they are subjected to change in in time depending on the social class forces organising them. As Roberts (2015: 1664) argues, religion is a part of this socio-historical transformation process and “takes on different roles, functions and meanings at specific historical moments”. Moreover, the “presence and timing” of these moments is contingent upon “the underlying material conditions which pre-empt the acceptance of neo-liberal ideas” (Macartney 2008: 433).

Religion-based ideas, in this sense, follow the same logic. Despite having different meanings in Indian and Turkish histories, particular constructions of these ideas became hegemonic under neoliberalism in each country (Chapters 2 and 3). This was closely connected to these ideas’ intellectual organisation in line with neoliberal ideology, as is shown later in this thesis with particular attention to WHEF and IBF elites’ activities (Chapters 4, 5 and 6).

Collective Organic Intellectuals

The intellectual organisation of ideas is key to universalising a particular knowledge. This occurs through the activity of organic intellectuals, as outlined in Gramsci’s approach in the previous section. However, as Bruff (2008: 54), Morton (2007a: 207- 208) and Shields (2019: 823) contend, the scope of this concept has to be broadened with reference to new interactions of social forces under contemporary neoliberalism. By modifying Gramsci’s concept of organic intellectuals and applying it to various contexts and case studies, neo-Gramscian IPE has created fertile ground for understanding the role of elites in hegemonic processes under contemporary neoliberalism.

The proliferation of new actors under contemporary neoliberalism – such as firms, states, institutions, associations and think tanks – has resulted in a proliferation of platforms that express the interests of capitalist class fractions and convert them into neoliberal common sense. These platforms have taken their place in global governance by joining “struggles over wealth, power and knowledge” (Murphy 2000: 799). Organic intellectuals, for that reason,

need not just be individuals, but also collective, they do not simply produce ideas, they help to affirm, homogenise, and articulate ideas and strategies in complex and often contradictory ways due to their class position and proximity to the leading groups in production and the state. … They organise the social forces they belong to and contribute to the development of the hegemonic project through generation of defensive and offensive legitimating ideologies. If the hegemonic project stems from the economic sphere it also transcends this into the political and social spheres incorporating broader issues that harmonise the interest of leading and subordinate classes (Shields 2019: 823).

In this sense, governmental institutions such as development banks (Shields 2012; 2016; 2019); the managerial and bureaucratic elites within them (van der Pijl 1998); political parties, trade unions, and employer’s organisations (Bruff 2008); NGOs such as the Organisation for the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Biccum 2014) and the World Economic Forum; the Trilateral Commission (Gill 1990); and think-tanks and research centres (Macartney 2008) can all be thought of in this context. They do not have to be formal institutions; rather, informal bodies such as planning councils (van der Pijl 2001) or roundtables (van Apeldoorn 2000) can be also thought of as collective intellectuals.

This does not mean that every organisation or institution acts as a collective organic intellectual. Based on Gramsci’s theory as explained earlier, they play this role only so long as they perform the function of intellectuals, by 1) organising and connecting social classes (acting, in Macartney’s [2008] terms, as “organic organisers of hegemony”), 2) constructing neoliberal common sense and universalising it, and 3) acting as a permanent persuader of subalterns and/or subordinate groups within the capitalist class. This thesis shows that WHEF and IBF are no exception, with empirical data provided in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 for each component of the intellectual’s function.

Whether formal or informal, governmental or non-governmental, these bodies within the state-society complex (Cox 1981) – that is, working under “the institutional terrain provided by the state” (Bruff 2008: 2) – produce a particular form of knowledge, promote a particular form of ideology, and manage to express these in universal terms and create “a commitment to coherent collective identities” (Shields 2019: 823) despite the fragmented nature of common sense. They therefore perform the functions of collective organic intellectuals as a “class cadre” (van der Pijl 1998), and catalyse action by contributing to social forces (Mittelman 2014). In this sense neoliberal common sense, which is itself an elite common sense (Bruff 2008), consolidates its validity through various social groups, including subordinate social groups who are either deprived under neoliberalisation processes (i.e. subalterns) or less advantaged (i.e. subordinate groups within the business community, such as SMEs). This means that WHEF and IBF perform as collective organic intellectuals in each country by constructing a particular conception of the world among many competing ones, a conception which is religiously-oriented and based on religious collective identities, i.e. Hindu businesspeople and Muslim businesspeople. As this thesis argues, they cannot therefore be left aside on the basis that they are religious, and so denote ‘something else’; the common sense upon which they operate and which they reproduce is neoliberal.

Variegated Neoliberalism

In order to understand how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey, the last thing to elaborate is the global political economy in which both operate. Neo-Gramscian approaches’ focus on transnational social forces and the power of global

66 capital are crucial in this sense. Both WHEF and IBF declare that their initiatives are aimed at keeping up with ‘globalisation’ whilst also presenting an alternative to mainstream Western economic ideas, as will be seen in Chapter 5. The ideas that they support emerged in the context of the process of globalisation following the erosion of Pax Americana from the 1970s on. This was a process (as Chapters 2 and 3 show) from which India’s and Turkey’s religiously-oriented business elites were excluded to a great extent, as they were not among the top domestic elites who were relatively advantaged in responding to the increasing internationalisation of production and finance.

This globalisation process is elaborated by neo-Gramscian IPE scholars (Gill 1990; Cox 1981; van der Pijl 1998), who refer to “the importance of transnational (economic) forces, whilst reasserting the centrality of class agency” (Macartney and Shields 2011: 35). As Morton elaborates,

Taking advantage of differences between countries, there has been an integration of production processes on a transnational scale with transnational corporations (TNCs) promoting the operation of different elements of a single process in different territorial locations. … Following the neo-Gramscian focus on social-class forces, engendered by production as the main actors, the transnational restructuring of capitalism within globalisation is realised, which has led to the emergence of new social forces of capital and labour (2007a: 124; original emphasis).

Focusing particularly on managerial elites, the key agents behind this process are understood via the concepts of the “transnational managerial class” (Cox, 1981) or “transnational capitalist class” (Gill 1990; van Apeldoorn 2000; van der Pijl 1998). However, as Macartney (2009: 451) and Macartney and Shields (2011: 34) observe, there is a tendency to attribute a homogeneity to these actors, resulting from the tendency to overemphasise the convergence of national settings into transnational structures. Stemming from this same over-focus on convergence, there is also a tendency to perceive the process of neoliberalisation itself as homogeneous. This risks discounting national specificities as neoliberalism emerges in different national contexts and legitimised by different ideas prominent in these contexts.

To avoid this tendency, this research deploys the concept of “variegated neoliberalism”, in the sense that Macartney (2009) utilises, as well as his concept of “transnationally oriented fractions of capital” as the key agents of the neoliberalisation process, while

67 sticking to neo-Gramscian contributions on the importance of transnational restructuring and class agency to this process. As will be argued in Chapters 2 and 3, it is true that both the Indian and Turkish economies were neoliberalised in a manner dependent on Western – especially US – economies; however, the neoliberal projects carried out in both countries have also significantly built upon national contexts, including, most importantly here, political-ideological contestations based on popular religion and its significant place in common sense.

Therefore, despite comprising more or less the same set of economic initiatives as are implemented worldwide (i.e. economic liberalisation, privatisation, withdrawal of state subsidies, reductions in welfare spending, etc.), neoliberalism has been implemented in different ways and articulated differently on the political-ideological level in each country. While international and national contexts are internally related – as expressed in Gramsci’s theory – differences between neoliberal hegemonic projects remain on the political-ideological level and because of uneven development on the economic level. As Macartney (2009: 459) argues, “whilst … ‘neo-liberalism’ largely refers to the underlying accumulation strategy its (political-ideological) expression as a hegemonic project is variegated; these hegemonic projects emerge from transnationally oriented fractions of capital”.

For this reason, neoliberalisation is not a single or unitary process but a variegated one, “neither ‘monolithic in form’, nor ‘universal in effect’ (ibid.: 457) and referring to “a dynamic rather than rigid or monolithic hegemonic project” (ibid.: 459). The concept of variegated neoliberalism also saves us from seeing neoliberalism’s current political- ideological presence in India and Turkey as inferior in comparison with that in advanced countries. Each single implementation, however different/underdeveloped/backward it seems, is a part of neoliberal ideology, which is itself variegated. As Shields puts it “[neoliberalism] waxes and wanes, always shifting, always contested, negotiated and reinforced, an unstable equilibrium reconfigured across sites of social power” (2019: 822). Therefore, national specificities (e.g. popular religion) matter for interpreting, negotiating and reinforcing it, and in the way in which transnational social forces filter through these specificities in a country.

Murray and Worth’s discussion of religion’s place in global political economy is worth mentioning on this point:

While we can understand the character of global political economy as being one that is ‘neo-liberal’ in its orientation, this prescription of ‘neoliberalism’ is articulated in different ways and at different levels of society. This articulation initially stems from moulding contrasting conceptions of the world so that they appear compatible towards (neoliberal) hegemony[.] … These conceptions can be constructed at national, sub-national or transnational level and can be articulated through philosophy, religions of intellectuals, popular religion, common sense, language(s) or folklore. Yet for them to be understood at a global level, they have to be seen as how they are expressed through a wider neo-liberal content. (Murray and Worth 2013: 735-736).

This wider neoliberal content does not rule out national specificities, but it does limit them. As seen in the neo-Gramscian literature, particularly in their case studies, neoliberal ideology can be contested differently in countries that are part of the same economic unities (e.g. the European Union (EU), and European integration processes) (Macartney 2009; Bruff 2008). Meanwhile, countries that are considered completely different, not being part of economic integration platforms (e.g. India and Turkey), can contest significantly similar phenomena in the process of neoliberal transformation and in the establishment of neoliberal hegemony. For this reason, similarities within neoliberalism in terms of its political-ideological dimension are as important as differences within it, together constituting neoliberalism’s variegated political-ideological expressions.

1.3- Concluding Remarks

This chapter presented the theoretical framework of this thesis, designed to deal with the main RQ of how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology, as well as the subsidiary RQs presented in the Introduction. In the first section, the chapter critically engaged with mainstream approaches to the political economy of religion, namely Weberian and liberal approaches. As seen in sub-section 1.1.1, Weberian approaches see religion as constitutive of religious actors’ subjectivities, and therefore their economic practices. It is therefore a particular religion’s guidance that matters in constructing religious actors’ interpretations and practices, and that brings about the recent rise of religion as an economic and developmental issue. As seen in sub-section 1.1.2, liberal approaches

69 perceive religion as a variable with its own realm and actors, which affect or are affected by the global political economy from the outside. In this sense, they separate state and civil society as well as state and market, and religion is positioned as a part of civil society in an external relationship with the state and market.

I argued that neither of these above-mentioned approaches could comprehend the complex ways in which religion interacts with neoliberal ideology. The absence of class relations and the decision to lock religion in its own space results in an overestimation of religion’s role (Weberian approaches) and/or ignorance of religion’s position within the social forces that undergird the global political economy (liberal approaches). To avoid such major limitations, I argued that a historical materialist approach based on a Gramscian framework enables us to show religion’s complexity in its interaction with neoliberal ideology.

To this end, the second section of the chapter started with Marx’s discussion of religion and elaborated how religion is related to the social relations of production and its use by the ruling classes, as seen in sub-section 1.2.1. Based on this relation, but going beyond it for the sake of a more dynamic definition of religion, I reviewed both Gramsci’s theory and contemporary neo-Gramscian approaches, and elaborated relevant analytical tools to put religion at the centre of a political economy analysis which does not ignore class relations or religion’s interpenetration with other political-economic social forces.

Sub-section 1.2.2 highlighted these analytical tools taken from Gramsci’s theory, including “fragmented religion”, “conception of the world” and “organic intellectuals”, their relation to the other Gramscian concepts of “common sense” and “hegemony”, as well as the importance of the international dimension in discussing all of these concepts. This sub-section made it clear that religion is an important part of fragmented common sense, and that it itself is fragmented. This meant that the specific manifestations of religion that this thesis deals with should be understood as specifically elite articulations of their respective religions, rather than as ‘general’ or class-free ones. Moreover, it was shown that religion is an active conception of the world, underpinning the intellectual and moral leadership guiding the formation of neoliberal hegemony. This allowed me to demonstrate that the religiously-oriented business elites of WHEF and IBF have an organic relationship with neoliberal ideology, not an instrumental or functional one.

Finally, WHEF and IBF were located as organic intellectuals of capitalist class fractions based on Gramsci’s discussion of the intellectual’s function, which entails the organisation and connection of different classes, the construction of a particular conception of the world as universal, and the assumption of the role of permanent persuaders of subordinate groups.

Following this, sub-section 1.2.3 placed religion in discussions within neo-Gramscian IPE, in order to understand the dynamics of the contemporary global political economy in which religion and religion-based business forums operate. This sub-section brought forward three analytical concepts: ideas’ material force and their centrality to neoliberal hegemony, the importance of collective organic intellectuals, and the concept of variegated neoliberalism in terms of highlighting neoliberalism’s variegated political- ideological expressions. In this sub-section, I argued that there is space for religion in neo-Gramscian IPE because neoliberalism filters through religious ideas in India and Turkey. Utilising contemporary Gramscian contributions, religion was defined as a social process and it was shown that it does not have a separate place outside neoliberal ideology.

Moreover, it was shown that as a social process, religion’s role has been transformed throughout history and that it has a particular meaning and importance under neoliberalism. The sub-section then reviewed neo-Gramscian IPE’s modifications of the concept of Gramsci’s organic intellectuals. In line with this, I highlighted the importance of constructing coherent collective identities (e.g. Hindu and Muslim businesspeople) and collective images of social order, and focused on these forums’ also referring to collective organic intellectuals as a ‘coherent’ whole. Lastly, it was made clear that contemporary global political economy can be best understood with the concept of variegated neoliberalism, which captures the complexities in its variegated political- ideological expressions within and between national and transnational contexts. In this way, I argued that religion-based ideas can be understood as national specificities. In this guise, they give neoliberal projects their colour based on common sense and on social forces in their respective countries, but remain neoliberal because of the interpenetration of religion as a social process with neoliberalisation.

The following two contextual chapters will read Indian and Turkish histories through this theoretical framework. Chapter 2, below, focuses on India, and aims to grasp transformations in religion’s role at different moments and to highlight its particularity within neoliberalism.

CHAPTER 2

HISTORICAL SEDIMENTATIONS AND HINDUISM UNDER NEOLIBERALISM IN INDIA

Having explained this thesis’s theoretical framework in the previous chapter, I turn from this chapter onwards to answering its subsidiary RQs, in service of ultimately answering the main RQ. This chapter and the following one are the thesis’s contextual chapters, dealing particularly with RQ2: “What role has religion played at particular historical junctures in India and Turkey; in other words, what are the historical legacies behind WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects?”. The importance of answering this question in these chapters is twofold. Firstly, it lets us deal with the particular historical sedimentations that matter to WHEF’s and IBF’s engagement with the global political economy, as seen in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. As explained earlier, religion is an important part of common sense, which contains these sedimentations. Contradictions and inconsistencies in WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects, as illustrated in the following chapters, are therefore shaped, stabilised and reconciled by these sedimentations.

Secondly, the previous chapter also highlighted religion as a social process – taking on different roles in different historical settings – and therefore rejected any definition of religion as a transhistorical and/or coherent phenomenon. Before delving into how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey with particular attention to the activity of WHEF and IBF, respectively, these chapters elaborate the developments that have brought religion to the fore under neoliberalism and examine religion’s historical role in each country, how this has changed, and how this history remains sedimented in religion’s contemporary articulations.

This chapter focuses on India, examining contemporary Indian history across three major periods in terms of religion’s different roles. I first deal with the period of India’s founding (2.1), during which religion was constructed as a national-popular element of society by founding elites. I also introduce the Hindu nationalist right of Indian politics in this section, highlighting its tension with the former. I then visit the period from the 1960s until neoliberalisation (2.2), during which religion became a site of opposition

73 among Hindu nationalist organisations to India’s founding ideology. Lastly, I focus on the period of neoliberalisation (2.3), which witnessed the rise of Hindu nationalism in India’s state-society complex. Rather than giving a full account of Indian history, this chapter explains only the main issues required to understand the empirical chapters and the original contributions made therein.

2.1- The Founding: Hinduism is National, Hindu Nationalism is Marginal

This section lays out two different and significant elite articulations of religion prominent in the foundation of the Indian nation-state. The first is the national-popular perspective on religion that was adopted by India’s founding elites, and the second is the Hindu nationalist perspective, based on Hindu supremacism and constructing India as a Hindu Rashtra [Hindu country], which was seen as comparatively marginal. This is important to understanding today’s religious politics because the tension between these two has marked India’s contemporary history, which has witnessed the mainstreaming of the formerly marginal nationalist current (Embree 1980; Ogden 2012; Nanda 2011). The Indian case study in this thesis, WHEF, has its roots in this latter current and still plays host to its contemporary representatives.

Following a long independence struggle against British colonial rule, the Indian National Congress (INC) founded independent India in 1947. As a result of the colonial period’s divide-and-rule policy, religion was prominent in Indian society from the very beginning, being used by the British to weaken India’s growing nationalist movements, as seen in the 1905 partition of Bengal into West Bengal (Hindu-majority) and East Bengal (Muslim-majority, known as Bangladesh today) (Ahmed 1981; Chatterjee 1986; Sarkar 1973). Religious conflicts – mainly between the subcontinent’s two most prominent religious communities, namely Muslims and Hindus – brought about the partition of British India, forming independent India and Pakistan. The migration of a huge majority of Indian Muslims to Pakistan left India a Hindu-majority nation with Muslims its largest minority. Religion and religious conflicts thus marked India’s late colonial and post- colonial periods.

For this reason, India’s founding elites – such as the leader of INC Mahatma Gandhi, India’s first prime minister (PM) Jawaharlal Nehru, and the architect of the Constitution of India Bhimrao Ambedkar – were careful about religion and religious conflicts. The Indian state was therefore designed as a secular state in line with Western modernity, with the equality of all religious minorities before the law affirmed in its constitution. However, a specific branch of Hinduism called Brahminical Hinduism25 retained a special place in Indian society, not only because of its status as the majority religion, but also because it was privileged in a large body of customary and personal law that was organised along religious lines, violating the principle of the state’s natural distance from all religions (Harriss-White 2002: 137-8). Therefore, other (minority) religions such as Islam and Christianity – and even those within the “Hindu family” such as Jainism and Sikhism – evolved and developed in reaction to “India’s hegemonic religion” Hinduism and to the particular concept of secularism adopted by the Indian state (ibid.: 133, 166).

Throughout this period, the founding elites perceived religion as an important but secondary issue, mostly limited to the cultural life of the Indian people. Their primary focus was the economy, as the new nation-state and its leading cadre aimed to be economically self-reliant. A planned economy organised along Fabian socialist26 lines was implemented, with India’s development strategy focused on three main areas: building industrial infrastructure, creating institutions of higher education, and bringing about land reforms (Nanda 2011: 24). The founding elites saw modern and nationalistic expressions of Hinduism in a positive light, but at the same time underlined the religion’s adverse effects on Indian society, which they saw as implicated in the country’s economic backwardness (Sarma 1958: 190). Nevertheless, the Indian government of this period neither pursued any measures to limit religion’s influence on society nor tried to relegate it to the private sphere (Harriss-White 2002: 135). Furthermore, the founding elites in general distanced themselves from the idea of relegating religion to the private sphere because of the masses’ commitment to Hinduism, being afraid of provoking any

25 Brahminical Hinduism comes from the Sanskritic-Brahmanical Great Traditions, which are the most dominant tradition in India. For further detail, see Ling (1980: 104-116). References to “Hinduism” in this thesis refer to Brahminical Hinduism.

26 This is an “evolutionary” form of socialism which opposes violence, focuses on state planning of the economy, and places importance upon rural development. For further information, see Ganguli (1964).

75 kind of violent backlash which might have endangered the process of modernisation and development (Myrdal 1968: 107-9).

In parallel with classical secularisation theorists, who expected religion’s demise in line with modernisation,27 Nehru and others from the founding elites expected that religion’s role in society would decline as the country proceeded with development. Business, the state and the planned economy represented forces that would make positive change in Indian society, dissolve obscurantist beliefs adopted by the masses in favour of a unified rationalism, and eliminate the differences caused by Hinduism, predominantly those related to the caste system (Harriss-White 2002: 153). In Nehru’s words: “[T]he real thing … is the economic factor. If we lay stress [on] this and divert public attention to it, we shall find automatically that religious differences recede into [the] background and a common bond unites different groups” (Nehru cited in Ali 1992: 42). Thus, the main focus of this period was on the economy, and religion was seen as something to be pushed back by state and market collaboration. For that reason, policies and programmes implemented by governments until the 1970s were strictly economy-focused and did not attack religion (Nanda 2011: 25-32).

It should also be noted that although the founding elites believed in religion’s adverse effects, they also presented Hinduism positively as “the only religion which is national and secular” (Harriss-White 2002: 137). The abovementioned “common bond” invoked by Nehru as an objective of policy refers to national sentiment, and the founding elites accepted Hinduism as a value of the Indian nation, attempting to eliminate its adverse effects with the principle of secularism, which ultimately became “a signifier of equal accommodation and competitive patronage of social groups and cultural communities through state and party” in the post-colonial period (Hansen 1996: 607). Indian secularism, therefore, accepted differences between religious minorities, and legitimised these differences under the veil of “tolerance” by giving Hinduism the feature of being the only national and secular religion of India (Harris-White 2002: 136-137). Thus, it can be argued that a modern and nationalistic expression of Hinduism was also founded alongside the modern Indian nation.

27 See Dobbelaere (1985) for further information on the theory of secularisation.

However, Hinduism’s articulations in the period of founding were not restricted to this modern and secular vision. The INC governments of this period had a number of opponents, many of whom had more traditional and conservative perspectives on Hinduism. One of these opponents is crucial to this thesis: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organisation; RSS), founded in 1925. Similarly to INC, RSS takes its roots from the colonial period and opposition to British colonialism, having been part of the nationalist wave of opposition to the latter; however, it would also become the representative of Hindu nationalism against the Indian nationalism adopted by the founding elites. The organisation was built upon the idea of “Hindu unity” by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, an upper-caste doctor, taking inspiration from Hindu nationalist ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s work Hindutva [Hinduness], in which he defines “who is a Hindu” (1969[1923]). Despite starting small, RSS’s organisational strength helped it to grow consistently over time (Zavos 2000: 193). RSS was the founding member of what is now known as the Sangh Parivar [the Sangh Family], “the collective cohort of Hindu nationalist forces” (Vanaik 2017: 1) which includes Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council; VHP), BJP, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Bajrang Dal. RSS, VHP and BJP in particular will be mentioned frequently in this thesis, owing to WHEF’s organic linkages to them and to Hindu nationalism.

RSS, like INC, was an elite organisation; however, it was also clearly against any kind of non-Hindu (i.e. Islamic or Christian) elements in independent India. These were seen as remnants of colonial rule, and Hindu unity was key to reviving as a nation (Zavos 2000: 179). RSS’s strategy was thus to stand for Brahminical hegemony over the subcontinent (Jafferelot 1999: 13). It did not take part in the “Quit India” movement in 1942, and stood in opposition to INC after the nation was established (i.e. against the Constitution of India and India’s tricoloured flag – arguing for a saffron one – as well as its socialist spirit and planned economy) (Andersen 1972: 589). RSS’s first moment of prominence in Indian history was Gandhi’s assassination by one of its former members. Following this, the organisation was banned for two years.

Although there was a “gap between the state’s secular polity and people’s religious behaviour” (Vanaik 2017: 2), early INC governments’ developmental policies, especially pro-poor ones, had popular support. Under these circumstances and given Gandhi’s assassination by an RSS member, Hindu nationalism struggled to gain popularity among

77 the masses, and RSS’s religion-based ideas, aspirations and opposition appeared “marginal” (Nanda 2011: 30). RSS therefore remained in the shadows rather than participating in electoral politics or carrying out political campaigns, casting itself “in the role of cultural [revolutionary], concerned more with reinforcing the Hindu foundations of Indian culture than with winning elections” (ibid.: 26).

The following section shows how RSS made itself more familiar with elections and how it expanded its popular and organisational support, together with two fellow Sangh Parivar members – VHP and BJP – forming a collective from which WHEF ultimately took its roots.

2.2- The Period of the Planned Economy: Hindu Nationalism as a Significant Site of Opposition

In this section, I analyse the period running from the 1960s to the start of neoliberalisation in terms of its impact on religion’s role in India’s history. The peculiarity of this period is that while INC’s perception of religion as national and secular became increasingly blurred, RSS’s Hindu nationalistic perspective and aspirations towards India as a “Hindu unity” started to gain momentum in Indian politics. Throughout this period, RSS’s political arms managed to take a place in the official opposition – even becoming part of India’s first non-INC coalition for a short time – thus enlarging its support base.

2.2.1- Jan Sangh, Searching for an Alternative, and the Licence Raj

While INC was consolidating its power under different governments, most prominently Indira Gandhi’s from 1966-1977, there arose a number of opponents to its rule. One came from Bharatiya Janata Sangh – commonly known as Jan Sangh – which was founded in 1951 and brought into opposition religion and religious issues. Jan Sangh was known as the political arm of RSS; while RSS presented itself as a volunteer organisation for the Hindu Rashtra outside politics, Jan Sangh represented its ideological and political aspirations in Indian politics, albeit in a more moderate form (van der Veer 1995). The party was also the forerunner of BJP and “buil[t] on the resentment felt by displaced

Hindus [at the secular politics of INC,] inflam[ing] the majority community as a whole and encourag[ing] them to act as a single political bloc” (Kaviraj 1997: 335). It followed Hindutva as its ideological base, and in 1965 its official philosophy was announced as “integral humanism” (Nene 1991: 1-2), which remains the official philosophy of BJP. This philosophy was based on the primacy of community, and Jan Sangh stood for economic policies guided by “the cultural values of Indian people, which were supposed to be communitarian, non-materialistic, or spiritual” (Nanda 2011: 28).

The party opposed the state planning-led policies adopted by INC; however, it did not support a free market economy either. Instead, it argued for an ‘alternative’ (i.e. to both socialism and capitalism) as the most suitable strategy for India’s development. The party’s philosophy of internal humanism and its perspective on this alternative were as follows:

Once so integrated, individuals do not need control from some external power like the state [as in socialism], nor do they fall prey to the selfish instincts of capitalists, for they are capable of limiting and controlling their desires and demands in the interests of the national community. What India needed was the cultivation of dharma, creation of men and women who would learn to see themselves as limbs of the body politic made up of the family, cast, guild, and the nation. … This was to be India’s very own ‘third way’ which reached beyond socialism and capitalism, both of which were declared to be alien to the Hindu ethos. Economic policy in India, like all other aspects of social life, was to be infused with Hindu religious and moral values (ibid.: 27-28).

Dharma is a concept that comes from Hinduism, defined as “a ‘moral philosophy of universal harmony’ which governs processes of integration”, including religion (Zavos 2000: 194). Thus, Jan Sangh’s ‘alternative’ was neither socialist nor capitalist, but something to be designed in accordance with Hindu values based on dharma (and its components: family, nation and caste). In contrast with INC’s policies, which favoured modern industrial production, Jan Sangh stood for small-scale industries (SSIs) and even village-based ones (Lahiry 2005: 836). INC’s bureaucratic controls over business expansion, which stood for most of this period, were referred to as the “Licence Raj” by Jan Sangh (ibid.).

In particular, this referred to the industries bill put in place in 1949, which mandated that “every new industrial establishment above a certain size, as well as every substantial

79 expansion of an industrial establishment above the minimum size, would require a licence” (Chibber 2003: 138). This created opposition to INC within business circles, especially among firms that were established during the colonial era and which held relatively significant power in the Indian economy, such as the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). To reconcile with these circles, INC established the Planning Commission in 1950, which did not eliminate bureaucratic discipline over industry but did reorganise industry policies to accommodate business elites’ interests (ibid.: 139-142). As a result, a consensus around state intervention was created between business and bureaucratic elites, paving the way for the growth of the former by exploiting the licence system and largely closing the economy to SSIs and village-based industries (ibid.; Kochanek 1987: 1281). This thesis calls the business elites that benefited under this arrangement the old or Western-oriented business elites, representing a particular (dominant) fraction of the Indian capitalist class – including FICCI and CII – rooted in the colonial period, large in size, and supporting in theory a Western-oriented liberal economy without any government intervention while benefitting in practice from a state-led developmental strategy.

Jan Sangh’s labelling of this arrangement as the “Licence Raj” implied a continuity between the “British Raj” and India’s new system of business controls. In a period when the middle and lower castes – small business owners, lower-level government employees and urban and rural workers – were gaining importance in Indian politics (Church 1984; Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 97), Jan Sangh’s criticisms of INC’s support for big business resonated increasingly strongly – especially in North India – although the party elites were (similarly to RSS) from upper castes (Kaviraj 1997:335; Sarkar 1993: 163). Small-scale industrialists in particular were strong supporters (Kochanek 1987: 1279). Jan Sangh increased its political power gradually (Vajpayee 1990: 495), also participating in electoral alliances with liberal parties such as the Swatantra Party and other, more radical Hindu nationalist parties such as Hindu Mahasabha.

Jan Sangh’s views on religion remained a semi-moderate version of Hindutva framed mostly by integral humanism, avoiding falling into the marginal position occupied by RSS since independence (Jaffrelot 2013: 880). However, its growing power in politics was fed by and gave confidence to RSS, as well as another important component of the

Sangh Parivar: VHP (Katju 1998: 40). Founded in 1964 by RSS’s then-president Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar in collaboration with Hindu spiritual leader Swami Chinmayananda – known today for the transnational Chinmaya Mission honouring his memory – VHP’s main mission was the “revitalisation of Hindu culture and religion” (ibid.: 34). Communalism – another important concept in Hindu nationalism – was also invoked frequently by VHP. Communalism is “the antagonistic mobilisation of one religious community against another” (Hiebert 2000: 47), and VHP was known for its “campaigns to oppose ‘Christianity, Islam and Communism’ to protect and promote Hinduism” (Katju 1998: 34).28 It aimed at rebuilding Hindu temples, destroying the cultural heritage of other religions, agitating against the slaughter of cows, and organising “world Hindu conferences” to revitalise Hindu culture, attempting to reach out to its “Hindu brethren” abroad (ibid.: 44; Hansen 1999: 103-105). VHP remained largely in the shadows in this period, forming simply one part of the opposition led by Jan Sangh. The idea of India as a Hindu nation constructed on a communal basis was still marginal at this time, though it eventually gained sufficient strength to join the opposition via a Hindu nationalist political party. Nevertheless, VHP would make its most significant appearance in Indian history in the 1980s, leading the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation that would ultimately result in the destruction of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya – known as the site of the birthplace of Hindu deity Rama – in 1992.

2.2.2- The Janata Party, the First Non-INC Government and the Establishment of BJP

One important event marking this phase of Indian history was the period of emergency rule from 1975-1977, following rising opposition to INC under Indira Gandhi’s leadership prompted by rising prices, worsening conditions for poor and rural workers, and corruption scandals. The authoritarianism of emergency rule only intensified this opposition. In the first elections following this period, the Janata Party came to power, remaining in office until 1980. Janata – a coalition party – was an ‘unlikely combination’ in the sense of holding various and conflicting social forces and ideologies together, including the Hindu nationalist Jan Sangh, those who left INC, and various small socialist and liberal parties (Nanda 2011: 35; Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 89). Jan Sangh, as the

28 For more on communalism and its colonial roots, see Zavos (2000: 1-24).

81 largest and best-organised group in this ‘unlikely combination’, dissolved into Janata, forming the first non-INC government of India (ibid.).

The Janata experience was important in two main ways. First, despite lacking ideological coherency among its constituents, the coalition was constructed on the shared ground of “political and economic decentralisation” (Rudolph and Rudolph 1987: 172). The experience of the Janata government therefore managed to reverse “the emphasis on big industry in favour of small village-based industries and village councils”, “urban small- scale producers and farmers” and the rural and urban poor (Nanda 2011: 35). This opened up space for populist policies in India, which INC also supported very vigorously in the absence of a “credible alternative programme” suggested by the left (Chatterjee 1997: 72). Moreover, this experience also hinted that other fractions of the capitalist class which were smaller in size – generally referred to as a multi-layered “middle class” in the Indian context – in fact held considerable power when coming together (Weiner 1982: 342, Jaffrelot and van der Veer 2008). These included what this thesis refers to as the religiously-oriented business elites; specifically, those who organised around Jan Sangh, joined Janata, then founded BJP, and who subsequently grew more and more in influence until becoming – along with the ‘old’ elites – one of the two leading forces within Indian political economy.

The second aspect of Janata’s importance is that BJP emerged from it. Because Janata consisted of conflicting ideological currents, the proximity of its former Jan Sangh members to RSS caused problems for other constituents of the party. This resulted in the latter asking the former to distance themselves from Sangh Parivar, including RSS and VHP, which excluded other religious communities. Eventually, Janata banned dual membership, prohibiting members of the party from joining any other organisations (Jaffrelot 2013: 881). Following this, former Jan Sangh members left Janata and formed BJP in 1980, under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Minister of External Affairs under Janata and future PM of India, and Lal Krishna Advani, former Minister of Information and Broadcasting under Janata, future president of BJP and symbolic leader of the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement in 1992.

While not breaking its ties with RSS and VHP, BJP maintained that it was continuing Janata’s centrist stance, keeping away from “the chauvinistic and militant aspects of

Hindu nationalism in order to widen the electoral appeal of the party” (Malik and Singh 1992: 322). This was because INC had returned to power in the 1980s, pushing other small parties back into opposition, although this time without a coalition owing to Janata’s division and loss of power. Vajpayee himself was an RSS-affiliated politician; however, he stayed away from extremist politics, having learnt from the Janata experience to think of potential coalitions. This caused conflicts within Sangh Parivar. Hindutva, still perceived as marginal or extreme in Indian society, was left to RSS and VHP, and a moderate version was adopted by BJP to enable them to remain an effective actor in Indian politics (Jaffrelot 2013: 882-883). To this end, BJP under Vajpayee promoted two important concepts: “Gandhian socialism” and “pseudo-secularism”. By Gandhian socialism, BJP meant swadeshi, referring to the “protection of Indian market [sic] and industry, and promotion of domestic economic interests”, mainly those of small units within the Indian economy against foreign economic entities (Lakha 2002: 83). Pseudo-secularism, on the other hand, referred to the alleged practices of INC, whom BJP accused of “cultivating the Muslim ‘vote bank’” (Jaffrelot 2013: 884) and “conferring ‘privileges’ on the minorities” by neglecting or “penalising” Hindus under the guise of secularism (Kaviraj 1997: 337).

These efforts did not help BJP to increase its influence in Indian politics in the 1980s, with INC challenging the party on both bases. First, INC started to be more responsive to the demands of smaller fractions of Indian capital, by liberalising the economy in small steps and by making its bureaucratic controls over businesses more flexible (Hansen 1996: 608, Chatterjee 1997). Second, it became more responsive to Hindu nationalist politics – even contributing to communalism with its response to the Kashmir problem – for electoral reasons, particularly when handling the rise of Islamic politics in India in the late 1980s (following developments elsewhere in the world, e.g. the Iranian revolution) (Jaffrelot 2013: 883; Hansen 1996: 608).

While RSS and VHP continued in their opposition to BJP’s moderate position, their own support bases expanded, attracting volunteers willing to work for the cause of making India a Hindu Rashtra. During this period, they started the “Ayodhya campaign”, which advocated building a Ram Temple in place of Babri Masjid. The 1980s conjuncture – which saw an increase in religious conflict and communal politics in India – also helped them to find more support in society. By the late 1980s, therefore, BJP had acknowledged

83 its dependency on other Sangh Parivar organisations, passed its presidency to Advani, and decided to radicalise and cooperate with its polity (including on the Ayodhya campaign), all of which delivered a considerable increase in its electoral power by 1989 (Jaffrelot 2013: 884; Malik and Singh 1992: 310).

Before moving to analyse the period of neoliberalisation, the importance of this earlier period first needs to be made clear in terms of religion’s transforming role and the historical sedimentations it formed for the future. Firstly, in the period of founding, religion was perceived as a significant element of the Indian nation by the founding elite, but was regarded as of secondary importance compared to the urgent issue of national development. Hindu nationalist expressions of religion such as that of RSS were perceived as marginal, and did not really have a place in Indian politics. However, in this period, as explained, while INC’s secular vision of Hinduism became blurred and less effective, RSS’s Hindu nationalist perspective gained momentum and became one of the main sites of opposition in Indian politics.

Secondly, the ideas promoted by the members of Sangh Parivar (RSS, VHP, Jan Sangh and its successor BJP) throughout this period remain important historical sedimentations within Indian politics, as will be seen in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 when talking about WHEF. For instance, WHEF’s narrative of Indian history invokes the Licence Raj, its ‘alternative’ economic model mirrors Jan Sangh’s, its membership consists of members of RSS, VHP, BJP and other volunteer organisations such as the Chinmaya Mission, and it contributes to the rhetoric of “revitalising Hindu culture” by reaching out to those who live abroad.

2.3- Neoliberalisation: the Mainstreaming of Hindu Nationalism

In this section, I analyse the period of neoliberalisation from 1991 to the present day, with particular reference to religion’s role in this process. Firstly, I examine how neoliberalism was presented as the only alternative for the country by bureaucratic elites from INC in the 1990s, and BJP’s reactions to this. Secondly, I deal with BJP’s transition into government, modifying its religious agenda to become welcoming to foreign trade and investment. The specificity of this period in terms of religion’s role is that Hindu

84 nationalism was mainstreamed by BJP without any significant opposition from INC (Ogden 2012: 22).

2.3.1- Neoliberalism as the Only Alternative

Although some attempts were made to liberalise the Indian economy in the late 1980s, the turning point in Indian history was 1991, when a radical strategy was adopted to move the country towards neoliberalisation. India’s constant balance of payments problems in the 1980s turned into a serious crisis of liquidity at the beginning of the 1990s. With the post-1990 global political economy marked by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the implementation of “shock therapy” in post-Soviet countries, and the imposition of structural adjustment programmes in the developing world, Indian bureaucratic elites similarly concluded that the best treatment for India’s economic problems lay in the neoliberal solutions promoted by the World Bank and IMF.

Following the 1991 Indian general election, a first round of economic reforms was introduced in line with “the neoliberal mantra of the four Ds- ‘deflate, devalue, denationalize, and deregulate’”, led by INC PM Narasimha Rao and finance minister Manmohan Singh, known as the architect of neoliberalism in India (Nanda 2011: 23). Neoliberalism was “presented as the only viable alternative to strained and under- performing models of bureaucratic regulation and protection of national economies” (Hansen 1996: 607), in a manner evocative of the Thatcherite mantra “there is no alternative” (TINA). Business elites, particularly the still-dominant old elites, approached these developments as “an economic revolution” and “India’s second independence” (Das 2000: 55). The proponents of India’s neoliberalisation in general thought that this economic transformation would also bring about positive social transformation, by destroying the country’s old caste-based politics and making economic development work for everyone.29 However, in practice it worked primarily for Western-oriented business elites (these having sufficiently large businesses, foreign networks, better education and English language skills), which – with state support – managed to grow

29 For examples of arguments made by proponents of India’s neoliberalisation, as well as a critique of these arguments, see Patnaik (2011: 47).

85 and adjust themselves to these new conditions marked by transnational social forces (Ghosh 1998: 326; Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 121), particularly by finding business partners in the US (Mishra 2014). Smaller fractions of Indian capital (SSIs, but also SMEs in newly promoted sectors), however, remained less advantaged and sought greater support from the state.

Two particularly important features of this neoliberalisation period were the “Mandalisation” of politics and the “politics of mandir”,30 both of which reduced INC’s support among these smaller fractions and worked in favour of BJP. Mandalisation referred to a specific set of policies supporting disadvantaged castes through the reservation of jobs in central government services and social undertakings, in line with recommendations made by the Mandal Commission (Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 121).31 Throughout the period in which the new economic reforms were consolidated, INC decided to continue to reserve jobs for the lower strata of India’s population. This decision faced significant opposition from every capitalist class fraction because such populist policies were seen as “a drag on the rest” (Kothari 1988: 2591). In contrast with INC, BJP never supported the Mandal report and its measures to eliminate caste disadvantages, although it also never publicly opposed them (Sarkar 1993: 166). This stance was the result of its own electoral calculus, balancing the preferences of its traditional upper-caste support base (who were against Mandalisation) against those of the disadvantaged castes who benefited from it (Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 127-128).

In terms of parliamentary representation, BJP was the second largest political party in India throughout the 1990s, especially after its return to the traditional Hindu nationalist path of RSS and VHP (Malik and Singh 1992: 334). BJP in this period consciously stayed away from the politics of caste and class (Biswas 2004: 111). As a result, it attracted the attention of business elites who were not happy with Mandalisation. It also offered a cautious account of neoliberalisation, claiming that integration into

30 Mandir translates roughly to ‘temple’, being the place in which Hindus worship God.

31 The commission was named after its chairman, Bindeshwari Prasad Mandal, and actually made its suggestions a decade earlier. These were accepted by the National Front coalition government preceding INC just before 1991. For detailed information about the Mandal Commission and its report, see Panandiker (1997).

86 neoliberalism was not as easy for SSIs as for the larger fractions of Indian capital. For this reason, they particularly supported SSIs, saying that “they were Indian owned, and contributed forty percent of the country’s export income as well as generating a substantial proportion of employment” (Lakha 2002: 85). In this way, BJP not only consolidated its support among smaller fractions of the Indian capitalist class (SSIs, SMEs), but also attracted some who were once keen supporters of INC (Jaffrelot 1996: 433; Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 124; Yadav 1996: 102). Its support base thus grew to include “prominent executives, ex-servicemen, and former top administrators”; that is, those who were primarily interested in “authority, stability and order, and in the affirmation of Indian nationalism and of the status of the country as a great power in the context of a globalising world order” (Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 124-126). As one Indian businessman stated in the early 1990s, “We have reached rock-bottom in world stature, economically, in every way. If the BJP is an alternative to a better end then so be it.” (cited in ibid.: 119).

With BJP avoiding basing its politics on caste and class relations, it instead brought its religious agenda and communalism to the fore. Therefore, the politics of mandir – referring to the growing importance of Hindu temples as symbols of Hindu nationalist movements – became another important feature of India’s neoliberal transition. The Ayodhya campaign started by VHP in the 1980s became a mass movement by 1992, fuelled by then-BJP leader Advani’s Rath Yatra (chariot pilgrimage), which resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid along with many violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims (Ogden 2012: 27). It also spread across the country, with mass support paving the way for hostility towards India’s non-Hindu populations and the increasingly widespread belief that the country should be claimed for Hindus only (Nanda 2011). Although BJP never officially accepted its part in the campaign or the riots, it played an important role in mobilising the masses on a religious basis – as every group within Sangh Parivar did – and its leaders ultimately stood trial for their part in events (Jaffrelot 2013: 883). This movement

enacted a new chapter in the history of mass politics in India. By this move[ment] the BJP subverted the hegemonic and privileged status of the notion of secularism as a condensed signifier of equality and pluralism, and the party allowed the inventory of popular anti-Muslim myths and discourses for long muted and excluded from the public realm to be publicly articulated. (Hansen 1996: 608).

More importantly, the support of those who were against Mandalisation was also visible in these movements. A survey conducted shortly after the movement showed that

60 per cent of white-collar professionals and 62 per cent of traders approved the assault, while amongst workers support fell to 28 per cent. And there is evidence that amongst the significant number of middle-class people who ‘have acquired economic status but not corresponding social status’ there is an anxiety ‘to bring the two into consonance’ partly through religious observance and congregational activities (Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 125).

From this point on, the support of religiously-oriented elites – which had already previously been given to Jan Sangh – started to solidify under BJP (Hansen 1999). Although RSS and VHP were banned for a short time following the riots, BJP was not, even receiving an electoral majority and thus forming a coalition representing these elites’ interests in the late 1990s.

India’s neoliberalisation started, therefore, with INC both implementing economic reforms and attempting to secure the consent of the masses through the Mandalisation of politics. However, these early years were ultimately marked by significant opposition from business elites (both Western-oriented and religiously-oriented) and by the politics of mandir. Taking advantage of both, BJP successfully emerged as a significant alternative in Indian politics.

2.3.2- Neoliberalism and the Bharatiya Janata Party

BJP never opposed or challenged INC’s presentation of neoliberalism as the only route for India; rather, its position was largely dictated by the transnational social forces within it. Despite its gradual successes in general and local elections throughout the 1990s, in this period BJP was still not considered a ‘national party’ addressing the whole electorate; rather, its success was considered dependent upon regional alliances and restricted to North India, known as the Hindi heartland (Yadav 1996; Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 12). The 1998 general election changed this scenario, however, with BJP – led by Vajpayee – coming to power and forming the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition. This time, BJP’s votes were not restricted to the Hindi heartland; instead, they came also from East and South India, where the party had never received significant support before (Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 133; Hansen and Jaffrelot 1998:

323). In this, BJP’s gradual modification of its economic agenda had played an important part.

For a party coming from the Hindu nationalist tradition and – along with allied groups such as RSS and VHP – advocating an ‘India-specific’ (that is, Hindu-specific) economics, this modification was required to comply with the terms of neoliberalism as set in collaboration with Western social forces such as the World Bank and IMF. This was owing to conflicts between neoliberal economic ideas (globalisation, international competition, the creation of big manufacturing sites in India, etc.) and those associated with traditional Hindutva ideology (avoiding non-Hindu ways of life, protection of India’s own SSIs and SMEs, etc.). For instance, RSS and VHP were mostly opposed to the “involvement of foreign capital in Indian economy”, with BJP taking “a cautious approach”, not “reject[ing altogether] foreign investment but refus[ing] to give foreign investors preferential treatment against Indian-owned companies” (Lakha 2002: 85). The 1990s therefore saw a gradual increase in BJP’s electoral success accompanied – and possibly caused – by “a gradual shift in the meaning of swadeshi”, which came to mean not “isolation from” but “integration into” the world economy: in 1992, this meant integration without the obliteration of the national economy or subordination to external economic forces (ibid.); in 1994 it included “the establishment of Indian companies and Indian brands in the world market”; and by 1998, the subtitle of the swadeshi section of BJP’s manifesto had become “Making India a Global Economic Power” (Gopalakrishnan 2006: 2807).

Under the BJP-led NDA government, the distinction between “‘internal liberalisation’ (i.e. privatisation, no bureaucratic controls over businesses) which it supported and ‘external liberalisation’ (i.e. globalisation) which it opposed earlier in the name of protecting Indian businesses from foreign competition” (Nanda 2011: 39-40) became blurred. Indeed, the second round of neoliberal economic reforms was carried out by this government, and involved striking concessions to international finance capital in line with the requirements of the World Trade Organisation (Corbridge and Harriss 2000: 135). These included the “further opening up of the economy to imports of foreign goods including consumer items, which intensif[ied] competition between Indian industrialists and foreign manufacturers” (Lakha 2002: 86). The government also privatised almost all

89 sectors except for nuclear power, defence and the railways during this period (Nanda 2011: 40).

While reinforcing neoliberalisation processes, BJP also initiated the process of mainstreaming Hindu nationalism in the Indian state-society complex. In fact, neoliberalisation made this process easier for the religiously-oriented elites of which BJP, together with RSS and VHP, was a part. Privatisation in particular paved the way for these elites’ more effective participation in the Indian economy, and the benefits of large industrial and export growth started to accrue to this group (Nanda 2011: 47). Privatisation also boosted the so-called “god market”, meaning the construction of temples and religious businesses (i.e. those catering to religious tourism) (ibid.: 56). One sector which was increasingly privatised was higher education, with some districts privatised or franchised to corporate or religious bodies, which helped RSS and VHP elites to “expand their school networks enormously” and also facilitated the “saffronisation of the textbooks” (Gopalakhrishan 2006: 2808). This latter process involved the rewriting of Indian history, recasting India as the world’s oldest civilisation and as in need of revitalisation as a contemporary global power (ibid.: 2805; Panikkar 2001: 14; Ogden 2012: 29). In the meantime, RSS-affiliated members were also promoted to higher positions by BJP, in order to “strengthen its political position” within the state (ibid.: 26).

One important example of the way in which neoliberalisation was accompanied by Hindu nationalism in the 2000s can be found in Gujarat – “India’s business ‘powerhouse’” in the neoliberal era (Gopalakhrisnan 2006: 2808) – and its business-focused chief minister Narendra Modi, who first won local office in 2001 and then remained in place until his election as PM of India in 2014. Modi’s approach to local governance – known as the “Gujarat model” – became “synonymous with dramatic improvements in the state’s electricity and water supplies and huge investment in better roads and infrastructure process” (Pierce 2015: 45), and was made possible by privatisation (i.e. of electricity generation, water supplies, etc.) and the investment of international finance capital. It was appreciated particularly by Indian business elites, and attracted attention all over the world (Nanda 2011: 55). However, Modi’s period in office was also marked by the rise of communalism, and particularly by the Gujarat riots in Godhra in 2002, which formed part of the chain of communal riots following the Ayodhya campaign in 1992. In the

90 aftermath of the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims on their way back from Ayodhya by a group of Muslims, VHP – in collaboration with RSS – led an attack on local Muslims, causing the deaths of approximately 2000 people (Anand 2005: 203). Modi himself was accused of contributing to the organisation of the attack and of sharing confidential information about the area’s Muslim population, including their addresses (Murphy 2011: 86). However, he remained in office and continued to administer the Gujarat model until his election as PM – with an absolute majority – slightly more than a decade later.

Despite its slogan of “India shining” and defence of free markets, BJP lost the 2004 general elections, and the INC-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition instead came to power. Recalling BJP’s opposition to Mandalisation as explained previously, for some commentators the reason for the decline in the party’s support was its neglect of lower and backward castes and excessive concentration on its corporate allies (Ramesh 2004; Sen 2005). While trying to win the support of large businesses by deepening neoliberal reforms, it also lost some of its traditional support among SSIs and SMEs, who were “threatened by large corporations both inside and outside India” (Ogden 2012: 3). After the lifting of reservations on 800 products (which had reserved the rights to their production for SSIs) and the introduction of measures which allowed foreign imports to flow into Indian domestic markets, these groups were “placed under greater pressure as they [lost] the protection they previously enjoyed” (Lakha 2002: 86-87). This issue also caused tensions between BJP and both RSS and VHP, because of the latter’s “discomfort” with neoliberalism’s prioritisation of foreign capital (Gopalakrishnan 2006: 2807). Although BJP was not in power between 2004 and 2014, it contributed to the development of neoliberalism, particularly through local government. In addition, the INC-led UPA government did not see growing public expressions of Hindu religiosity as a problem, and thus neither changed nor abandoned the policies promoting religious businesses in this period, resulting in the emergence of a “state-temple-corporate complex” in India from the 2000s onwards (Nanda 2011: 108).

Given that “there was no alternative” to neoliberalism, the period starting with BJP’s loss of support and ending with its absolute majority government was spent attempting to reconcile its connection to RSS and VHP with its relations to different social groups in Indian society. The Indian diaspora, and particularly non-resident Indians (NRIs), became

91 a key issue in this reconciliation, particularly for RSS and VHP. Sangh Parivar already had many members within these groups across the world, particularly the US, and was receiving funding from these RSS/VHP-linked members (Jaffrelot and Therwath 2007). BJP, therefore, made an effort to “renew [NRIs’] ties with their ancestral land and … explore new avenues of cooperation” (Gopalakhrisnan 2006: 2809). An open economy which was based on foreign trade and investment but which also involved NRIs would still comply with neoliberalism, while placing the focus on reinforcing relations with the RSS/VHP-linked parts of Indian diaspora specifically. WHEF is thus a product of this reconciliation, founded by mainly VHP circles in India, and commencing operations in this period to establish a transnational Hindu business network in collaboration with RSS and BJP, as will be shown in Chapter 4. Moreover, relations with the lower and backward castes were enhanced through Sangh Parivar’s efforts to mobilise them as volunteers (ibid.: 2808). Modi’s candidacy also played an important role, with his being the first PM of India from a lower caste family and someone who defined himself as “an outsider … quite isolated from the elite class of [India]” (quoted in Pierce 2015: 12).

Campaigning on a promise to apply the Gujarat Model to the whole country, Modi was elected as PM with an absolute majority in 2014. This was the first time that BJP had come to power without requiring a coalition, and under Modi’s leadership BJP repeated this success in 2019, even increasing its vote share. Throughout this period, BJP consolidated its support among different social classes, making the neoliberal project hegemonic in India. Under Modi, BJP introduced a number of initiatives taking neoliberalism one step further (Chacko 2019: 377). Two of these, which I revisit in the empirical chapters, are noteworthy. The first – and one of the earliest changes – was the abolition of the Planning Commission, one of the iconic institutions of India’s post- colonial era under INC and “a once-powerful advocate of public investment-led development” (Sengupta 2015: 791). The Commission was replaced by a think tank called the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), to promote public- private partnership and to provide policy advice to the government. NITI Aayog is headed by a chief executive officer (CEO), and started its journey with the appointment of “well-known economists … [advocating] free markets, light touch regulation, choice and competition” (KK 2015). On its recommendation, since June 2018 “the government … allowed lateral entry for private sector professionals to senior joint secretary positions in the Indian Civil Service” (Basu 2019: 80). NITI Aayog is therefore one of the

92 institutions that best illustrates how India’s state-capital relations were redefined. Moreover, replacing the Commission was not the only break from India’s INC-dominated past. Modi was the first PM not to attend a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit, and under his premiership India-US relations have improved. India has also engaged in increasing numbers of partnerships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Ayres 2018: 82). This has been explained as “going beyond the spirit of NAM … by keeping [equal] distance from all” (Dev 2018).

Meanwhile, the Modi period also witnessed “a radical departure” from swadeshi and a switch to the completely neoliberal management of SMEs, as expressed in the “Make in India” initiative, which “highlighted the necessity of greater foreign direct investment to transform the country into a global manufacturing hub” (Ruparelia 2015: 763). In contrast with previous BJP governments, an effort was made to present this initiative as positive for subalterns via job creation (despite its working against the interests of labour), and BJP balanced its policies which favoured the interests of big businesses with those favouring SMEs. More importantly, opening up the economy to foreign social forces was not questioned this time, because it was made clear that the initiative was intended to “spark a renewed sense of pride [in] Indian manufacturing”, as illustrated by Make in India’s promotion flyers “full of images and references to the glorious past of ancient India” (Datta 2016: 48). Hindu nationalism therefore was – and it still is – mobilised not only to promote communalism in Indian society for Sangh Parivar, but also to garner support for neoliberal policies.

In comparison with previous periods, this period of neoliberal transition saw the mainstreaming of Hindu nationalism and WHEF is a product of this period. As will be seen later, it involves people participating in these initiatives, such as NITI Aayog (Chapter 4). Its operation focuses on the Indian diaspora, which has been seen here to be a method of reconciling BHP’s ties to RSS/VHP with the requirements of Indian neoliberalism (Chapter 5). Moreover, one of its main focuses is on making SMEs a part of its intellectual project in order to reinforce neoliberal ideology (Chapter 6).

2.4- Concluding Remarks

In this chapter I have presented a very brief account of contemporary Indian history. This was intended to help in answering RQ2, which asks about religion’s different roles and its interaction with different social forces and highlights historical sedimentations which remain of continued importance to WHEF. The chapter was limited to topics referred to or revisited in my empirical chapters, which analyse WHEF in order to make sense of its religion-based intellectual project.

I firstly examined the period of India’s founding, and presented the founding elites’ national and secular articulation of Hinduism. Despite acknowledging problems associated with religious conflict, these elites saw these problems as essentially secondary and as likely to disappear once India become a developed country in economic terms. I also detailed another (opposing) elite articulation of religion, which understood Hinduism as a constitutive part of Indian society and India as a Hindu nation. The source of this opposing view was RSS elites, whose ideas were seen as marginal at that time. I highlighted the tension between these two perspectives throughout this period, which also marked India’s entire post-colonial history.

I next examined the period between the 1960s and neoliberalisation in 1991, which was marked by the development of a planned economy. I explained how, in this period, Hindu nationalism was represented in Indian politics by Jan Sangh, Janata and BJP, all of whom opposed INC’s political-economic ideas. Although the Hindu nationalist articulation of religion was still seen as marginal and INC’s dominance in Indian politics continued, INC’s secular articulation gradually lost ground in Indian society. Hindu nationalist parties were locked in constant struggle with INC throughout this period, and Hindu nationalism – with its focus on the interests of SSIs – eventually became a significant site of opposition to INC and its support of existing business elites.

Finally, I examined the period of neoliberal transition from 1991 onwards, during which Hindu nationalism was mainstreamed by BJP without any significant opposition from INC. This period was marked by the rise of communalism in Indian society alongside BJP’s rise, firstly as the second largest political party in terms of parliamentary representation, and subsequently as the largest. I highlighted that Indian neoliberalism as

94 a project was initiated by Western-oriented elites (INC elites and their corporate supporters) but taken over by religiously-oriented elites (Sangh Parivar members including BJP) and enriched by Hindu nationalism. In particular, BJP under Modi managed to make neoliberalism hegemonic by mobilising different social forces around its Hindu nationalist project. I showed that religiously-oriented elites looked for support both from large businesses and from SSIs and SMEs. I also emphasised how neoliberalisation worked in favour of both Hindu nationalist organisations generally and BJP specifically, boosting their businesses in the economy, disseminating their ideas throughout society through privatised educational institutions, and supporting their local constituencies through privatised infrastructure provision. In the meantime, I also showed how Hindu nationalism modified itself to accommodate the requirements of neoliberalisation.

In the next chapter, I will examine Turkey’s contemporary history to find out religion’s different roles therein, its interactions with different social forces, and the historical sedimentations to which it has contributed.

CHAPTER 3

HISTORICAL SEDIMENTATIONS AND ISLAM UNDER NEOLIBERALISM IN TURKEY

Having explained the changing roles and elite articulations of religion within Indian history in the previous chapter, I turn in this chapter to doing the same for Turkey. Again, this chapter aims to answer RQ2, identifying these different articulations and roles and clarifying the historical sedimentations that they have formed, which now provide part of the basis of IBF’s intellectual project and thus serve to mediate neoliberal ideology in Turkey. As with Chapter 2, the importance of this chapter is that it provides a background for understanding the empirical chapters; IBF as a contemporary institution reflects the sedimentations examined here, being a product of the same historical developments which brought neoliberalism to Turkey in the 1980s together with the rise of political Islam.

As I did for India, I examine Turkish history in three main periods, divided in terms of religion’s different roles and its particular importance for each period. Because the chapter addresses the history of a completely different country, it points out certain differences from the Indian case. However, it focuses on an important parallel between both countries, because in Turkey too religion mediates neoliberal ideology today after having taken on different and sometimes contradictory roles throughout history. In the first section I examine the period of Turkey’s founding (2.1), during which the country’s founding elites constructed a secular perspective on Islam and carefully tried to take it under state control. I highlight the measures used to exert control over different perspectives on Islam. I then visit the period spanning from the 1950s until neoliberalisation (2.2), during which religion became an important part of populist right opposition to these founding elites and subsequently brought this opposition into government. I also focus on the appearance of political Islamic movements in Turkish politics. Finally, I engage with the period of neoliberalisation which started in the 1980s, which also witnessed the rise of political Islam within Turkey’s state-society complex. Similarly to Chapter 2, this chapter limits itself to explaining the main issues required to

96 understand the empirical chapters and their original contributions – providing the context for current developments – rather than presenting a full account of Turkish history.

3.1- The Founding: Breaking with the Islamic Legacy, a New Islam and a New State

This section explains the secular articulation of Islam by Turkey’s founding elites, which was so dominant throughout the founding period as to almost completely exclude other articulations. Although there were many Islamic institutions in Turkish society throughout this period, none retained the prominent place that they had held in the Ottoman Empire due to the newly established state’s commitment to Western secular modernity. The founding elites accepted Islam as a national popular element of society, but were also highly committed to breaking with Turkey’s Ottoman past and its Islamic legacy, with the Empire having ruled the territory for almost 700 years and held the caliphal authority for more than 500.32

After the War of Independence following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat and partition in World War 1, the Republican People’s Party (RPP), under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founded Turkey in 1923.33 Similarly to India’s founding elites, those of Turkey saw religion as implicated in society’s backwardness and believed that it would lose its significance in time as the country developed (Ayata 1996: 43; Savran 2013: 58). However, unlike in India, Turkey’s founding elites were a military cadre, generals of the independence struggle. They actively intervened in religious affairs, seeking a top-down social transformation – targeting both Islam’s institutional position and Islamic symbols rooted in Ottoman culture – that would create a national culture of Turkey’s own (Webster 1973: 126). This national culture needed to serve the founding elites’ aim of “orienting Turkey towards Western civilisation rather than an Islamic one” with the latter denoting the Ottoman Empire’s pre-capitalist relations (Savran 2002: 8).

32 For a comprehensive analysis of the Ottoman Empire, see Quataert (2005).

33 Turkey adopted a single-party system in the founding period, with RPP ruling the country until 1950.

Along with the abolition of the Caliphate, several measures in pursuit of this end started to be taken as early as 1924. These can be summarised in the following way:

In 1924, the new regime introduced drastic measures, abolishing the Caliphate, Islamic schools, seriat [sharia] (Islamic law) courts, and the Ministries of Seriat and Evkaf (pious foundations). In 1925, sects and orders were banned and monasteries were closed. In the same two years a unified educational system under a secular Ministry of Public Instruction was established, as was a Directorate of Religious Affairs (DRA) (under the Premier’s office), to replace the two previously mentioned ministries. In 1926, the Swiss civil code was put into effect. In 1928, the clause referring to Islam as the religion of the Turkish state was removed from the constitution. The new legal system was complemented by such ambitious reforms as voting rights for women (1926), the replacement of Arabic with the Latin alphabet (1928), the outlawing of traditional and religious costumes, and the adoption of the metric system of measurement and the Gregorian calendar (Ayata 1996: 41).

In addition to this, several religious leaders were prosecuted and executed in the Independence Tribunals held between 1923 and 1927 (Aybars 1995), and ezan, the call to prayer, was translated into and practised in Turkish in the 1930s (Başgöz 1998: 45). The principle of secularism was not as simple as the classical definition, namely the separation of state and religious affairs; instead, it was the control of the state over religion through such institutions as the DRA, which was directly linked to the state.

Although Islamism – which stands for Islamic over national unity – had been a prominent ideology among Ottoman elites, these measures made it extremely difficult (if not impossible) for it to exist throughout Turkey’s founding era.34 For this reason, this period denoted the end of the first generation of Islamism in Ottoman-Turkish territory (Bulaç 2009). The idea of Turkey as an Islamic unity – or as a part of such a unity, along with other Muslim-majority territories – was perceived as marginal at a time when a specifically national unity was being sought by the founding elites (Kara 2014: 72). This would create issues for Islamic elites’ integration with the RPP government, and later the global political economy (ibid.).

The founding elites also wanted to create a national economy. Although it targeted a liberal regime open to free investment from the outset, Turkey adopted a form of state-led

34 See Lewis (1965) for details on Islamism and its ideological roots.

98 capitalism – called “etatism” – as a means of efficiently allocating resources under post- 1929 conditions, which were marked by difficulty industrialising and the uncompetitiveness of domestic business elites (Boratav 1993; Tekeli and İlkin 1982: 336).35 Therefore, the state and policymakers took into consideration the demands of the business community and tried to comply with them, paving the way for the gradual penetration of the state by interest groups (Boratav 1974; Tekeli and İlkin 1982). The Western-oriented fraction of the Turkish capitalist class – which dominated until neoliberalisation – came out of this penetration. This fraction’s elites, which I refer to in this thesis as Turkey’s old or Western-oriented elites, complied with the founding elites’ commitment to establishing a Western-oriented national structure and grew due to their support.

Under these circumstances, and similarly to India, the view of Turkey as an Islamic country was perceived as marginal throughout this period. However, unlike in India, this marginality was enforced through dramatic and sustained state pressure. For this reason, Turkey did not have a prominent religious organisation like RSS which both predated and survived the country’s establishment.

3.2- The Period of the Planned Economy: Islam as A Part of Populism and the Rise of Political Islam

In this section, I examine the period of Turkish history spanning from the 1950s until the neoliberal transition. In this period, religion became a key constituent of the right-wing political parties which emerged after the transition to a multi-party regime in 1946, and which opposed RPP. Throughout this period, political parties employed religious populist rhetoric both in government and in opposition, and the appearance of a political Islamic opposition party – from which both JDP and IBF take their roots – further proved that RPP’s secular perspective was not popularly accepted.

35 Turkey was one of the first countries in the underdeveloped world to adopt national development strategies and economic regulation based on five-year plans (Savran 2002:9; Balkan and Öncü 2013). However, these differed from the national developmentalist strategies adopted in other parts of the world and from import substitution industrialisation, as they were unaccompanied by economic populism in that period (Yalman 2002: 30).

3.2.1- The Democratic Party and Bringing Religion Back In

RPP’s cultural and economic reforms worked in urban areas (i.e. mainly İstanbul but also İzmir and Ankara) to some extent; however, they found limited sympathy and applicability in the rural and semi-urban areas of Anatolia, given the uneven development of urban and rural areas in the newly established Turkey (Savran 2002: 9; Karaömerlioğlu 2000). With the transition to a multi-party regime, several parties were established in opposition to RPP and its policies. The most important of these was the Democratic Party (DP). Founded in 1946 by a group who left RPP, DP came to power in 1950 with a significant majority. Under the leadership of Adnan Menderes, a landowner in the west of Turkey and former RPP member of parliament, DP consisted of commercial and agrarian elites who represented smaller fractions of the Turkish capitalist class (i.e. smaller in scale rather than in number) based in Anatolia, at a time when large industrial elites were supported by the state (Savran 2002: 10).

In contrast with the previous period’s etatist policies, DP advocated market liberalism and Turkey’s integration into the global political economy (ibid.; Yalman 2002: 34), given Turkey’s receipt of US aid under the Marshall Plan and entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1952.36 Another element instrumental to DP was its populism. DP argued that the new regime under the leadership of RPP had not penetrated Turkish society and that it had taken a domineering approach in its policies (ibid.: 33). For this reason, it started its political journey with the motto “Enough! It’s the nation’s turn to speak.” and depicted itself, in contrast to RPP, as coming from the “bosom of the nation” (Ünal 2006: 46). Importantly, religion was one of the key constituents of this nation. Without directly attacking the basic principles of secularism set out by RPP, DP foregrounded themes including “respect for indigenous culture and freedom for businesses and religious activity” (Ayata 1996: 43).

A few things should be noted about DP’s use of religion in its political project. First, although DP understood Islam as one of the key constituents of the Turkish nation, this was different to seeing the nation as an Islamic one. Rather, it was an acknowledgement of Islam’s important place in common sense, designed to attract popular support. Neither

36 Unlike India, Turkey never became a part of NAM, instead always siding with the US.

100 was DP a political Islamic party, nor had it any organic ties with Islamic groups or movements which were understood as marginalised and oppressed. It was a party consisting of liberal and conservative members who approached religion and Turkey’s religious heritage in a positive and pragmatic way, ultimately succeeding in addressing the masses’ religious sentiments (Kara 2014). With the transition to a multi-party regime, other political parties emerged having more explicit references to Islamic themes in their programmes, such as the Islam Protection Party (founded 1946) and the Nation Party (founded 1948); however, none were able to match DP’s success (Toprak 1981: 75). DP’s populist articulation of religion worked to some extent, but more radical articulations were still considered marginal and did not receive much support in Turkey’s state-society complex during this period.37

Second, DP not only initiated a discursive shift in terms of Islam’s place in political struggle, but also paved the way for the relaxation of the state’s control over religious activity during its decade in government. Through a range of initiatives – returning ezan to Arabic; broadcasting Quran readings over state radio; introducing Prayer Leader and Preacher Schools; expanding the budget of DRA; supporting the publication of religious books and pamphlets; and increasing the number of private religious organisations responsible for constructing mosques and supplying Quran courses (ibid.: 80-83) – DP brought religion back into Turkish political life and improved its legal and institutional organisation, alongside a set of economic policies based on market liberalism.

Third, DP not only used religion as a source of political support, but also utilised patronage relations and clientelism, rewarding its supporters in return for their backing (Sunar 1985: 2077). Given that it represented agrarian and commercial business elites, this created tensions between these elites and those in industrial sectors, who had been allied to RPP in Turkey’s founding period and now did not receive as much support as they wished (Savran 2002: 10). Furthermore, the weakness of the Turkish economy – enmeshed in patronage relations and lacking significant industrial production – in this period precipitated an economic crisis in the mid-1950s, putting DP in a difficult position. After the crisis, DP increased its focus on religious issues in order to distract

37 The Islam Protection Party was even shut down in two months by the military courts, for instrumentalising religion for political reasons (Akkerman 1950: 55).

101 attention from the economy and keep the support of the masses (Toprak 1981: 86). However, the Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri (Turkish Armed Forces; TSK) seized power on 27th May 1960, citing as grounds DP’s misuse of power, endangering of the principle of secularism and inability to solve Turkey’s economic problems.

DP was gone from Turkish political life, but plenty of right-wing political parties emulated its use of religion in political projects that were set against the founding ideology of Turkey, represented by RPP and especially by TSK. With the Cold War reaching its peak in this period, social polarisation in the wider world was also reflected in Turkish society. At a time when ‘communism’ was used as a term to describe any position left-of-centre in Turkish politics (Ahmad 1988: 750), religion found a place as an important part of ‘anti-communist’ movements defended by the right-wing parties. The Justice Party (JP), often considered a continuation of DP, employed Islam in a similar fashion and developed a religious populist politics in opposition to communism and rising anti-imperialist socialist sentiment (Bora 2005: 563). Similarly to DP, JP was a conservative party that supported a free market economy, and it eventually came to power with an absolute majority in 1965 under Süleyman Demirel’s leadership. However, while DP rarely formed alliances with Islamic groups, its successor JP “established direct and lasting relationships with various Islamic groups, communities and leaders” (Ayata 1996: 44).

With the 1960 coup coming in the aftermath of economic crisis, the focus of economic development turned to mass industry and to those business elites involved in industrial production. Turkey adopted import substitution industrialisation (ISI) from the 1960s onwards, “during which a ‘positive-sum’ situation for all the major socio-economic groups [was] created as they benefited from the expansion of an internal market in absolute terms” owing to populist redistributive policies (Yalman 2002: 34-35). These policies helped industrial business elites to grow and become more effective in Turkish politics (Savran 2002: 11). Despite originating in a coup, this period restructured state- society relations in a more democratic direction by also giving working class fractions the right to “establish their own economic and political organisations, albeit within certain limitations” along with other important social and economic rights, and in tandem with strong trade union activity (Yalman 2002: 34).

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Between 1960 and 1980, two main organisations represented business elites’ interests. One was the Türkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birliği (Union of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Maritime Commerce and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey; TOBB), already founded in the 1950s and the only platform representing “the interests of Turkish merchants, industrialists, and commodity brokers” (Visier, 2006: 5). With the growth of the Turkish economy in the 1960s, conflicts between the fractions of Turkish capital became crystallised, and TOBB’s status was challenged by the Türkiye Sanayiciler ve İşadamları Derneği (Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association; TÜSİAD), founded in 1971 by the largest industrialists within TOBB (Güzelsarı and Aydın 2010: 48). Whereas TOBB was dominated by JP cadres, TÜSİAD cooperated with RPP, separating itself from conservatives and advocating integration with the West (i.e. European organisations) (Visier 2006: 6-7). The tensions between these organisations and the fractions that they represented were also reflected in the establishment of the political Islamic National Vision Movement (NVM), from which IBF takes its roots and which made its first appearance under TOBB.

3.2.2- The National Vision Movement and Its Political Representations

While conflicts continued within the Turkish capitalist class, Necmettin Erbakan, the historic leader of NVM, was elected as the president of TOBB with the support of SMEs in Anatolia in 1968 (Savran 2013: 76). His presidency did not last long, however, as he was relieved of duty by JP leader and PM Demirel owing to the latter’s focus on large business. When Erbakan applied to join JP, Demirel once again showed his opposition by vetoing his candidacy. This led Erbakan to participate in the 1969 general election as an independent candidate for Konya, a strategically chosen city hosting large numbers of SMEs in newly developed industrial production sites and known as “the bastion of Islamic conservatism” (Buğra 2002: 122). His electoral campaign – which focused on “the systematic discrimination faced by [SMEs] in the policy process throughout the republican era” (ibid.) – appealed to the owners of these businesses, who also trended conservative and Islamic, and Erbakan was ultimately elected (Özdemir 2006).

NVM was a political Islamic social movement, hosting people with Islamist worldviews who belonged to conservative parties (such as DP and especially JP) and various

103 religious denominations, particularly the Naqshbandi denomination (Çakır 2014: 545; Çalmuk 2004: 561; Yavuz 2004: 591; Savran 2013: 76). Founded in the late 1960s, this movement represented the second generation of Islamism in Turkey after the end of the first in 1924 (Bulaç 2009), and NVM’s perspective on Islam therefore differed from that of the conservative political parties. For NVM, Islam was not only a key constituent of the Turkish nation but central to it, and the movement’s use of “nation” was “defined by religion, whose members adopt similar objectives and similar traditions” (Moudouros 2016: 319). Within NVM, it was a matter of debate whether it was plausible for an Islamic movement to even have a political body or not at that time, given Turkey’s TSK- backed secularism (Kara 2014).

Following Erbakan’s entrance to parliament, however, the National Order Party (NOM) was founded as the political arm of NVM. As mentioned earlier, the late 1960s were a period in which business elites were gaining importance in Turkish politics and organising themselves under different institutions, and also in which social polarisation started to crystallise, with the Turkish left and trade unions similarly gaining power. Military intervention arrived once more on 12th March 1971, on the grounds that social unrest was surpassing economic development (Savran 2002: 13), and NOM was shut down for threatening secularism. NVM subsequently founded another party, the National Salvation Party (NSP), and succeeded in winning a considerable share of the popular vote in 1973 (11.8%) and 1977 (8.5%) (Sarıbay 1985: 143-147). This vote share consisted of SMEs in urbanised and industrialised areas, as well as the urban and rural poor in demographically conservative areas, especially in (south-) eastern and central parts of Turkey (ibid.: 161-177; Ayata 1996: 53). Throughout the 1970s, NSP featured in multiple coalition governments, a first for any political Islamic party in Turkey (Gürel 2014: 43- 44). Compared to the successes of other conservative parties – i.e. the absolute majority governments of DP and JP – these achievements were modest; however, it was significant for the country to see a political Islamic movement and its representative party in government, rather than expressing itself by way of other right-wing parties as in the past.

NSP’s success did not remain limited, however; rather, it paved the way for the rise of political Islam from the 1980s onwards. Through NSP, NVM also made its economic agenda clear, in two important ways. The first was through its anti-etatist stance, critical

104 of both Turkey’s founding ideology and ISI. For Erbakan and the NVM elites, Turkey’s developmental strategy was helping only parts of the country and business to grow (Eligür 2010: 66-67). Cosmopolitan cities such as İstanbul and Ankara had already been urbanised due to the state’s support for industrialisation and the business elites of those places, but this was not reflected in rural areas which could only became provincial cities and towns, and which were hardly compatible with the large cities and their economies (Savran 2002; Yalman 2002). Indeed, TÜSİAD elites were organised in these large cities and comprised their largest businesses. JP, which was closer to NSP ideologically because of its conservatism, was interested in smaller cities and their business elites, but its focus was on the larger businesses there. Therefore, SMEs operating in larger cities – but particularly in Anatolia – did not receive enough attention from the state and political parties.

The second way in which NVM made its economic agenda clear was through its economic framework, which was enmeshed with Islam and presented as anti-Western and anti-communist. This framework suggested “the development of heavy industry”, building upon two main ideas: “the idea of the state as a coordinating agent rather than a direct producer … and the idea of a private sector consisting largely in publicly owned enterprises” (Buğra 2002: 122). This would foster material development; however, it was also to be complemented with a strong commitment to Islamic morality, and therefore to spiritual development. In NSP’s electoral campaign in 1973, it addressed the nation in the following way:

Respectable nation ... you are the largest and most honoured nation in history. You have created exemplary civilisations, gave light to mankind, you taught morality and virtue to mankind, managed to rule the world order … To ensure all this success, the main source of your power was undoubtedly your faith. At the same time, you were a pioneer in the material sector. … You were the most progressive nation in science, technology, learning, and teaching. Your moral and spiritual superiority was the cornerstone of success in every field. You were the nation that set the foundations of material science from which the West is now benefiting more than us, you are the nation that gave identity to science, you are the proprietor of these sciences (NSP cited in Moudouros 2016: 322).

This expressed NVM’s specific approach to supporting developmentalism: placing its political Islamic worldview at the centre and foregrounding suggestions which could help

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SMEs improve their positions, while not radically contradicting Turkey’s then-industry- focused economic agenda (ibid.; Günalp 1999: 26).

Before moving on to the rise of NVM in the neoliberal era, the importance of this period needs to be made clear in terms of religion’s transformed role and the historical sedimentations it transferred to the future. Firstly, RPP’s understanding of religion in the context of secularism was challenged by DP’s populist politics, and by religion’s key place therein as one of the key constituents of Turkish society. Although TSK intervened in this process, this understanding was reproduced by JP and ultimately became influential. NVM appeared in the 1960s and made religion the central theme of its political project, arguing for Turkey’s status as an Islamic country in a manner similar to RSS’s treatment of India and Hinduism. Again similarly to RSS and its political arms, NVM’s and its political arm NSP’s formal success was limited in this period, but political Islam nonetheless gained legitimate status in the eyes of society and the state in the 1970s thanks to their activity (Sarıbay 1985; Savran 2013: 72). This was also key for the subsequent periods of Turkish history; it is important to note, for instance, that Erdoğan was the head of one of NSP’s youth branches in İstanbul in this period, becoming the mayor of İstanbul in the 1990s, PM of Turkey in the 2000s and president of the country in the 2010s. The ruling cadre of contemporary Turkey thus came from the political Islamic socialisation and mobilisation processes of this period (Yankaya 2014: 146-148).

Secondly, the issues brought forward by the conservative political parties (DP and JP) which employed religion in their political projects – and particularly the political Islamic NVM and its political arms (NOM and NSP) – are still important as historical sedimentations, as will be seen in Chapters 4, 5 and 6 when analysing IBF. For instance, the latter’s narrative of Turkish history is rooted in a criticism of the republican era and its developmental policies as being elitist, and its self-presentation is as an Islamic alternative in business, incorporating SMEs as part of its intellectual project.

3.3- Neoliberalisation: Mainstreaming Political Islam

In this section, I analyse the period of neoliberalisation from the 1980s onwards, with particular reference to religion’s role in this process. Firstly, I examine how

106 neoliberalisation started in Turkey through the actions of bureaucratic and military elites via a military coup, and religion’s key place in this. I also look at how neoliberalism, similarly to the Indian case, was presented as the only alternative for Turkey. Secondly, I look at NVM’s reaction to this process and examine how it modified its political- economic framework to adjust to neoliberalisation. Finally, I deal with JDP’s takeover of government, departing from the NVM tradition. The particularity of this period in terms of religion’s role is that political Islam was mainstreamed in Turkey, both by NVM and particularly by JDP.

3.3.1- Neoliberalism as the Only Alternative

The growth of the Turkish economy in the 1960s did not last long, and the contradictions of capital accumulation based on ISI (small domestic market size, low-scale technology, limits on the productivity of labour, scarcity of foreign exchange) became clear in the mid-1970s, resulting in an economic crisis in 1977 (Savran 2002: 14). The prescription for this problem was provided by the 24th January 1980 Economic Stability Programme – prepared by US-educated Turkish bureaucrat Turgut Özal, with the direct involvement of IMF and the World Bank – which effectively began the process of neoliberalisation in Turkey. The programme’s reforms necessitated a total reorientation of the Turkish economy towards a low-wage, export-oriented development strategy, a difficult task under the 1961 Constitution which, as mentioned earlier, had brought about strong trade union activity.

Under these conditions, a natural evolution of the Turkish economy would have taken a long time, but another military coup on 12th September 1980 provided the structure necessary for neoliberal transition. It is therefore important to see the direct link between this programme and the coup, with the latter paving the way for the application of the former (Savran 2002: 15; Yalman 2009: 300). Özal, who prepared the neoliberal programme, became the military regime’s deputy PM in charge of the economy following the coup. The total reconstruction of the Turkish economy was combined with a total reconstruction of Turkish politics, giving rise to an authoritarian state form (Bedirhanoğlu 2009; Yalman 2009). The military regime disbanded or banned all of the existing political parties, including NSP, and took direct action against workers’

107 organisations, particularly trade unions. However, the same action was not taken against business elites’ organisations. For instance, TÜSİAD was not disbanded, and its president explicitly supported the regime (Ahmad 1993: 217). In the first elections following the end of military rule, Özal’s Motherland Party (MP) – another right-wing conservative party, though more in line with New Right ideology – won with an absolute majority. A key component of Özal’s discourse in this period was “alternatifimiz yoktur”, a direct translation of TINA (Yalman 2002: 42). As in India, neoliberalism appeared the only option for Turkey.

Neoliberal transition set the stage for the rise of political Islam in two main ways. Firstly, the military regime implemented a “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” by redefining “national culture” along Islamic lines, conceptualising Islam as a major constituent of the Turkish nation (Öğün 1995: 177). For the first time in Turkish history, religious education in schools became compulsory (Savran 2013: 78). The reason behind the implementation of this Turkish-Islamic synthesis was not to deliberately encourage the Islamisation of Turkey; instead, it was to control social opposition and to consolidate the power of the right-wing parties (Buğra 2002: 128). It aimed to render the leftist movements of the 1960s and 1970s (with their organic ties to fractions of the working class) socially ineffective and to transfer their support bases to conservative parties, making use of popular religion’s important place in common sense (Savran 2013: 78). Özal specifically developed allies among religious groups, particularly the Naqshbandi denomination, which enabled MP “to establish a virtual monopoly over the religious vote” (Ayata 1996: 44). Islamic-oriented elites within MP held key positions in the party, earning privileged access to Turkey’s bureaucracy, civil service jobs and public positions. Following internal party struggles, they later joined the Welfare Party (WP), NVM’s political representative in the 1980s and 1990s under Erbakan’s leadership, after the closure of NSP by the military regime (ibid.: 45).

Secondly, neoliberalisation also helped Islamic-oriented elites’ businesses – which represented smaller fractions of the Turkish capitalist class – to grow through privatisation and deregulation (Atasoy 2008), similarly to Hindu-oriented elites’ businesses in India as explained in Chapter 2. Western-oriented elites, mainly represented by TÜSİAD, did not have any problem with adjusting themselves to the new conditions created by neoliberalisation, as they had financial resources thanks to many years of state

108 support. However, for Islamic-oriented elites, the crucial support instead came from the Gulf countries via the participation of Islamic financial institutions in the Turkish economy, initiated by MP under Özal’s leadership (Öniş 1998; Buğra 2002; Savran 2013). Neoliberalisation prioritised improving economic relations with the West, particularly the European Economic Community (EEC), but also the Gulf region. This was not primarily for the benefit of Islamic-oriented elites; rather, MP considered it a necessity for Turkey, because its export-based growth strategy required “an aggressive search for foreign customers, who, in the 1980s, were found mainly in the Middle East” (Ayata 1996: 45).

Islamic financial institutions were particularly attractive to WP. In fact, especially at the beginning of the 1980s, WP was critical of neoliberalisation because of the direct involvement of Western social forces in the Turkish economy. Moreover, its economic framework, explained earlier, continued to maintain the importance of state intervention (Savran 2013: 84). For this reason, WP made minor updates to its framework, arguing that the state could only be functional if it operated according to Islamic principles (i.e. directing foreign trade to Islamic countries and establishing an Islamic state bank) in theory (Buğra 2002: 129). Cooperation with Islamic financial institutions was therefore important, with these institutions following religious rules rather than the “three evils” – interest, taxation and the foreign exchange rate (ibid.: 129-131) – that dominated the US- and EU-led global political economy. Therefore, despite WP’s vacillation, the Islamic- oriented businesses represented by it and NVM found ways to exist and grow under neoliberalism.

Throughout the neoliberal era beginning in the 1980s,

[T]he Islami[c] sector in the economy … expanded, with large-scale holding companies, chain stores, investment houses, banks, and insurance companies. Particularly noteworthy [were] the joint businesses and investments that Islamist organisations [had] with international companies based in Gulf countries. (Ayata 1996: 51).

This expansion was particularly instrumental for the Islamic-oriented elites within NVM circles, who had become another major fraction of the Turkish capitalist class in these years. Most of the businesses these elites operated had begun as SMEs, subsequently growing into large businesses and corporations with funds supplied by the Gulf region

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(Savran 2013: 79). Despite this growth, however, SMEs remained an important issue for NVM, and in 1990 MÜSİAD (of which IBF today is a part) was established to represent these elites and to mobilise SMEs in Anatolia. The new organisation’s propositions for the economy accorded with WP’s framework, focusing on Islamic unity and, though acknowledging the importance of being a part of global financial networks, insisting that this happen through integration with the Gulf region rather than depending on the EU. Businesspeople who would ultimately join JDP’s founding cadre in the 2000s were originally affiliated with MÜSİAD in the 1990s (Yankaya 2014: 147). From its founding onwards, MÜSİAD hosted, mobilised and represented Islamic-oriented business elites from the NVM circle (and subsequently the JDP circle), who – along with the Western- oriented TÜSİAD – grew into another important fraction within the Turkish capitalist class.

The expansion of the Islamic sector also coincided with WP’s success in Turkish politics. While benefitting from neoliberalisation through this expansion, WP also targeted the growing social inequalities accompanying its introduction, caused by factors such as declining government expenditure on social services. Arguing that neoliberalism was a “system of slavery” rooted in “Western and Zionist exploitation” that systematically disadvantaged Muslims in economic and social terms, Erbakan formulated an alternative “just order” that would appeal to conservative subaltern parts of Turkish society (Ayata 1996: 54). This was coupled with WP’s objection to Turkey’s secular constitution, the banning of headscarves from public services, and the disadvantaged situation of religious vocational schools. Campaigning on these issues, in the 1994 local elections WP took control of 28 out of 75 cities, including metropolitan municipalities such as İstanbul and Ankara. This was when Erdoğan became mayor of İstanbul.

For WP, this was not just about succeeding in local elections, but about the “reclaiming of İstanbul, the ancient capital where the caliph of Islam had been based until 1924” and “winning over Ankara, the capital city of the Turkish republic, which had been a symbol of modernization” (ibid.: 40). This success paved the way for two further developments. Firstly, WP’s local governments helped Islamic-oriented elites to create more wealth through the partial privatisation of local services via uncompetitive tendering processes, favouring Islamic-oriented businesses represented by MÜSİAD (Savran 2013: 80). Secondly, it prepared the ground for WP’s success in the general elections the following

110 year, in which it came first with 21% of the popular vote. One initiative taken by PM Erbakan was the establishment of the Developing Eight (D8), consisting of eight Islamic or Muslim-majority countries, in response to the establishment of the Group of Eight (G8) in 1997.38

Military intervention arrived once more on 28th February 1997, with WP shut down and PM Erbakan banned from political activity as part of what is now known as the “post- modern coup”. The stated reason for the coup was the threat to secularism posed by WP’s activities; however, the list prepared by TSK explaining its concerns about the party was wider-ranging, requesting the limitation of “green [Islamic] capital” as represented by the Gulf agreements and MÜSİAD’s operations (Yankaya 2014: 116). It reflected the worries of the Western-secular fractions of Turkish capital, which supported closer collaboration with NATO and the EU against the growth of the Islamic-oriented fractions (Savran 2002: 18). The military regime’s Turkish-Islamic synthesis had aimed to control opposing social forces, and the creation of another major fraction of capital represented a serious unintended consequence.

3.3.2- Neoliberalism and the Justice and Development Party

After WP’s closure, NVM’s new political arm was the Virtue Party (VP), which arose in the late 1990s. Along with NVM’s chronic problems with the Turkish state and military, it now faced another problem: an internal cleavage, for the first time in its history. The four-year period between the coup in 1997 and the foundation of JDP in 2001 was characterised by confusion and conflicts within NVM, caused by two problems (Savran 2013: 73). Firstly, the successive military interventions which had resulted in the closure of each of NVM’s political arms were creating political instability and the decline of its popular support. Its elites repeatedly had to deal with political bans and the process of reorganisation, knowing each time that the new party that they would establish would ultimately be banned or closed down again. This was indeed true, with VP coming third

38 The D8 countries are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

111 in the next general elections but then being shut down by the Constitutional Court in 2001, leading to the establishment of the Felicity Party (FP).39

Secondly, as neoliberalisation deepened in the country and discussions over Turkey’s full membership in the EU gained momentum in the late 1990s, NVM’s anti-Western stance – i.e. welcoming trade and investment only from Islamic countries – was seen as archaic even by those who were raised in the movement (Gürel 2013: 45). The Islamic-oriented elites were no longer willing to restrict themselves to dealing with the Gulf region, and some parts of this fraction had already turned to exporting to the EU by the end of the 1990s despite this conflicting with the party’s principles (Savran 2013: 85). NVM’s anti- Western and anti-EU stance seemed to fizzle out, and Erbakan came to soften his stance on many issues; through this, however, his leadership also came into question. There arose two groups competing for leadership, each representing a different political- economic strategy.

The first was the “traditionalists”, who accepted NVM as it was, and who were represented by Recai Kutan in place of the banned Erbakan. The second was the “renovators”, who sought changes within the movement – e.g. a younger leader and greater integration with the world, including the EU – and who were represented by Abdullah Gül (Gürel 2013: 45). Erdoğan was the true leader of this faction; however, he had also been banned from political activity at that time for “inciting hatred based on religious differences” in one of his speeches as mayor of İstanbul (Aslaneli 1997). Meanwhile, MÜSİAD’s leading cadre – as well as IBF’s – were also among the renovators, criticising Erbakan’s “just order” and seeking political alternatives which “could deliver a well-functioning free market” (Gumuscu and Sert 2009: 962-963). While the traditionalists repeated the same principles that they had always stood for, the renovators aimed to find new ways of coping with the alliance formed against them by the Western secular state tradition (represented by TSK) and Western-oriented business elites (represented by TÜSİAD) (Savran 2013: 90).

39 After NOM, NSP, WP, and VP, SP was the fifth and final political party following the classical NVM tradition, and is still active today.

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After losing VP’s leadership, the renovators founded JDP, differentiating themselves not only from their former party but also from NVM. Erdoğan expressed the break with NVM with these words: “We took off the shirt of National Vision. Forget the past. We are a new party.” (Milliyet 2003). This new party’s historical reference points were instead Menderes’ DP, which brought Islam back into Turkish politics, and Özal’s MP, which initiated neoliberalisation. Islam was central to JDP’s political project, but in a more moderate manner than in NVM’s. Given the instabilities of the Turkish economy throughout the 1990s and the devastating social effects of the 2001 economic crisis, JDP embraced the centre-right and won the 2002 general elections with an absolute majority. The Constitutional Court again banned Erdoğan’s leadership, however, and Gül became PM. In the same elections, NVM’s political arm FP failed to secure any parliamentary representation, and in the succeeding years it never managed to achieve the same popularity as previous NVM-related parties, similarly never being targeted by TSK or the Constitutional Court.

As explained earlier, neoliberalisation had already helped Islamic-oriented business elites to grow before JDP’s ascent to power and the rise of political Islam through WP and MÜSİAD; in this sense, it paved the way for JDP’s electoral success although this was not the intention of the Western-oriented elites who initiated it. Throughout the JDP era there were two main tendencies within the party, one succeeding the other. In its early period, a moderate Islamic JDP placed primary importance on neoliberalisation, acting as a more conventional centre-right conservative party, whereas in its late period (starting from 2007 but mainly the 2010s) it became a political Islamic party (though still committed to neoliberalism). JDP elites, coming from the renovators’ faction within NVM but differing from them in terms of their strategy for winning power, represented the “third generation of Islamism” in Turkey (Bulaç 2009).

When JDP came to power, the first thing it did was deepen neoliberalisation in Turkey through accelerated privatisation, similarly to BJP in India. In contrast with NVM, it showed no hesitation in opening the country to foreign investment, without making any distinctions between Western and Islamic countries. NVM had not been against privatisation, but had proposed a “qualified” one that would prevent the sale of strategic enterprises to foreigners (i.e. Western countries) (Buğra 2002: 124; Savran 2013: 84). By contrast, across successive JDP governments between 2003 and 2015, 80% of state-

113 owned enterprises were sold to various companies, including Western ones, and privatisation income reached 61.8 billion dollars, compared to only 8 billion during the early neoliberalisation period (JDP n.d.). Industry lost its importance in the Turkish economy to finance, indeed, İstanbul was targeted to become a financial centre for the whole world. Furthermore, JDP’s foreign policy throughout this early period was completely pro-EU (Savran 2013: 90-91; Çınar 2014: 90).

Having been aware of the reservations about its early years held by TSK’s and Turkey’s then-president Ahmet Necdet Sezer – who followed in the Western-oriented secular state tradition – JDP kept its focus to only two issues consequential to NVM: the headscarf ban and the disadvantaged position of religious vocational schools (Kaya 2015: 50). These were, for the party, necessary for Turkey’s democratisation and freedom of speech (Saktanber and Çorbacıoğlu 2008: 516). This diverted attention from political Islamism and towards JDP’s economic initiatives, which in fact helped to resolve the conflict between Islamic-oriented (business) elites and their rivals. Under JDP, the Turkish economy had high GDP growth rates (in fact, the second highest after China) thanks to privatisation, external borrowing policies and financialisation (Gürel 2013: 13-15; Savran 2013: 99). The Western-oriented fractions of Turkish capital – mainly TÜSİAD – had reservations about JDP initially, but never directly opposed it because they also benefitted from the party’s neoliberal economic policies and pro-EU foreign policy. Thanks to these, JDP gained support from different social classes and made the neoliberal project hegemonic in Turkey. While supporting the poor through neoliberal poverty management, particularly with the help of Islamic charity networks (Bedirhanoğlu 2009), it consolidated its power within Islamic circles (not only NVM circles) and managed to avoid conflicts with the Western-oriented business elites (Savran 2013: 92).

The only social force outside of JDP’s reach was the military. The Turkish General Staff released a statement on its website on 27th April 2007 known as the “e-memorandum”, addressing the approaching Turkish presidential elections in which JDP’s candidate Gül was likely to be elected. This stated that TSK was “watching the question of secularism with deep concern” (cited in Warhola and Bezci 2010: 437). JDP took this as a sign of a potential imminent coup, and called a snap election in response. TÜSİAD, which had supported the military forces in 1980 and 1997, kept silent on the e-memorandum. JDP received almost 47% of the popular vote, consolidating its power as a precaution against

114 any action that the military might take. This process was followed by a 2010 referendum on constitutional change aimed at eliminating the military’s role in Turkish politics, which received almost 58% of the popular vote. Removing military forces from domestic politics was key to defeating the former alliance against Turkey’s Islamic-oriented elites.

With JDP having consolidated its power, and especially with Gül’s presidency (as former president Sezer had refused to approve bills proposed by the party), from 2007 onwards and particularly in the 2010s Turkish society went through a serious Islamisation process (Gürel 2013: 20). The nation in Erdoğan’s discourse received a significant Islamic content (Taşkın 2015). Throughout the 2010s, democratisation of the country was limited to the Islamic parts of society, which gained considerable space in the public and political life of Turkey (Çınar 2014: 90; Yalman 2017). Three developments were the freedom to wear headscarves not only in state institutions, parliament and universities but also in primary and elementary schools, the elimination of the disadvantaged status of religious vocational high schools in university entrance exams, and the total restructuring of curricula in early education (Saktanber and Çorbacıoğlu 2008: 516). Thus, JDP stabilised and mainstreamed the Islamisation of Turkish politics throughout this period, rather than democratising Turkish secularism (Çınar 2014: 92).

In the meantime, having consolidated its political power, JDP also turned against the Western-oriented business elites represented by TÜSİAD, and attempted to eliminate their advantaged position in the Turkish economy (Savran 2013: 108). Reviving WP’s local government-led distribution of local services in favour of MÜSİAD-affiliated businesses through uncompetitive tendering, JDP reproduced this practice on a state level, providing these businesses with public contracts while TÜSİAD-affiliated businesses received huge tax penalties (Gürel 2013: 46; Savran 2013: 114-115). Although this did not render the Western-oriented business elites completely ineffective within the Turkish economy, it did allow the Islamic-oriented elites to become fully competitive with them, encouraging a visible class conflict between these two fractions throughout this period (Atasoy, 2008; Gürel, 2013; Hoşgör, 2013; Öztürk, 2013; Tanyılmaz, 2013). In the same period, JDP’s focus on EU integration gave way to a focus on cooperating with Islamic countries and Islamic financial institutions, as in the NVM tradition. İstanbul was promoted as a “new hub of ‘green’ or Islamic finance”, particularly at a time when Western countries were dealing with the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (Yalman et al.

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2018: 13). This was coupled with what is commonly understood as a “paradigm shift” in Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Middle East, crystallised with the Arab Spring, which saw JDP express support for the Muslim Brotherhood and intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries in the region (Sözen 2010: 105). While neoliberalisation was still ongoing in Turkey, neoliberal ideology was now mediated by Islam therein, as will be seen in the empirical chapters.

3.4- Concluding Remarks

This chapter provided a very brief account of contemporary Turkish history in order to answer RQ2, which enquires into religion’s different roles and its interaction with different social forces in Turkish history, and to clarify the historical sedimentations drawn upon by IBF. Similarly to Chapter 2, I restricted this chapter to those topics referred to or revisited in the empirical chapters, in the process of analysing IBF and making sense of its religion-based intellectual project.

I firstly examined the period of Turkey’s founding, initiated by RPP, and outlined the founding elites’ secular articulation of Islam as an important element of the newly founded nation. In accordance with their commitment to Western secularism and to breaking with the Ottoman past, these elites not only saw religion as a source of backwardness, but also consciously took it under state control. The main focus of the period was on establishing a national economy based on etatism and developing a national capitalist class. I also mentioned the presence of other articulations of Islam, taking their roots from Islamism in the Ottoman Empire; however, these were seen as marginal and could not contribute either to Turkish politics or the economy.

Secondly, I turned to the period between the 1950s and neoliberalisation, underpinned by state-led capitalism with a significant focus on industrialisation. This period saw two different articulations of religion: one from right-wing populist parties such as DP and JP, and another from political Islamic parties following the NVM tradition such as NOM and NSP, most of which were in fact the same party under different names following successive military interventions. The former perceived religion as a key constituent of the nation and employed it in political projects pragmatically and strategically, subject to

116 political and electoral calculations. This helped to make RPP’s secular articulation of religion less relevant and populist articulations of religion more popular, paving the way for these parties’ governments. The latter, however, conceived the nation as an Islamic one, and became a main site of opposition to the mainstream. Since this period placed significant focus on large businesses due to ISI, NVM’s parties secured the support of less advantaged fractions of the Turkish capitalist class, mainly SSIs and SMEs. During this time, political Islam received some limited support but was still not popularly accepted.

Finally, I examined the period of neoliberal transition from the 1980s onwards, during which political Islam became mainstreamed by JDP. This period started with a military coup, which implemented a “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” to control social forces opposing neoliberalisation. This period saw the rise of the NVM-affiliated WP and the growth of the Islamic sector in the Turkish economy. Throughout this period, religiously-oriented business elites affiliated with NVM established MÜSİAD – which hosts IBF – mobilised SMEs, and played an important role in the establishment of JDP. I highlighted that neoliberalism, originally a project of Western-oriented elites (TSK, TÜSİAD, MP), was taken over in this period by religiously-oriented elites (JDP) and mediated by Islam. JDP managed to make neoliberalism hegemonic by mobilising different social classes and social forces, including large businesses (even the TÜSİAD-aligned), SMEs, and subalterns, and eliminating certain opposition forces (mainly TSK). I emphasised two different articulations of religion within JDP across two different periods and showed that while it presented religion as a key constituent of Turkey in its early period, it stabilised and mainstreamed the full Islamisation of Turkey while it was carrying out neoliberalisation in its later period. Similarly to India, I underlined that after taking different roles throughout history – specifically, being initially marginal and then becoming a site of opposition – religion has now taken on particular importance under neoliberalisation in Turkey.

In the following empirical chapters, I turn to explain how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology with particular attention to WHEF and IBF’s intellectual projects, with these two organisations acting as organic intellectuals of the religiously-oriented elites in both countries, while themselves products of the historical contexts explained in this and the previous chapter.

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CHAPTER 4

UNPACKING WHEF AND IBF NETWORKS: REVEALING STRATEGIC RELATIONS

The preceding two chapters provided context for this thesis’s main RQ – that is, how religion interacts with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey – by examining the recent history of both countries. They illustrated that particular elite articulations of Hinduism and Islam – specifically, political Hinduism and political Islam – have become mainstream and organic parts of the hegemonic projects of the new religiously-oriented elites in both countries from the 1980s onwards.

Having made this context clear, from this chapter on I turn to empirical data collected from particular groups within these religiously-oriented elites: WHEF and IBF, who specialise mainly in business and who, as transnational actors, form a bridge between Hindu and Muslim businesspeople living and working in various parts of the world. As mentioned in the Introduction, these religion-based forums are not primarily for doing business, but rather for creating and/or sharing business-related knowledge in line with the tenets of their respective religions, and thereby constructing a business strategy to help religiously-oriented businesspeople to be competitive in the global political economy. Both forums have clear intellectual projects to achieve this aim through the creation of coherent collective identities, i.e. “Hindu businesspeople” under WHEF and “Muslim businesspeople” under IBF. Hence, both forums enable us to understand religion-based ideas’ importance in mediating neoliberal ideology, as claimed in Chapter 1.

All three chapters are built to answer RQ3 (“In what ways do WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion and why is religion important for neoliberal ideology?”) and RQ4 (“What are the similarities and differences between WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects and what is the wider global relevance of these similarities/differences?”) in the process of aiming to answer RQ1. In answering these questions and in examining the significance of the religion-based ideas promoted by WHEF and IBF in these chapters, I highlight WHEF and IBF elites’ agencies. I argue that

118 these forums perform the function of collective organic intellectuals of neoliberal projects in India and Turkey by discussing three components of this function in Gramsci’s (1971: 10) theory: connecting and organising social classes under their roofs, constructing neoliberalism as the universal form of global political economy, and persuading subordinate classes of their intellectual projects. These three components are also the three components of the way in which WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects. This chapter is about the first component in particular: WHEF’s and IBF’s organisational and connective capacities.

In the first section (4.1), I unpack WHEF and IBF elites to show who they are, what kind of social channels they utilise to create their transnational networks, and what brings them together. To this end, I examine interpersonal relationships within the elites and the initial foundation stories of each forum. For WHEF (4.1.1), I show that the main social channels utilised for WHEF activity consist of Hindu nationalist RSS/VHP circles, BJP and academia. For IBF (4.1.2), these are political Islamist NVM/MÜSİAD circles, WP (before 2002)/JDP (after 2002) and academia. In both cases, elites use domestic resources but contend that WHEF and IBF are global business platforms, setting out the grounds of ideology and knowledge production.

The second section (4.2), then, finds that both forums utilise these channels in a strategic way on a transnational level. They translate into three strategic areas in which both forums operationalise their intellectual projects: 1) Hindu/Islamic social circles, 2) bureaucracy and technocracy, and 3) academia, both in India/Turkey and abroad. WHEF (4.2.1) reaches out to the Indian diaspora and, within it, people who hold strategic positions (wealthy businesspeople, high-ranking bureaucrats/technocrats, and well-known academics) within these strategic areas. IBF (4.2.2) reaches out to the same sorts of people but in a more bureaucratic way, namely by co-operating with Islamic countries or with countries having a considerable/majority Muslim population. Overall, in this chapter I argue that each forum plays a key role in its country’s state-society complex, organising and connecting religiously-oriented elites at different institutional levels (i.e. NGOs, political parties and academia) under its roof. Each also acknowledges the importance of the international and has a key role in transcending the national level, and strategically establishing transnational networks among religiously-oriented elites inhabiting these same institutional areas in different countries.

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4.1- Grasping the Main Channels of the Broader Network: Crafting a Business Platform for Ideology and Knowledge Production

Brief descriptions of both WHEF and IBF were provided in the Introduction. One of the key narratives in both forums’ self-descriptions is worth revisiting before analysing their intellectual projects. Specifically, both WHEF and IBF claim to be NGOs based on self- enclosed networks which operate in the economic sphere, acting in accordance with religious guidelines to make Hindu and Islamic communities prosperous, and completely separate from politics. In this way, they claim that their operations are independent from the political parties – BJP and JDP – that are currently leading neoliberal hegemonies in their respective countries. This section starts with a challenge to this narrative, demonstrating the ways in which both forums have been closely connected to these parties from the very beginning.

This section examines the main channels that both forums utilised throughout their initial establishment processes. It focuses on the founders of each forum, who came up with the idea of establishing a business platform for ideology and knowledge production, and on the people whom they contacted in the pursuit of this idea. The first channels examined are RSS/VHP circles for WHEF (4.1.1) and NVM/MÜSİAD circles for IBF (4.1.2), both mentioned in Chapter 2 in terms of their significance to their neoconservative political parties’ governments. The second channels are, then, these political parties, and the third are academics who help religiously-oriented business elites to formulate relevant business knowledge and strategies in the global political economy. This section shows that WHEF and IBF elites are organically connected to these groups.

4.1.1- The WHEF People

Aditya Puranam is the key person behind the establishment of WHEF and one of its senior members of staff. He defines himself as “a monk … educated as a [mechanical] engineer, who also studied language, philosophy, literature and religion – Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. – for 10 years … between 1999 and 2009” (IN5). He received his bachelor’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT-KGP), one of the best universities in India and the oldest of the IITs. During the interview, he repeats that he is well-educated several times. His education, and therefore specialised knowledge are also a point of reference for other interviewees (IN3; IN4).

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He has been a VHP member since 1999 when he started his PhD, and is currently amongst its senior member of staff. When he is asked about the idea behind WHEF, he refers to his studies on Sanskrit Grammar and his PhD on Eastern Philosophy. He says:

I wanted to change something. We are a brilliant society. … [But] society doesn’t receive what it needs. [While I was studying], I saw that two things are very important. First, we [Hindus] have wealth generation based on the notion of family, and second, we have a unique thought process in regard to the economy and business. Then, I started talking to my people about my idea. It goes back to 2009-2010. I organised small gatherings and conferences before our first WHEF event in 2012 (ibid.).

When he is asked whether “his people” were from VHP circles, and with whom specifically he discussed the idea of WHEF, he reacts by saying that “WHEF is different!” and by focusing on the independence of the forum from politics. He continues:

I am a qualified engineer. I have my own network. VHP people never opposed it. Also, I didn’t put the burden and the responsibility on the organisation. VHP is a society under a common set of regulations; this [WHEF] is a company … [which is] global, having no chapter, no office bearer and no regulations. So, you can see me as the director of the company under WHF, but it is independent. Ideology and knowledge production happen here in WHEF (ibid.).

WHEF is one of the seven forums that was founded under the umbrella of WHF. Table 1 shows these seven forums.

TABLE 1: List of the forums under WHF

World World Hindu Economic Forum (WHEF) Hindu Hindu Educational Board Foundation Hindu Media Forum (WHF) Hindu Organisations, Temples and Associations Forum (2010) World Hindu Democratic Forum Hindu Women Forum Hindu Students and Youth Network

Source: WHC (2018a)

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While WHF has organised quadrennial conferences – called World Hindu Congress (WHC) – since 2014, WHEF has organised annual national forums alongside many more frequent regional ones since 2012. Furthermore, WHEF is the platform which Puranam himself points out as producing knowledge and ideology. It has thus always been the most important of WHF’s forums. This is confirmed by Dr Shivaya Ganguli, one of the interviewees whom this sub-section further details later, who says that “WHEF has always been more dominant [among the forums]. … It is really biggest in terms of numbers, interest, etc. All the others are much smaller” (IN3).

As seen in Puranam’s explanation above, there is a strong motivation to define WHEF as an independent organisation, particularly in relation to VHP. The same motivation can be seen when talking about RSS and BJP. The organic relationships between these institutions were already highlighted in Chapter 2. As I argue later in this chapter, WHEF is a part of these organic relationships and, furthermore, their organiser. When Puranam is reminded of the forum organised in New Delhi in 2014 following BJP’s election victory – the timing of which was widely declared in the media not to be a coincidence40 – he again strongly denies any link with BJP. Although Puranam strongly denies any link with RSS, VHP and BJP – and indeed there are no officially stated institutional links between them – such links are nonetheless observable in the stories of other interviewees when they talk about how they became involved with WHEF.

Bhavin Goswami is a computer engineer who worked for large Indian multinational companies (MNCs) in the information technology (IT) sector for ten years, and who is now currently part of the editorial team of the Hindu Post – a Hindu nationalist media organisation – and volunteering for WHEF.41 He has been in touch with RSS since 2012. He says that he does not belong to RSS or attend its weekly gatherings, but he has been interacting with RSS people more since becoming involved in BJP’s election campaign in

40 Multiple sources in the Indian media highlighted this meeting as proof of a connection between BJP and the forums under WHF, including WHEF. The New Indian Express stated that VHP organised this meeting after BJP’s victory (Sharma 2018), and India Today focused on speeches during the meeting celebrating BJP’s victory, including statements of satisfaction that India had finally come to be ruled by Hindus after 800 years (Vikram 2014).

41 The Hindu Post was launched following WHC 2014, and the discussions in its relevant media section are carried out by the World Hindu Media Forum, one of the abovementioned forums founded under WHF.

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2014 (IN4). Goswami’s meeting with Puranam happened during the time period between his involvement with RSS and his role in the election campaign. He explains:

Having worked in the IT, you know, having achieved financial security for myself, I wanted to do something [beyond] that, which interests me on a more personal level. What Puranam wants to do here is very interesting because first of all he is trying to create a separate economic framework … because we have so many Hindus spread all over the world. Indians… But are we leveraging them in the right way? … So, that interested me. And I took some time off work to volunteer for the election campaign in the last general election in 2014 … for BJP, for PM Modi. So, that work was very interesting to me. That time I was fully employed [in IT]. … And subsequently, after the elections were over, then my mind has kind of changed, you know. I wanted to do more of this kind of idea. I could use my skills for something that is really impacting my country or my community at a grassroots level (ibid.).

Goswami’s desire to use his skills and to work for a great cause finds its expression in his involvement with WHEF. He explains Puranam’s key role in changing his career path:

So, hearing about [WHEF] I got interested; [Puranam] had some IT requirements – he wanted to refresh the WHEF website and a few other IT-related things. So, I thought of volunteering full-time. For the first year, I was volunteering full-time. Subsequently, I have taken up a separate role with him, in ... [the Hindu Post]. But at the same time, also, I was volunteering for him in managing the IT and operations for WHEF. So, I am like a full-time volunteer who is assisting him with the IT side of WHEF (ibid.).

Goswami’s experience is a good example of how his relationship with RSS and his involvement in WHEF and BJP’s election campaign are interwoven. In that, Puranam’s role is undeniable:

Aditya-ji [Puranam] is a very interesting person, you know. Coming from a religious background, he has also got that IIT background, he studied engineering. And then, he is part of VHP as well. So, all of that was great attraction, you know, to learn from him, to understand his thinking. And then, when I got learnt what he is trying to do, he is very clear in his mindset when he talks about business and the economy (ibid.).

For Goswami, Puranam’s educational background (IIT-KGP), his specialised knowledge as an engineer – given that Goswami is an engineer too – his ideas and the VHP network he is a part of were important factors in the decision to get involved in WHEF.

When Goswami is asked about the relationship between WHEF and RSS, he conveys that he has never seen RSS’s top cadres supporting WHEF but adds: “But they don’t block it”

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(ibid.). Keeping in mind Puranam’s response to the question of VHP’s support of the organisation – namely, that “VHP people never opposed it” – it becomes possible to understand “not opposing” or “not blocking” as the chief form taken by RSS/VHP’s affirming stances in relation to WHEF. As is detailed later, people from these circles actively participate in WHEF events.

Another interviewee – Ganguli, mentioned previously – is a retired political economist from the London School of Economics (LSE), where he also received his PhD degree jointly from the departments of Economics and International Relations (IR). His involvement in WHEF also came through Puranam, and he mentions Puranam’s educational background before giving details of how he got involved:

It was Aditya-ji’s idea. He started that. … He is a very smart man. … He is a graduate of a top engineering college. … IIT-KGP. That was the premier one at his time. Now there are others like the Bombay, Delhi IITs. But in his time, IIT-KGP was the best in whole of India. … He also has a doctorate in Sanskrit Grammar. … He galvanised people. He doesn’t let go (IN3).

In contrast with Goswami, Ganguli says that he does not have any relationship either with VHP or RSS. Rather, he served as an informal advisor to the government of India on issues of economic liberalisation after 1991, and worked primarily with Vajpayee and also with Modi. This is when Ganguli met Puranam. He explains:

I used to meet him [Puranam] when I went back to India. … Vajpayee said come and work with me and I went. I resigned from my job [at LSE]. Then he lost the elections [laughs]. So, I stayed in India for 3 years. I was in the Party office. … It was nice to meet him [Puranam] in the meetings. And he approached me later on, asked me if I would be a steering committee member [for WHEF]. I said fine and I travelled the world with him. Fiji, New Zealand… Selling the organisation in public meetings (ibid.).

From this quote, it is clear that BJP circles were already a part of the WHEF process in the very beginning, predating BJP’s electoral victory in 2014. When he is asked about his main motivations for joining WHEF, Ganguli mentions the WHEF steering committee that he was a part of in the beginning. He says: “The quality of the steering committee was very high. We were all very savvy, successful intellectuals who have seen the world a little bit” (ibid.). This, in fact, is very important as a description of the cadre around Puranam who initiated WHEF. In the next sub-section, IBF elites will present a similar

124 explanation. I then elaborate that this cadre is also a “cadre class” in line with van der Pijl’s (1998) understanding of organic intellectuals. Having these features – i.e. seeing the world, speaking foreign languages – is also important for WHEF’s strategic relations with people outside India, as the next section elaborates further.

This aside, Ganguli’s story shows another important point. He does not have an institutional relationship with Hindu nationalist organisations, but is a supporter of economic liberalisation in India, serving as an advisor to BJP PMs because he sees it as a part of his job as an academic. WHEF, in this sense, represents another platform from which he can contribute, by suggesting strategies related to business and economics to participant businesspeople (IN3). Thus, regardless of WHEF’s precise relationship with BJP, Ganguli’s story shows its capacity to bring together various social forces within Hindu nationalist circles for the sake of producing ideology and knowledge pertaining to the current developmental strategy, namely neoliberalisation. Although RSS/VHP and BJP are from the same ideology, albeit playing different roles – i.e. the former restricts itself to civil society and the latter is a political party, and both are relatively autonomous – there are people like Ganguli who support the BJP and its economic agenda while not being a part of RSS/VHP officially.

In this sense – as this sub-section has shown through its examination of the interpersonal relationships and initial networking efforts behind the forum – it is WHEF that organises and connects these forces. Moreover, as even the initial contacts show, WHEF’s network is built upon three main channels: RSS/VHP circles, BJP and academia. It is a business platform described as not for doing business, but for producing ideology and knowledge. After the following sub-section (4.1.2) identifies the corresponding channels in IBF’s networks based on interpersonal relations, the section after that (4.2) goes beyond these relations to illustrate that they are not restricted to a few people; rather, WHEF establishes relations between these channels in a systematic and strategic way. These relations are both based on these channels and also transcend them, creating a collective unity established under WHEF. This chapter revisits this issue later when expanding upon these strategic relations between different people at various institutional levels, which clarify the forum’s role as a collective organic intellectual of capitalist elites in the Gramscian sense.

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4.1.2- The IBF People

Görkem Uhur is the most significant person in IBF, who took part in MÜSİAD’s establishment, IBF’s establishment and is still a senior member of staff of the latter. He is a businessman who is a Bosphorus University graduate – one of the top universities in Turkey – and received his master’s degree in one of the universities in the US. Similarly to Puranam, his educational background and experience in the US – which supposedly gives him the vision to lead an intellectual project like IBF – is an important issue which he underlines repeatedly during the interview. Other interviewees also refer to his specialised knowledge when explaining how they came to participate in the forum.

IBF’s establishment was a result of an invitation that the MÜSİAD received in 1995 from the Pakistan Business Forum (PBF). Osman Kolonyacı, another businessman, who was involved in the process thanks to his position in the higher ranks of the MÜSİAD at that time, explains:

In October 1995, we received an invitation as MÜSİAD. There was an organisation called PBF. They invited us to their event [in Lahore]. Our team [in MÜSİAD] consisting of 40-45 people went there. Pakistan’s president of that time, Leghari, was hosting the event. It was asked there: “Who would organise the second instance of this event? And let’s use the name International Business Forum for this event, not PBF”. That decision was made at that event. … Our friends were experienced and active people. … Then, we thought, “We already have the MÜSİAD International Fair. Let’s integrate these two, and make it both business fair and forum”. … And, in November 1996, the event was organised under the name of IBF, together with the business fair. … That year, it was decided that the presidency and general secretariat of the event would be under MÜSİAD and that the headquarters would be in İstanbul (TU3).

While Kolonyacı explains it briefly, Uhur gives more detail on this establishment process. He states that it was his idea to make the forum international, having seen people coming from other Muslim countries (TU5). Establishing a hierarchy between Pakistan and Turkey, he also explains that the ability to make such a suggestion was a matter of educational pedigree, vision and organisation, which MÜSİAD had but others did not:

So, we founded IBF in Pakistan. Pakistan … at that time … was more chaotic than Turkey in political terms. And we said “The centre of the world is İstanbul, let’s move it to İstanbul. Well, when they recognised MÜSİAD’s organisational structure, they were shocked. They did not have such vision, space, organisation, and professionalism. They did not have the educational pedigree. … It had been 5 years [since MÜSİAD was

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founded], our organisation had expanded across Turkey, so on and so forth. So, they accepted our suggestion. We brought IBF’s headquarters to İstanbul. We also got the presidency. But that point required some fine- tuning because we were both capturing headquarters and presidency. Our Ahmet got involved at that stage (ibid.).

The person Uhur calls “our Ahmet” is Ahmet Davutoğlu, who would be Chief Advisor to PM Erdoğan approximately five years later in 2002, then the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2009, the twenty-sixth PM of Turkey in 2014, and JDP’s second leader until 2016. Similar to Uhur, Davutoğlu is also a Bosphorus University graduate and has a good reputation in academic circles. At the time of the event that Uhur talks about, he was associate professor at the Malaysia International Islamic University and Foreign Relations Advisor at MÜSİAD. Davutoğlu was not only working in an Islamic country, but also working on Islamic issues and on Turkey’s strategic position in world politics as an academic. He would ultimately be the architect of the paradigm shift in Turkey’s foreign policy in the late 2000s, which marked a reorientation away from Europe and towards claiming a leading role in the Middle East, as explained in Chapter 3.42 This development can therefore be traced back to the establishment of IBF, which created a business network across Islamic countries with the help of Davutoğlu.

Uhur conveys that Davutoğlu’s strategy and relations abroad made for a smooth transition when moving IBF’s headquarters from Pakistan to İstanbul in the 2nd IBF. While this was happening, Davutoğlu was also a columnist at Yeni Şafak – a newspaper hosting conservative Islamist columnists – which in 1997 was owned by Albayrak Holding, with Ömer Bolat serving as CEO from 2000 onwards. Bolat is another key figure in the establishment of the IBF, and was the General Secretary of MÜSİAD at the time when IBF first started. He is an economist who graduated from Marmara University and who currently works there as an academic, as well as a former MÜSİAD president. He is also currently a member of JDP’s Central Decision-Making and Administrative Committee. The organic relationship between IBF elites and future JDP cadres is thus clear in these examples.

42 This vision is derived from Davutoğlu’s book Strategic Depth published in 2001. The process was also called “neo-Ottomanism”, or the “Middle Easternisation” of Turkey. For further information, see Sözen (2010).

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Another point worth noting with respect to the initial efforts of IBF elites to establish a transnational network is that Erbakan, PM of Turkey at the time – from the political Islamist WP, forerunner of the JDP – was present at the 2nd IBF in İstanbul. Çemrek (2002: 184-185) notes that:

According to MÜSİAD, the 2nd IBF meeting was successful in providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and information between researchers and industrial practitioners in the general area of business network. The attendance of the Turkish PM as well as several ministers from different countries increased the importance of the meeting. Moreover, national business delegations, scholars from all parts of the Islamic World attending at the Forum, presented their own papers and models on Islam and economics.

Therefore, not only the MÜSİAD circle, but also the associated political Islamist party (as stated in Chapter 3) and its leader – also the PM of the country – were already seen at IBF events from the very beginning. Furthermore, in the following years, IBF events would be held “under the patronage of” the PM/President Erdoğan whenever they took place in İstanbul. As was seen in the case of WHEF, there are thus significant interrelationships between IBF elites, other non-governmental platforms of the time (MÜSİAD, media, universities) and governmental platforms (WP and subsequently JDP).

As was explained in Chapter 3, the people on these platforms were all part of the same Islamic socialisation process that started in the 1970s. Again, revisiting the transformations within the umbrella political movement, NVM, and the renovators’ (Erdoğan and Gül’s) initiative (against the traditionalists Erbakan and Kutan) paving the way for the establishment of JDP, it is clear that these changes were also felt in IBF. The IBF elite, as part of MÜSİAD, was seen as supporting the renovators, and started taking active roles in JDP just after its establishment (Yankaya 2014: 147).

For this reason, Uhur refers both to the Erdoğan era’s economic initiatives and to Erdoğan’s personality positively a couple of times during the interview, while clearly distinguishing himself from Erbakan’s initiatives. When he is reminded that Erbakan started the D8 – bringing together the most developed eight Islamic or Muslim-majority countries, as against the G8 – and asked whether there is any association or collaboration between that initiative and IBF, he replies:

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The D8… Well, I went through many debates on the D8. … I don’t know why, but I don’t like the idea that “There is that thing and against that we need to have this thing”. I mean, there is the G8 out there and we have the D8 here, so on and so forth… But, I like the G20. Countries representing 85% of the world economy gather and talk about world issues. OIC is a very important organisation in that sense. I give priority to that kind of organisation (TU5).

Uhur’s positive views on OIC would find their best expression institutionally through the foundation of a formal relationship between IBF and OIC in 2006-2008, as detailed in the next section.

Going back to the idea behind IBF and to his initial efforts to establish such an initiative, Uhur says:

Well, every institution needs to have an aim. … Our aim is to internationalise MÜSİAD’s founding principles. That means, MÜSİAD has an aim, which is local, within the borders of Turkey. … When we asked ourselves how to universalise, I mean how to internationalise [these aims], IBF arose as a response. So, the reason for establishing IBF is not to renew the aim; instead, it is universalising the aim, internationalising it (TU5).

In this quote, Uhur clearly mentions universalisation of a particular aim, which is both local (building a network between Turkish Muslim businesspeople in order to establish business relations between them) and particular to a certain circle, i.e. the religiously- oriented business elite of Turkey. The next chapter of this thesis illustrates how IBF constructs neoliberalism as the ‘correct’ form of global political economy and presents it as universally beneficial (particularly for Muslims, but also for non-Muslims), and argues that it is a key platform for the production of neoliberal common sense in line with the theoretical approach presented in Chapter 1 (see particularly Macartney 2008; Shields 2012). Considering these arguments, Uhur’s words on the universalisation of MÜSİAD’s aim represent an important statement. This is because to achieve this aim, creating a network for business and trade is not enough. Universalising it necessitates imbuing it with an ideology, a task performed by organic intellectuals.

In line with this, when discussing MÜSİAD’s initial trade initiatives on a practical level, Uhur makes the reason for IBF’s involvement clear. He says that IBF is a business platform, but not for making actual business; rather, it is for producing knowledge and ideology. In his words:

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[Business] fairs [MÜSİAD EXPO] are our practice but forum is our ideology. If we need to take action about global financial markets, about trade, about law, I mean, any international action, IBF brings its ideology, its knowledge. It produces them [ideology and knowledge], discusses them with other countries. It is on a more ideational level. MÜSİAD is more about action, it is more down to earth [says it in English], I mean, we do trade, we buy and sell. It is the market. Do you understand? Market is the fair (TU5).

As shown in these statements, Uhur is at least as certain as Puranam that the forum is for producing ideology and knowledge for the religiously-oriented elite by transgressing national boundaries. Kolonyacı makes the same point, stating that “forum is the time to speak, discuss and share and fair is to exchange” (TU3). Furthermore, ‘speaking’ about ‘their ideology’ is key to what Uhur calls the “internationalisation and universalisation” of MÜSİAD’s aim.

For Uhur and other interviewees, this is a matter of vision (TU1; TU2; TU3; TU4). Kolonyacı highlights that “the team who founded MÜSİAD was a visionary one, which means having a broad perspective, knowing foreign countries, having seen the West, having studied in the US, having studied in Europe – even trading with these places” (TU3). This description of a visionary cadre is similar to Ganguli’s description of the cadre that founded WHEF, as explained above. In line with van der Pijl’s description of organic intellectuals, and with respect to their managerial and technical skills, I contend that this visionary cadre is also a cadre class, a claim upon which I further elaborate later in this chapter as well as in Chapters 5 and 6. Within this cadre, Uhur’s educational background and networks are seen as critical for IBF’s strategy, similarly to those of Puranam in WHEF. Although the first event paving the way for the establishment of IBF did not start with Uhur’s initiative, naming the organisation, as well as re-structuring it on a transnational basis by putting İstanbul at its centre, happened through his direct involvement and with help from his circle at MÜSİAD.

This effect that Uhur has over the forum is also felt in other interviewees’ responses about IBF. Ziya Kazan, who is a businessman, was one of the senior members of staff responsible for IBF within MÜSİAD. Despite being responsible for IBF, he refused to answer a question on how the forum works, saying that Uhur would explain it better:

Ask that question to Mr. Uhur … [he] will tell you about it in a very detailed way. Pass this question from me. Well, yes, IBF is under my

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command now. But … Mr. Uhur will explain it to you in a much better way than I do. I mean, you will learn IBF’s logic and structure better from him. If I tell you now, I will tell about its general logic. It’s not right. If he explains it with its philosophy, it will be much better (TU2).

The difference between a ‘technical’ explanation of IBF and an explanation of it ‘with its philosophy’, observed in Kazan’s response, is important because of what it reveals about the way in which the cadre is perceived. They are those who construct a conception of the world with its own attendant philosophy – “an intellectual order” in Gramsci’s words (1971: 325) – and who possess managerial and technical skills and knowledge that they employ in support of this philosophy.

In line with this, Uhur relates Turkey’s take-over of the presidency – which now extends over two decades – to IBF elites’ vision, capacity and experience:

It is a representative duty. A narrative of the mission is of great importance at this point. For narratives of the mission, experience is always more important. Like, the capacity to bring together people, getting to know people and countries, and the ability to keep the same relationship over years are important. ... Only once a year, you will imbue people with knowledge of what you have done in that year. ... You need to bear yourself wisely. The more you are experienced, the harder the replacement is. You might face some difficulty to find the answers of who to bear such a mission, whether there is any person that experienced, whether they are that knowledgeable, whether they could make time for such a responsibility (TU5).

Vision, experience, and a representative role all cohere with Gramsci’s account of the knowledge produced by organic intellectuals, which, as explained in Chapter 1, is not directive but specialised and political. This is the intellectual function that IBF performs, wielding its organisational and connective capacity to pave the way for the imbuement of participants with knowledge and the ideology of the project. Thus, Turkey’s leadership of the forum for more than twenty years seems consensual rather than coercive.

As shown in this section, neither WHEF nor IBF are self-enclosed networks. Instead, they are built upon three main channels: the political religious circles that their elites are part of, the political parties that these elites support (both of these channels at the national level initially) and the academics who connect them with the world. This represents a serious challenge to their claims to be independent or self-enclosed business networks. The interconnectedness of political society and civil society is obvious in the

131 interweaving of these three channels, and the elites of both organisations serve as organic intellectuals of the religiously-oriented elites in both countries who link them together. It is thus important to understand how they operationalise their intellectual projects. The next section shows how these channels enable these elites to flourish, and how in turn they are made into strategic areas for their intellectual projects at a transnational level.

4.2- WHEF and IBF in Operation: Reaching out to Hindu/Muslim Communities across the World

With the previous section having outlined the main channels upon which WHEF and IBF networks are built, this section engages with the ways in which these channels become strategic areas in these forums’ transnational operation. It shows how WHEF and IBF transcend interpersonal relationships and become forums that organise and connect religiously-oriented business elites worldwide. I argue that these forums hold a key place in their domestic state-society complexes, their organisational and connective capacity serving to bring together religiously-oriented elites at different institutional levels – i.e. NGOs, bureaucracy/technocracy and academia – on a transnational basis. Again, as said at the beginning of this chapter, this fulfils the first component of these forums’ role as organic intellectuals of the religiously-oriented fractions of the capitalist class in India and Turkey.

Having said that, it should be remembered from Chapters 2 and 3 that these elites were the less transnationalised fractions of the Indian and Turkish capitalist class, as opposed to the old, Western-oriented elites of the 1990s. Therefore, this section also highlights that for both WHEF (4.2.1) and IBF (4.2.2), basing these intellectual projects upon transnational networks was a strategic choice made to enable these (religiously-oriented) class fractions to take their place among other transnationally-oriented fractions and, thereby, to join global struggles over wealth, power and knowledge production (cf. Murphy 2000: 799). This is a significant part of the way in which WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects, becoming both more organised against the old Western-oriented fractions in India and Turkey and more connected with the world.

This section shows that the people who lead WHEF and IBF comprise a particular group of elites – within Hindu and Islamic communities, respectively – who are organised and

132 connected strategically on a transnational level, despite their rhetorical commitment to the inclusion of all elements of Hindu/Muslim communities. Before dealing in detail with the ways in which its class interests are depicted as universally beneficial in Chapter 5, this chapter identifies this particularity that is supposed to represent the whole.

4.2.1- WHEF: Searching for the Unknown Immigrant, Funded by the Well-known Patron

This sub-section reveals the strategic relations underlying WHEF’s transnational orientation, and how these are put in place. WHEF aims to reach Hindu communities across the world (a task it considers an exercise in due diligence), to carry out lobbying activity and to develop intellectual tools to create funds and increase investment (IN3, IN5). To this end, it gets in touch with the Indian diaspora and NRIs in different countries, mainly in the US, UK and ASEAN region (recall from Chapter 2 that this choice of countries and regions aligns with BJP’s current foreign policy). Throughout this process, Hindu nationalist civil society is in operation for WHEF through these countries’ local chapters of RSS/VHP. Wealthy businesspeople who might fund the forum’s events abroad are reached through this channel. Political society represents another strategic area, through which WHEF reaches out to bureaucrats and technocrats holding strategic positions in foreign countries. Academics in these countries, especially from the fields of economics, finance and development, retain their fundamental importance to WHEF in terms of ideology and knowledge production. Figure 3 shows the WHEF network.

FIGURE 3: The WHEF network

Source: Author’s Design

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Given WHEF’s organic relations with the Hindu nationalist organisations introduced in Chapter 2, there is particular meaning in the decision to base the establishment of its transnational strategy on Hindu elements abroad. WHEF elites come from a Hindu nationalist tradition which was communalist, giving priority to ‘Hinduness’ (Hindutva) and seeing other social elements (including Islam and Christianity) as colonial and destructive of the ‘Hindu essence’. For this reason, their strategy prioritises forming a Hindu business network worldwide. Any relationships established with non-Hindu constituencies (i.e. business agreements with foreigners or foreign bureaucrats attending WHEF meetings) must therefore serve to make the Hindu community prosperous and accord with WHEF’s vision (IN4; IN5).

People who have left India, former immigrants and present residents of other countries have a significant place within WHEF’s intellectual project. Anil Kumar Bachoo, Vice PM of Mauritius and WHEF 2012 panellist, mentions these people by quoting Mauritian writer Abhimanyu Unnuth’s tribute to “the unknown immigrant”, written for Indian immigrants in Mauritius under British colonialism:

Neither has history in its blindness witnessed his presence nor have dead persons heard him scream, but he is the one who first drop of sweat falling between rocks and helped green pastures to grow. The first indentured labourer, son of the land was both mine and yours (Unnuth cited in WHEF 2012b: 4).

Bachoo draws an analogy between Unnuth’s unknown immigrant and all other Indian immigrants in other countries who have had to go abroad and make a life there. For WHEF, these unknown immigrants have gained the rewards of their hard work abroad. Since the 1960s, when – in their terminology – greater interconnectivity in the world economy emerged due to a more open marketplace and technological advances,

[i]ndividual Hindus have been able to take advantage of the situation by taking and becoming the heads of many major corporations throughout the world as well as have created [sic] vast business empires. This impressive performance on [an] individual basis has not translated to Hindu society [as a] whole in [terms of] making it prosperous (WHEF 2012a).

Similarly, Neil Bhaskar, a senior businessman in the US and WHEF 2016 panellist, highlights the success of people originating from India by giving the example of the US where, he states, they lead two of the top five companies. These individual successes around the world, for him, are key to making India an economic superpower (WHEF

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2016b: 9). In line with this, WHEF claims to translate these individual successes to Hindu society by creating a unity among them under its roof.

WHEF makes strategic moves in its selection of people, and these successful businesspeople are often seen funding and chairing its forums and delivering speeches during them. Ganguli, mentioned earlier, says that WHEF is doing well because they reach out to “the right people”, namely those who are very committed to the cause and do not expect anything in return:

[E]verybody within that community [gives] a lot of money without any significant gain. … [In WHEF 2015], subsequently, one family there from Nottingham was giving a lot of money. They have very big industries in Nottingham. … They are very big charity. They give away with both hands. … Therefore, everybody has a kind of moral sensibility (IN3).

When he is asked if he is referring to the Purico Group, he nods his head and adds: “Purico is actually the most important backdrop to all of this. Because when there is desperation, there is Nat Puri” (ibid.).

Professor Nat Puri, who is the founder of Purico Limited in Nottingham and one of Britain’s richest businessmen, continuously gives financial support to WHEF’s activities (IN1; IN2; IN3). He was referred to as “patron” at WHEF 2015, where he was also described as “a father figure for the UK Hindu community” (WHEF 2015b: 4).43 He is not an academic, despite his title, which was given to him by the Business School in Nottingham University in thanks for his donations and for a scholarship fund that he established there for business students. His profile is also high at London South Bank University (LSBU), where he is an alumnus and considered “a great role model” for students as a philanthropist (LSBU n. d.). At WHEF 2015 – of which Puri was the patron – another panellist, Professor Rao Bhamidimarri, also from LSBU (executive dean of the university and vice-president of the Department of Development) delivered a speech. Bhamidimarri works as the director of the Purico Group. Purico funded this whole event, and during the interview that I conduct with a member of staff at Purico, Ishan Purohit, he says that “we support every effort for our country and WHEF is one of them” (IN1). When he is asked whether they also support RSS, VHP and BJP he says yes, and that

43 WHEF uses the term patron to refer to the person who funds a particular WHEF event. The location of the event changes for each meeting, and so does the patron.

135 they think that BJP is doing great for the country (ibid.). This is one of many examples of the WHEF’s strategic relations in operation, with Hindu nationalist organisations, BJP and academia all working together.

Further such examples can be found. The patron of WHEF 2012 in Hong Kong was K.P. Daswani, a VHP member in Hong Kong and founder of the Hong Kong chapter of Chinmaya Mission, mentioned in Chapter 2, from which VHP takes its roots. The Saraff Group in Bangkok is another example. The founder of this company, Susheel Saraff, is also the president of the VHP’s Thailand chapter and was chairman of the organising committee of WHEF 2013 in Bangkok. The CEO of the company, Dharmas Dhamodaraswamy, was a panellist at WHEF 2014. Similarly, Sanjay Kumar, who works as corporate communications and research manager in this company, was a panellist at both WHEF 2014 and 2015. Another example is Dr Abhaya Asthana, a panellist at WHEF 2016 and the president of the VHP’s America chapter. He organised WHC 2018 in Chicago, which also hosted WHEF 2018. Thus, when WHEF’s events take place outside India, local VHP chapters or supportive wealthy businessmen are ready to organise and fund the events, and to make their staff participate.

BJP’s presence at WHEF events is significant too. Examples include Suresh Prabhu, currently the Indian Sherpa to the G20,44 at WHEF 2013; Nitin Gadkari, currently the Minister of MSMEs,45 at WHEF 2014; and Subramanian Swamy, currently a BJP member of Parliament (Upper House), at WHEF 2012. Moreover, WHC 2018 – of which WHEF 2018 was as a part – opened with a letter from Modi, describing the event as “the catalyst of [Hindu] resurgence” and as showing that “a New India is rising” (WHC 2018c). In saying this, Modi himself defined the organising and participating cadre of the event as organic intellectuals, catalysing action for the new India (cf. Mittelman 2014).

In addition to BJP officials, it is also possible to see people from India’s other important institutions at WHEF’s events. As explained in Chapter 2, NITI Aayog, founded by Modi

44 Some of his previous roles are Minister of Power (2000-2002), Minister of Railways (2014-2017), Minister of Commerce and Industry (2017-2019).

45 Some of his previous roles are Minister of Shipping (2014-2019) and Minister of Road Transport and Highways (2014-2019).

136 in place of the old Planning Commission, is one of them and represents India’s neoliberal transformation. Bibek Debroy, a permanent member of NITI Aayog appointed by Modi himself, is worth mentioning here. Debroy is currently working as the chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM, and has attended many WHEF events representing this institution. Debroy received his degrees from Presidency College (Kolkata), the Delhi School of Economics and Trinity College at Cambridge University. He was also a member of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) when he was working in the Centre for Policy Research from 2007 to 2015 (MPS2011 n.d.). MPS is one of the core intellectual founders and legitimators of neoliberalism (Plehwe 2009: 4). It is therefore not a coincidence that Modi brought Debroy into NITI Aayog’s higher ranks, along with other liberal economists (KK 2015). Similarly, his participation in WHEF is no coincidence either, because WHEF plays a key role in articulating neoliberalism and producing neoliberal common sense, as will be further elaborated in the following chapters.

Another important institution is the Federation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (FISME). FISME has strategic importance for WHEF – which will be revealed in detail in Chapter 6 – as owners of SMEs in general are primary targets for persuasion for WHEF elites. It is worth mentioning here that FISME’s Secretary General Anil Bhardwaj attended both WHEF 2014 and WHEF 2018 to make detailed presentations about Indian SMEs (WHEF 2014b: 36; Bhardwaj 2018). Having said that, however, other, bigger and older business organisations such as FICCI and CII – known as sites of the old (Western-oriented) business elite – have not been seen to participate in WHEF events. Notably, no representative from any of India’s trade unions has been seen at any of WHEF’s events.

As stated earlier in this sub-section, in addition to bureaucrats/technocrats in India, WHEF aims to reach these same groups within the Hindu diaspora, in order to boost lobbying activity and create investment opportunities for the businesspeople organised under its roof both in India and worldwide. Giving examples from other countries, Ganguli states that:

Another service planned [is] to provide a platform by which businesses could get help in bidding for government contracts in various countries. (…) [T]he Chinese government had opened an office in New York to help

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Chinese business persons to win contracts in the [US]. (…) WHEF would also provide facilities such as country-specific legal advice to start-ups, [offer] professional help whenever needed and publish articles that are pending and that affect businesses (WHEF 2013b: 3).

To support this kind of strong lobbying activity, and particularly to provide WHEF with country-specific legal advice, people holding senior bureaucratic positions in target countries are crucial. For instance, Subhash Thakrar, vice president of the London Chamber of Commerce (LCC), has been seen at many forums (WHEF 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2018) giving advice on investing in the UK. Moreover, Priti Patel – UK Indian Diaspora Champion, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, then Minister of State for Employment under David Cameron and later Secretary of State for International Development under Theresa May – was a WHEF 2015 panellist. At WHEF 2018, it was possible to see people from important transnational organisations, such as Arun Kumar Sharma (chief investment officer for the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank), and from big corporations, such as Rajesh Subramaniam (executive vice- president/chief marketing officer at Federal Express [FedEx]) and Sachin Lawande (president and CEO of Visteon). The presence of these people demonstrates WHEF’s strategic relations with the Hindu diaspora, getting in touch with people holding strategic positions in other countries’ bureaucracies and big corporations.

Having dealt with two strategic areas of WHEF’s transnational operation – Hindu nationalist circles and bureaucrats/technocrats (both in India and abroad) – the last remaining area is academia. The academics with whom the forum gets in touch are primarily those who specialise in economics and finance and who support liberal economics. Macartney (2008: 433) emphasises the role of these types of economists as “producers of ‘neo-liberal’ common sense” due to their organic links to dominant class fractions. The cadre class represented by WHEF consists of many of these economists.

One obvious example is Debroy, whose attendance at WHEF events is significant as explained above. A Cambridge alumnus and MPS member, now working in the key institution carrying out India’s neoliberalisation, he is known for his contributions to game theory and to policy reforms directed towards India’s integration with the global

138 political economy.46 Ganguli, again mentioned earlier, is a liberal economist from LSE and played a significant role in WHEF’s establishment, having also served as an advisor to the government under Vajpayee and occasionally under Modi. Swamy – mentioned previously in relation to his participation in WHEF 2012 as a panellist and steering committee member – is another liberal economist, who received his PhD at Harvard, was formerly a student of Professor Paul Samuelson (with whom he co-authored an article),47 and came back to India at the invitation of Professor Amartya Sen. He was one of the founding members of Janata and later joined BJP, for whom he is now an upper house member of parliament. Professor Sriprakash Kothari, professor of accounting and finance at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, chaired WHC 2018 (which hosted WHEF 2018), increasing the event’s popularity in the US beyond Hindu media circles (Times of India 2018). Ramachandran Vaidyanathan, Professor of Finance at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore – who will be engaged with particularly closely in Chapter 5 – is a key WHEF ideologue and makes significant contributions to the knowledge it produces.

With this section having shown how WHEF connects and organises religiously-oriented elites on a transnational level, and therefore fulfils the first component of the intellectual function as a class cadre, the next sub-section will do the same for IBF.

4.2.2- IBF: Searching for Muslim Communities, Creating a Business Ummah48

Having explained how WHEF transforms its main three channels into strategic areas in its operation, this sub-section does the same for IBF. It shows how IBF’s organisational and connective capacity works to bring religiously-oriented elites under its umbrella on a transnational level. Again, it underlines IBF as collective organic intellectual of a particular fraction of the capitalist class, consisting of elites who hold strategic positions

46 For an example, see Debroy et al. (2014).

47 See Samuelson and Swamy (1974).

48 According to the Oxford Dictionary of Islam (n.d.), Ummah is “[m]uslim community. A fundamental concept in Islam, expressing the essential unity and theoretical equality of Muslims from diverse cultural and geographical settings. In the Quran, designates people to whom God has sent a prophet or people who are objects of a divine plan of salvation”.

139 in the institutions that they are subscribed to. Like WHEF, IBF attempts to exercise ‘due diligence’ by sourcing funds and investments in its member countries (IBF 2000, 2001, and 2003), and by making contact with people who hold strategic positions within political Islamist civil society (NGOs), foreign bureaucrats/technocrats, and academics. As stated earlier, Turkey is not the only Muslim-majority country, and IBF’s transnational orientation is therefore not limited to reaching out to the Turkish diaspora. Instead, it is designed to include any and all Islamic or Muslim-majority countries as its members. Today, it works as the official business forum of the biggest Islamic transnational NGO, OIC, as elaborated later in this chapter. Figure 4 shows the IBF network.

FIGURE 4: The IBF network

Source: Author’s design

As with WHEF, IBF’s transnational orientation also arose as a requirement of the Islamic-oriented elite of Turkey – also called the MÜSİAD circle, of which IBF is a part – owing to Turkey’s political-economic structure in the 1990s. As stated in Chapter 3, this fraction was not sufficiently organised to adapt to the conditions of neoliberalisation, in contrast with the old elite (called the TÜSİAD circle). IBF was a result of the discussions within the MÜSİAD circle, a project designed to enable them to engage with the rest of the world and become a part of the global political economy in a more effective way. The transnational orientation of this elite has therefore been solidified in IBF since the 1990s. Considering the historical sedimentations discussed in Chapter 3,

140 this elite was also suspicious about Western (especially US) social forces and their economic agendas, thinking they were not suitable for Islamic moralities. For this reason, they prioritised getting in touch with countries, particularly in the Middle East, that were either constitutionally Islamic (e.g. Pakistan, Malaysia) or home to significant Muslim populations (e.g. South Africa).

For IBF, the need for a transnational orientation was even more significant considering the emergence of a wave of hostility towards political Islam in Turkey’s official circles, particularly in the military. Despite the political Islamist WP’s rising power in politics, the MÜSİAD circle was under surveillance. In the meantime, neoliberalisation had started, beginning in the 1980s; bureaucratic controls over business activity were still significant, however. This meant that any activity outside the country had to get permission from the state, and under these conditions the MÜSİAD circle was less likely to get that permission. Uhur, mentioned earlier, explains this period in the following way:

[T]he laws of those days [1990s] were restricting associations to be active outside Turkey’s borders. It was forbidden. So, MÜSİAD would not even have organised an official trip abroad without asking the state and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for permission. Otherwise, it would have counted as unofficial. … There might have been bans, fines, etc. There would have been legal problems. For that reason, MÜSİAD's aims had to stay within Turkey and [IBF] arose as a requirement (TU5).

Rather than risking MÜSİAD and its local activities, these elites instead established IBF, which in the beginning had no official or legal framework. At the same time, however, the activities of religiously-oriented elites were restricted domestically, limiting their ability to grow their businesses without opening themselves up to international markets. For this reason, although IBF represents Islamic-oriented business elites from many countries, it also maintains the pragmatic goal of strengthening those within Turkey specifically via the establishment of a transnational network under conditions of neoliberalisation. In line with this pragmatic aim, the organisation has adopted a trans- denominational perspective, accepting different Islamic sects and denominations and tolerating differences in interpretations of Islam across the region (Yankaya 2014: 223).

Uhur explains IBF’s efforts to reach “Muslim communities” all over the world in the following way:

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Not only do we have the Muslims in Turkey, but also Muslims abroad. We call them Muslim communities, as Muslims in the US, for example, are not the majority but they are a community. … I had sent [one of my colleagues] Kahraman Emmioğlu to Argentina so that we could reach out to the Muslim communities in South America. We were shocked by the information he got. He met 400,000 Naqshbandi Muslims who had emigrated from Syria. There had been Muslim communities in Argentina and we did not know about this. There are Muslim communities in Brazil. They are everywhere in the world… (TU5)

We can see the first attempts to exercise due diligence by IBF elites in this quote. Similarly to WHEF, their focus is on finding Muslim communities and getting in touch with them. Uhur continues:

Let me give you another example. It was 1995 if I am not wrong. I went to a MÜSİAD meeting. There was a handsome fellow, wearing a fez that seemed to be half the size of ours and said “Selamün Aleyküm” to me. He started talking excellent English. I asked where he was from and he said he represented South African Muslims. He came from Cape Town to meet us. We understood that there were Muslims in South Africa, thanks to him. Then we went to South Africa, so on and so forth. The governor of Cape Town was a Muslim for 12 years, think about it, a major city (ibid.).

This quote is also important in terms of seeing the shift in the narrative. It starts with “Muslims” but ends up with one who governs a big city, someone whose position and capacity is key to helping IBF to reach its aims, i.e. helping the forum to carry out its activities in that city. Unsurprisingly, one of the earliest IBF events – the 5th IBF in 2000 – took place in Cape Town, with many local and national government officials in attendance.

This is a similar narrative to WHEF’s, where the process is narrated as one of finding Hindu communities across the world but in concrete terms involves reaching out to the person or institution that would work best for the interests of a fraction of the capitalist class. This gets even clearer when Uhur continues:

When I went to South Africa, I saw that their Minister of Justice is a Muslim. I got to know this thanks to my contacts. And the same in other countries. … There are businessmen that live in those countries and there are politicians. There are bureaucrats that do different tasks over there. And you do not know them until that day, when you set up IBF. Your world vision brings you together with people who are on the same page as you, in places you did not even consider. And thus you see the presence of Muslims in the world. You meet Muslims in Australia and New Zealand (ibid.).

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These figures – governors, politicians, bureaucrats, etc. – are highlighted significantly because they are key to IBF elites’ lobbying activities in other countries. Establishing relations with these people helps IBF to exist as a global institution, particularly because while the forums are organised by MÜSİAD in Turkey one year, they are arranged in other countries – and thus by foreign ministries of commerce and industry or by foreign chambers of commerce – the next.

For instance, the 7th IBF in Iran was hosted by Iran’s IBF chapter in co-operation with the Government of Iran in 2003; the 9th IBF in Jeddah was organised and hosted by the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce in 2005; and the 11th IBF in Abu Dhabi was hosted by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry in co-operation with the Industrialists’ Union Society there. IBF is therefore a platform where lots of ministers and high-profile bureaucrats from various countries gather, and which fosters foreign relations between these countries as well. For instance, in the 8th IBF, attendees included Minister of Trade (Iran) Mohammed Shariatmadari, Minister of Transportation and Public Affairs (Lebanon) Najib Mikati, and Deputy Minister of Trade (Tunisia) Salahaddin Makhlouf (IBF 2004); in the 10th IBF, Minister of Trade and Industry (Kuwait) Falah Fahad Al- Hajri, Minister of Foreign Trade (Morocco) Mustapha Mechahouri, and Minister of Social Development (Mali) Djibril Tangara (IBF 2006); and in the 18th IBF, Deputy PM (Chechnya) Khasan Khakimov, Minister of Trade (Algeria) Amara Benyounès, and Minister of Public Administration (Kosovo) Mahir Yağcılar (IBF 2014b).

Turkey’s presence at IBF events is drawn from the political Islamist current of Turkish politics. As seen in the previous section, Erbakan of WP, serving as PM, attended the first event that IBF organised in İstanbul in 1996 with his ministers (Çemrek 2002: 184). After WP’s closure, it was possible to see bureaucrats from VP, its descendant. And with JDP’s electoral victory in 2002, seeing high-profile bureaucrats from JDP and state institutions at IBF events is common, illustrative of the organic relations between them. Examples have included Ali Coşkun, Minister of Trade and Industry (IBF 2003); Kemal Unakıtan, Minister of Finance (IBF, 2004); and Ali Babacan, State Minister in Charge of Economy (IBF 2006). As can be seen from the above, these bureaucrats’ areas of responsibility are also strategically valuable in terms of attempting to draw investment into Turkey from foreign Islamic-oriented business elites. Furthermore, while Modi has yet to get personally involved in WHEF’s events save for the sending of a letter, Erdoğan has been

143 mentioned in the reports of every IBF events held in Turkey since 2002, and has himself participated many times and even delivered a speech at one (IBF 2004). These events are announced as “organised under his auspices” (IBF 2006) or “patronage” (IBF 2014b).

One crucial point worth noting is that IBF events represent a meeting point of high- profile Muslim bureaucrats from all over the world. In comparison with WHEF, and potentially due to IBF’s longer period of activity, IBF provides a more structured and institutionalised network for organising and connecting various parts of political society both in Turkey and abroad. Not only does it boost business deals between businesspeople from the member countries (Cicioğlu and Bayraktar 2017: 59), but it also leads partnerships between countries through the forum itself. The 19th IBF in Doha is a good example of this:

The 19th International Business Forum in Doha clearly established a strong platform for advancing strategic relations between Qatar and Turkey in the high technology defence and defence-related sectors to the potential benefit of both countries and, longer term, their global trade and investment partners (IBF 2015).

This was also reflected in the Turkish economy: 2015 was the year that both countries established a Supreme Strategic Committee to strengthen their political, economic and military relationships, and Qatar’s investment in Turkey is increasing continuously (Al Jazeera 2018).

The structured and strategic relations of IBF are not limited to political society. Indeed, IBF utilises already established relationships in the Islamic world, especially NGOs. During the eighth IBF, this was expressed in the following way:

[we are calling upon the] business community, … NGOs and community- based organisations to realize that the primary responsibility for promotion of all kind of linkages and interaction among the Muslim countries [lies with them] and [that] they should play a leading role, [to] build a better future for Muslim Ummah” (IBF 2004).

Alongside collaborating with important actors from political society, establishing long- lasting and strategic relations with actors from civil society is key to what is referred to as “crafting a business umma[h]” (Vannetzel and Yankaya 2019). It is also illustrative of the interconnectedness of political society and civil society, as discussed by Gramsci and

144 explained in Chapter 1. Some multilateral organisations thus attend IBF events both to support and to be supported. This can be seen in the following expression:

Encouraging multilateral organisations of the Islamic world such as OIC, Economic Co-operation Organization, Gulf Co-operation council and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB):

-to intensify their efforts more actively to achieve the results to benefit of the people of member countries

-to take bold initiatives jointly in respect to the challenges endangering member countries’ economic prosperity and vast energy and other resources (IBF 2004)

Among them, the two umbrella organisations – the OIC and IDB – are crucially important to the IBF (IBF 2009). OIC was founded in 1969 in Rabat and currently encompasses 57 member states. It is the most significant transnational actor within the Islamic world, crucial for IBF’s transnational orientation. It has four standing committees, including COMCEC, the main multilateral economic and commercial cooperation platform. Working with such organisations serves IBF’s aims in the global political economy, namely “to plan and develop collectively [member countries’] own monetary fund and common market, so as to strengthen their financial exposure in international transactions” (IBF 2005; 2006). Following its focus upon and strategic relations with COMCEC and OIC, IBF has become the official business forum of COMCEC in 2006 and OIC in 2008.

IDB, on the other hand, was founded in 1973 in Jeddah and is a multilateral development bank covering the finances of OIC’s 57 members, “with an AAA rating, and operating assets of more than USD 16 billion and subscribed capital of USD 70 billion” (IDB, n.d.). IDB is very important for IBF in “seek[ing] necessary measures and work[ing] for establishing a rating system for OIC member state banks and companies” (IBF 2006). Moreover, for IBF, IDB is also crucial “to conduct[ing] business with private sector directly” (IBF 2005). Presidents of OIC and IDB attend IBF events regularly, and IBF can be organised as a part of OIC/COMCEC events occasionally.

In their study focusing on post-2011 business networks in the Middle East, Vannetzel and Yankaya (2019: 297) highlight that such strategic relations, particularly those backed by

145 important NGOs such as OIC, have increased IBF’s influence in the region. The following quote explains:

While MÜSİAD consolidated its position under the JDP government, the IBF … was promoted as the OIC official business organization charged with connecting member countries’ business communities. Turkey’s pivotal position was facilitated with the free-trade agreements signed with Middle-Eastern and North African countries starting from 2004. The OIC’s institutional backup to IBF enhanced MÜSİAD's capacity of action towards ultimate targets in OIC countries, especially in the Middle-East in the aftermath of the Arab Springs. As the IBF president commented: “During the Arab Spring, the IBF arrived its peak. We had massive participation of businessmen [in our events] as well as a strong presence of ministers from Arab countries” (ibid.).

Looking at the number of the delegates sent to IBF events, these changes are clear to see: whereas the number of participants was 439 in the 2nd IBF in 1996, 700 in the 7th IBF in 2003, 2200 in the 12th IBF in 2008 and 1750 in the 13th IBF in 2009, it was 5000 in the 16th IBF, the highest until that day. It subsequently reached approximately 7500 in the 18th IBF in 2014.

Having explained two of the strategic areas in which IBF operates, namely the bureaucracies/technocracies of Islamic or Muslim-majority countries and transnational Islamic-oriented NGOs, I now move onto the last: academia, as with WHEF. IBF makes a particular effort to host “distinguished representatives from government, business and academia” (IBF 2014b, 2016). The importance of these people, drawn from various fields of expertise (including economics and finance, as with WHEF, but also IR, engineering, etc.) is to help the business elite produce relevant knowledge for their business strategies in the global political economy. Professor Davutoğlu’s significance to IBF was already mentioned in the previous section. He is a Bosphorus University graduate with a double major in Economics and Political Science and a PhD in IR. He played a key role in IBF’s transnational operation by utilising his relations in the Middle East.

Kahraman Emmioğlu, also mentioned earlier, is an academic specialising in nuclear energy. He is the one who was sent to South America by Uhur to exercise due diligence there (TU5). Ömer Bolat is another significant academic in the cadre, specialising in economics. As mentioned earlier, he played an important role in IBF’s establishment as the General Secretary of MÜSİAD in the 1990s. IBF’s institutionalisation as COMCEC’s

146 and OIC’s official business forum also took place during his presidency of MÜSİAD in the late 2000s. Furthermore, it happened when another academic was the General Secretary of OIC: Professor Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, a Cairo-born Turkish academic, was the honorary guest of the 9th IBF in Jeddah in 2005, and delivered a speech a year before the cooperation between the two organisations began. That event also featured a Saudi academic, Mohammed Al-Madani, as the President of IDB.

As with WHEF, the links between the Islamic-oriented elite and the institutions of which they are a part – namely NGOs, bureaucracy/technocracy and academia, representing all three strategic areas of IBF’s transnational orientation – are highly interwoven. And WHEF and IBF links people from these areas to each other, acting as the “organic organiser” of these religiously-oriented elites (cf. Macartney 2008) on a transnational level.

4.3- Concluding Remarks

This chapter unpacked WHEF and IBF networks, showing the main channels that they are built upon and the main strategic areas that they utilise for their transnational operation. The significance of this chapter is that WHEF and IBF elites fulfil the first component of the intellectual function highlighted by Gramsci; that is, organising and connecting religiously-oriented business elites on a transnational level. In this way, it provided partial answers to RQ3 (the way these elites operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion) and RQ4 (the wider global relevance of the similarities/differences between them).

Firstly, I clarified how these intellectual projects came to life by looking at the interviewees’ narratives of the establishment processes of their forums. Both forums showed significant parallels, in that they utilised the religious movements and organisations that were elaborated in Chapters 2 and 3, the political parties coming out of these movements and institutions, and academics connected to either or both. For WHEF, as seen in 4.1.1, these channels are RSS/VHP circles, BJP and academia. For IBF, as seen in 4.1.2, they are NVM/MÜSİAD circles, WP (before 2002)/JDP (after 2002), and academia as well. Despite both of the forums describing themselves as freestanding

147 independent NGOs, I argued that the business elites organised under WHEF and IBF are organic intellectuals of the new religiously-oriented elites in both countries, based on the social channels I clarified. This showed how the operation of their intellectual projects started and is organised at the national level, constituting a particular elite that represents a particular fraction of the capitalist class in India and Turkey.

Secondly, I illustrated how the forums translate the main channels that they use in the national context into strategic areas for organising and connecting religiously-oriented elites on a transnational level. WHEF, as shown in 4.2.1, gets in touch with the Indian diaspora and – within that – RSS/VHP circles’ chapters in other countries (mainly wealthy businesspeople living other countries), bureaucrats and technocrats holding high positions in other countries’ political society (such as the president of LCC), and academics from well-known universities who are specialised in economics and finance and also have connections with international society (such as the MPS). IBF, as shown in 4.2.2, gets in touch with Islamic and Muslim-majority countries. The network that IBF establishes prioritises the bureaucracy and technocracy of other countries (e.g. chambers of commerce) and also includes key NGOs in international society (such as OIC and IDB), as well as academics who have key positions within them. This showed how the forums acknowledge the importance of the international and use it in their strategies. This demonstrated another crucial aspect of the way in which both forums operationalise their intellectual projects: they transcend interpersonal relations and the national level, establishing WHEF and IBF networks which act as collective organic intellectuals in organising and connecting the religiously-oriented elite at different institutional levels.

To make these arguments more specific to the RQs: these are religion-based business forums, and they build networks based on religion between religiously-oriented elites all over the world. These transnational networks are not outside neoliberalism, which is led by BJP and JDP governments in India and Turkey, respectively, and the forum elites have an organic relationship with these governing parties. Although there is no particular similarity between the religions adopted by each forum elite, the networking strategies in each case are similar and bring about similar strategic relationships, i.e. acknowledging the importance of the international and utilising it to consolidate their power in the national context against other fractions of capital. And, to repeat: WHEF and IBF elites represent only two particular fractions within capital, and are also transnationally-

148 oriented. Therefore, the wider global relevance of this situation is that these strategies represent part of what Murphy (2000: 799) calls “struggles over wealth, power and knowledge production”. Moreover, religiously-oriented fractions of capital are also organised under WHEF and IBF, arising as important actors in the global political economy through their own (religion-based) networks which aim to bring about their own ideology and knowledge production strategies. This is one many of different political- ideological contestations within variegated neoliberalism.

Having identified the particularity of the elites under examination, the next chapter will turn to the ideational grounds of their intellectual projects. It will focus on the knowledge they produce, the way they construct neoliberalism as the correct form of global market, and the ways in which these elites universalise their particular interests using religion.

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CHAPTER 5

WHEF’S AND IBF’S ARTICULATIONS OF NEOLIBERAL IDEOLOGY: CONCEPTUALISING THE ‘CORRECT’ FORM OF THE GLOBAL POLITICAL ECONOMY

With the previous chapter having shown WHEF’s and IBF’s organisational and connective capacity, this chapter complements this by mapping out the ways in which WHEF and IBF fulfil the second component of the intellectual function: constructing a particular conception of the world and universalising it as ‘correct’ for every social class. Recalling from Chapter 1 that Gramsci explains the intellectual function as one in which the organic intellectual is not “a simple orator” but an “organiser”, “constructor” and “permanent persuader” (1971: 10), I argue in this chapter that WHEF and IBF are also constructors of neoliberal common sense as the ‘correct’ form of the global political economy. Their intellectual projects represent different methods of interacting with neoliberal ideology, but these methods are mediated by religion in a similar fashion. In this way, this chapter also answers RQ3 (regarding the ways in which WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion) and RQ4 (regarding the wider global relevance of their similarities).

In this chapter, I firstly deal with the way in which these forums situate themselves in the global political economy (5.1). I highlight that both forums confront the West and Western social forces in articulating neoliberal ideology. In this confrontation, both forums address two main issues about the existing global political economy: the mainstream economic practices of the West (5.1.1) and the (Western) moral values that they think underpin the existing structure (5.1.2). Based on this, both forums articulate a global developmentalist discourse in which the West is placed against the rest. However, I illustrate that neither forum engages in any radical criticism of the existing global political economy because they never target the core logics of neoliberal ideology, such as the free market, privatisation, financialisation and capital’s dominance over labour.

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Having explained this, I engage with the forums’ alternative models in the second section (5.2). Based on their criticisms, both forums demonstrate the belief that they stand for an alternative model ‘outside’ capitalism. However, I argue that these models are only different in terms of their ideational grounds, undergirding neoliberal ideology with Hindu (5.2.1) and Islamic (5.2.2) ideas. In this sense, the conceptions of the world constructed by WHEF and IBF are just two of many competing articulations of neoliberal ideology, not something completely different owing to their religious content (cf. Murray and Worth, 2013: 733).

5.1- Criticism of the Existing Form of the Global Political Economy

This section lays out the ways in which WHEF and IBF confront Western social forces as the leading forces of the existing global political economy and, therefore, as responsible for its ongoing problems. Both forums take a stand against Western capitalism by defining a set of mainstream economic practices (5.1.1) and values (5.1.2) that they identify as underpinning it, and by subsequently distancing themselves from this mainstream. Although I discuss WHEF and IBF in separate sub-sections in my other empirical chapters, I do not do so here because the object of their criticism is the same: the West. Both forums’ conclusion is that the “Western way” does not work for the developing world, including India and Turkey. However, I argue that this does not constitute a radical criticism necessitating an alternative model outside capitalism (and its current appearance, neoliberalism) because it does not address labour-capital relations. This is crucial to understanding why the forums’ alternative models based on Hinduism and Islam cannot be thought of as outside neoliberal ideology, as elaborated in the next section.

5.1.1- Mainstream Economic Practices

I begin my analysis by examining WHEF, described by one of its founders Puranam as standing for an “alternative system” rooted in Hinduism (IN5). This system, for him, is distinct from the most prominent world systems, namely socialism and capitalism. He explains that socialism fails to generate wealth and that it has been proven to be wrong for India, invoking the country’s Fabian socialist period after independence. As for

151 capitalism, he states that it is “very successful at generating wealth” but has deteriorated into a “corporate model”, which is “good for some, not everyone” (ibid.). From the very beginning, then, this explanation implies that the problem is more about capitalism’s current application than its logic. When the point of departure of criticism is its application, the culprit – for WHEF – then becomes the West, justifying the call for an alternative system originated by Hindus.

WHEF comments on the global political economy by setting India at the centre of its analysis and employing a historical perspective. Figures 5 and 6 show the main categories and time frames employed in this analysis. The first period is India prior to the Mughal invasion. This is a kind of ‘golden period’ for WHEF, because it predates foreigners’ intervention into India, and India’s – for them, Hindus’ – GDP represents between 20% and 35% of global GDP in this period, as seen in Figure 5.

FIGURE 5: WHEF’s depiction of the percentage of India’s GDP over the centuries

Source: WHEF (n.d.a)

The second period is that of Mughal rule in the subcontinent, referred to as “Colonisation Phase 1” (Figure 6) or as the “Islamic Raj”, during which India’s GDP exhibits a downward trend (Figure 5). The third is the period of British colonisation, depicted as either the “British Raj” (Figure 5) or as “Colonisation Phase 2” (Figure 6), during which this downward trend becomes more serious.

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FIGURE 6: WHEF’s periodisation of India’s history49

Source: WHEF (n.d.a)

The fourth is the period immediately following India’s independence, referred to as “Self-Imposed Colonisation” or as the “Licence Raj” (Figure 6), and based on “Fabian- Nehruvian socialism” (WHEF, n.d.a). Recalling historical sedimentations from Chapter 2 that this had two dimensions: (a) firstly, although India was independent, the ruling elite applied a Western-type social system which, for WHEF elites, represented a continuation of Western colonialism (IN5), and (b) this constituted a “Licence Raj” because of the bureaucratic controls it placed on India’s economy, particularly the introduction of licences required to set up businesses, which served to eliminate small producers. This criticism forms one of the main points examined in Chapter 6, particularly in relation to WHEF’s attempts to persuade SMEs of its intellectual project (IN4).

49 India is here referred to as Bharat, the Sanskrit name for the Indian subcontinent; this is true for all of WHEF’s documentation.

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The last period is that of India post-1991, during which neoliberal transition started, and which is thus referred to as the “Post Economic Liberalisation” period (Figure 6). As seen in Figure 5, this period is circled in red, highlighting a positive change in the trend in India’s share of global GDP. Moreover, as seen in Figure 6, WHEF’s criticism of this period is not as radical as it is for the others, although it is still directed at the fact that this development was driven by “external forces” such as the World Bank and IMF, and thus had little impact on domestic issues such as education and manufacturing. This is a crucial point for WHEF, who see economic success as coming from the implementation of economic reforms suitable to the moral values of society; specifically, those drawn from Hinduism (IN5).

For WHEF, this has been proven by India’s history. When there is no external element (i.e. no non-Hindu element), economic success is forthcoming, as shown by India’s contribution of 35% of global GDP. This historical statistic is a constant reference point for WHEF in legitimising its present-day activities, demonstrating the success of India’s Hindu heritage and values in generating wealth and in making the country powerful, in contrast to the colonial and post-colonial periods. Therefore, the forum’s interpretation of the global political economy stems from one “fundamental question”; that is, “why great things are not happening for Hindu society. Why have we come down from a global GDP of 35% to 5-6% today?” (WHEF 2013b: 2). To this, their answer is the adoption of foreign or “external” values and economic systems, and the solution is going back to India’s own, these being Hindu (nationalist).

Addressing the economic practices of the West and its institutions specifically, WHEF states that there are several challenges in the current global economic order, among which “hunger, poverty and illiteracy” are the most important (WHEF n.d.b). It declares,

[t]he responses to these challenges are complex and needs to be addressed outside the current institutional framework and mindsets. The world economic leadership is only researching and acting according to traditional wisdom, i.e. cost-cutting and protectionism. (WHEF, n.d.b).

“The world leadership” refers mainly to Western social forces and specifically to certain key institutions, namely the IMF and World Bank. Debroy, an eminent economist mentioned in the previous chapter, also touches upon this issue, criticising both institutions:

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[A] liberalised global economy is largely affected by the protectionist policies of developed countries which impose trade barriers on exporters from developing countries. Economic institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF do not reflect the reality of change and power structures do not reflect global trade reality. … G20 has still not formalised its functioning (WHEF 2014b: 6).

As seen in both examples, WHEF criticises the leading forces of the global political economy for being protectionist, which hampers developing countries – including India – and particularly WHEF itself, given its aim to establish trading networks across the globe between Hindus without any protectionist measures.

“The present economic model of the world [is] not sustainable”, says Dr Manoj Motwani, CEO of a large company in Bangkok and general secretary of the Organising Committee of WHEF 2012 (WHEF 2012b: 5). Not only is this model unsustainable because of the economic practices and policies applied by its leading forces – i.e. the West and its institutions – but there is also a moral dimension to the problems that the world is facing today. For Daswani, one of the previously-mentioned patrons of WHEF and a VHP- affiliated businessman, “prosperity really comes when the poor [do not] get poorer even as the rich becomes wealthier. … [T]he world [is] plagued by the eternal vice of greed and it [is] important to create a strategy to combat it.” (WHEF 2012b: 7). Daswani’s attention to the widening gap between rich and poor can be connected to Puranam’s criticism of the system’s transformation into a “corporate model”, mentioned above. At first glance, this criticism would seem to resonate with that of anti-globalisation movements (particularly Occupy Wall Street) following the 2008 global financial crisis, in the sense that it focuses on the widening gap between rich and poor and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, phenomena which neoliberalisation has deepened.50 However, when the issue is examined further, this criticism softens and it becomes clear that the problem is more the West and its application of capitalism than the inequalities that the capitalist system produces.

Returning to the idea of the current system as a “corporate model”, Puranam says that this results in wealth – and therefore power – being placed in the hands of a few billionaires (IN5). He says that distribution is not given enough importance: “Wealth should be

50 For this discourse and its implications, see, for instance, Cobbett and Germain (2012).

155 distributed properly. We do not want more billionaires; we want more millionaires. We are not against billionaires but it is not our focus.” (ibid.). When he is asked during the interview about his ideas about distribution, and specifically whether wealth should be distributed equally, he states that “no, I would not say equally but I say properly. We believe in the Hindu philosophy of wealth creation. There is a saying: ‘Create wealth with 100 hands and share it with 1000 hands’” (ibid).

It thus becomes apparent that WHEF acknowledges and preserves this gap, placing the rich on one side as earners and distributors of wealth and the poor on the other as simply recipients. Moreover, when it comes to explaining contemporary production patterns, Puranam states that the categories of capital and labour are old terms which explain nothing today, and continues, “the most important thing today is knowledge and the WHEF gives priority to it” (ibid). For this reason, it can be said that problems confronting economic practice are not seen as systemic within capitalism; in other words, they are not seen as inherent to the system itself. Rather, Puranam’s words imply that better practice would itself fix the system’s problems; that is, not a change in the relationship between labour and capital, but a ‘proper’ distribution of wealth, guided by Hinduism, which preserves the gap between the rich and the poor. In other words, it implies that the existing global political economy can and should be fixed by the application of Hindu values.

Turning to IBF’s confrontation with the existing global political economy, a similar pattern emerges. It is clearly stated that IBF seeks an ‘alternative’ which is substantially different to the most prominent world systems, namely capitalism and communism (TU3; TU5). IBF rejects communism without question – this stemming from the anti- communist stance of the political Islamist tradition that they are subscribed to, as explained in Chapter 3 – but this occupies a less prominent place in IBF’s self- presentation than in WHEF’s, given that Turkey never adopted any form of socialism nor participated in NAM, unlike India. For this reason, IBF’s primary confrontation is with capitalism. Moreover, its criticism of capitalism is much bolder than that of WHEF, although both discourses exhibit similar overall dynamics.

Ömer Bolat, mentioned previously as an academic and as MÜSİAD president when IBF was founded, describes the existing system as “casino capitalism” or “brutal capitalism”

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(2009: 64). For Bolat, it is casino capitalism in the sense that it is founded upon “gaining money from money” or “gaining money from air”, based not upon work but upon interest, and in a manner thus proven to be wrong by the 2008 global financial crisis (ibid.). It is brutal capitalism because it creates undesired results for everyone as a result of its basic working mechanisms (ibid.). Kolonyacı, who at that time held important responsibilities within IBF, explains these working mechanisms in the following way using the same terminology:

Since the early 1990s, developed countries have been making developing countries accept the liberalisation of money and capital movements via transnational institutions such as IMF and OECD. They say that these rules have to be obeyed. And this kicked off the period of making money from money in the early 1990s. We call this casino capitalism or brutal capitalism (TU3).

As mentioned earlier, both organisations’ discourses converge around a global developmentalist discourse in which they clearly separate the core and periphery and the developed and the developing/underdeveloped, highlighting power relations wherein the West dominates over the rest. The passage quoted above is a typical example of such discourse, with leading institutions – IMF and OECD – targeted by IBF for their responsibility for what the latter calls brutal capitalism. As with WHEF, this can appear at first glance as a criticism of the system’s underlying logic – i.e. the liberalisation of money and capital movements alongside the creation of inequalities – but it is ultimately more a criticism of its application by the West and its institutions.

Thus, IBF makes a similar effort to WHEF to not see the problem as intrinsic to capitalism’s workings. As argued above, however, it becomes clear in a very straightforward way to WHEF how the problems facing existing economic practice can be fixed; by contrast, IBF’s approach is more indirect, outlining a separation between liberalism and capitalism in such a way that the former is supported while the latter is rejected (Bolat 2009: 131). Kolonyacı states that liberalism and capitalism are historically related but should not be reduced to each other and continues:

Capitalism is a rent-seeking system that supports the hegemony of capital. It focuses on securing profit and in time, it creates a central power to support profit maximisation. This is the most important aspect of capitalism regarding its relationship with individuals. Contrary to the allegations of the communists who suggest that brutal capitalism was born due to ownership of the means of production, it was born due to the

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hegemonic power mechanism that was created to sustain profit maximisation. This is what we are against. However, we support a free market economy that is based on private property rights (TU3).

From this quote, it appears that a power mechanism based on liberalism but not on profit maximisation – and thus not requiring this hegemonic quality – is seen as possible. Moreover, liberalism is understood as having problems because of its application by the West, which brings exploitation, injustice and unfairness. For instance, Bolat (2009: 174) underlines that it is not the liberal economy but the “Anglo-Saxon liberal economy” that has been proven to be wrong historically, because it was this specifically Anglo-Saxon variant that caused the global financial system to collapse.

He further explains that Islamic societies are the ones who were most affected by this global crisis, which was the result of “the disordered and chaotic environment, marketed as [a] ‘New World Order’ [in which] no criteria of justice and equality [were] left” (ibid: 174). The crisis was also referred to by IBF as “a deep economic, political, humanitarian, and environmental crisis” at the 13th IBF (IBF 2009). During the 12th IBF, held in October 2008 just a month after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it was stated that:

Cognizant of the new opportunities as well as threats arising out of new international developments in collapse of financial and non-financial institutions as led by the developed countries, the IBF strongly calls on the respective OIC governments to aim at achieving more economic and financial integration which will result in better understanding and cooperation amongst business communities in all domains. We call on Islamic countries to depart from Westernly-capitalism-oriented monetary system and expedite in producing an alternative payment, reserve unit, and deposit systems according to their own values (IBF 2008).

This passage is a good example of the way in which IBF clearly separates out the developed countries of the West and its leading institutions as the cause of the difficulties of the business world, leaving the Islamic other as the recipient of this undesired situation. More importantly, the phrase “Westernly-capitalism-oriented monetary system” also implies that the application of the Western system in other countries – i.e. Turkey – having a totally different value system – i.e. Islamic values – is problematic. For this reason, the economic system stemming from the West and its current applications in Turkey should be abandoned, and replaced by the one that is in accordance with Islamic values.

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The question again, then, is whether religion-based values are enough to form the basis of such an alternative system. As with WHEF, existing relations between labour and capital are not the main focus for IBF when examining and criticising the dynamics of capitalist economic practices. Rather, the focus is on criticism of the West, the developed and the powerful – specifically, the “corporate system” for WHEF and the “hegemonic power” for IBF – rather than of the capitalist system and its workings themselves.

Throughout this sub-section, it has been shown that neither forum directly confronts the core of Western economic practice. On the contrary, this core – that is, ownership of the means of production, inequalities resulting from social relations of production – is actually appropriated for ‘liberalism’ by IBF. This mirrors the position of WHEF, which seeks to preserve the gap between dominant and subaltern social classes but narrow it through distribution. However, the particular perspectives of both forums mean that it is still possible for both to think of their criticisms as radical, since for them the core of the system lies in the predominance of Western values. For this reason, the following sub- section looks at these forums’ elaboration of the moral side of the problems of political economy, in order to understand the main dimensions of their criticism ahead of dealing with the alternative models that they proffer as solutions. From this chapter, it will then become clear that their construction of the ‘correct’ form of global political economy has developed through a confrontation with the West and with the leading capitalist class fractions of neoliberalism, and is thus illustrative both of the conflicts and struggles within the capitalist class and of WHEF’s and IBF’s willingness to join these struggles.

5.1.2- The Western Moral Values

When the moral side of problems in the global political economy is looked at in detail, WHEF’s and IBF’s criticisms appear to become sharper and more systemic: the moral values of the West are intrinsic to capitalism, and cause undesired results for other countries having different religions and therefore value systems. Starting with WHEF again, we can turn to Professor Vaidyanathan, mentioned in Chapter 4 as one of the forum’s ideologues. He criticises the existing global political economy and its crises, directly blaming the West and its values. He states that Europe is the origin of both wars and economic crises (WHEF 2012b: 11). Similar to Bolat’s attribution of problems not to

159 the liberal economy but to the Anglo-Saxon liberal economy, Vaidyanathan prefers to call the global crisis an “Anglo-Saxon crisis” or “Euro-Yield Crisis”, explaining the reasons in the following way:

[T]he prime reason for the crisis was because the [s]avings habit had been forgotten in Anglo Saxon Europe. Similarly, family values had been abandoned and there is substantial breakdown of the family structure. In fact, ‘New Normal’ illegitimate [sic] is a term given to [the] over 50% of children who were born in 2009 to unwed women under 30 years [of] age in the UK. Further, in the UK there [are] more households with [a] TV than with a father. Adding further to this culture of illegitimacy and welfare dependency it has created, (…) Europe is facing [a] Euro Yield Crisis where people do not work more than 40 hours a week. Compounding the problem is the huge demographic crisis since the population of Europe is now merely 3% of the world population, although it earlier comprised 25%. The unemployment rate in Spain now is 24%, in Greece it is at 48%, Portugal at 30%, UK at 22[.]3% and [US] at 18%. In addition to all these they are facing another problem of rising numbers of [b]elievers in Islam. (ibid: 11).

In this example, there is a direct link established between the West’s values and the crisis. It is also notable that certain historical sedimentations – linking the West’s problems with its being non-Hindu – are observable in his account. It is important to say that this is not specific to Vaidyanathan’s discourse; rather it is a common tendency in WHEF documentation, panellists’ presentations and interviews. This is related to WHEF’s organic relationship with Hindu nationalism, which exalts Hindu values while seeing every kind of non-Hindu element as inferior.

Looking at another of Vaidyanathan’s presentations, anti-Western discourse and the exaltation of Hindu heritage become even clearer: “We are blessed that Goddess Laxmi is our primary deity and Goddess Saraswati is the [f]acilitator of knowledge. As Shri Aurobindo once said, ‘on the ruins of western civilization Bharat will arise.’” (WHEF 2012b: 11). In this way, WHEF relates the re-emergence of India to the decline of the Western ‘other’ on a global level. For Vaidyanathan, this is what has been happening for a while, and for this reason it is time for India to rise again on the global stage, with the (Hindu) values of the past. He gives some numbers to prove this:

The GDP of G7 nations has reduced from 51% in 1990 to 36% and the GDP of the emerging economies such as Bharat, Brazil and China has risen, in the same period, from 36% to 52%. (…) [It is important] to recognise the shift in the economic axis of the world. The Hindus should take note of this shift and we should understand them as re-emerging

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markets and not emerging ones. We need to [take] note of the civilisational underpinnings. Hindus should create alliances with similar “Dharmic” civilisations and ensure the re-emergence of Bharat (WHEF 2013b: 7; emphasis added).

This shift in global development, to the benefit of the developing countries, underpins WHEF’s “wakeup call” in general. In his “Welcome Speech” at WHEF 2012 in Hong Kong, Sohan Goenka, the president of the Steering Committee, stated that “[it is] the right time to give a wakeup call to all our Hindu brethren. (…) Hindus have to re-remerge on the economic map of the world in the 21st century” (2012b: 6). Again, this is framed as a “re-emergence” because WHEF’s reference point is the period between the 1st and 15th centuries, during which WHEF claims that Hindus across Asia collectively contributed 35-49% of global GDP (WHEF 2013b: 25). For this reason, Vaidyanathan’s focus on cooperation with Dharmic civilisations is important.

The “civilisational underpinnings” that Vaidyanathan mentions above relate to WHEF’s strategy of giving importance to communities having different beliefs within India (e.g. Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism etc.), as well as countries having similar traditions thanks to their geographical proximity (e.g. China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, etc.). This will be revisited in the next section in relation to WHEF’s alternative model, but it is necessary to note that neither the significant Muslim minority in India nor the considerable historical and cultural common ground shared by India and its neighbour Pakistan are incorporated into these civilisational underpinnings, which are restricted by religion, or ‘dharma’. Thus, WHEF’s criticism stems from a Hindu nationalistic stance, which focuses on Hindu identity and excludes the ‘other’ on both discursive and practical bases. As the next section mentions, there is a strong emphasis on the idea that if India can escape the values imposed upon it and go back to its original –meaning Hindu – roots, the prosperous times will return.

As with WHEF, when turning to the moral side of the problems of the global political economy, IBF’s criticism gets bolder, and the moral values of the West are presented as the main driver of the capitalist system. One of IBF’s founders Uhur criticises capitalism’s moral values, and then relates them to the current state of the global political economy. For him, IBF’s starting point is the human itself, and Islam is the true nature of humanity (TU5). Therefore, those leading the global political economy now do not

161 understand the true nature of being human, and besides, they “desert their disposition” (ibid.). He continues:

They cannot mature enough to be fully human. Whatever they do, they cannot. When we look at the world economy, the system that was created by the same people is not suitable to human nature. Why? How can those who are not righteous themselves create a righteous system? They perceive the world as a place to live fully in and then leave behind. They are hedonistic, pleasure-based, so to speak; this is a point of view that connects everything to pleasure. They enter politics defending America’s favour only. They do not look out for others’ rights at all... They say ‘me’, ‘my benefit’; they have an egoistic point of view. This brings a capitalist view, because if I am an egoist, I have to be a capitalist. … We cannot be capitalists in gaining, keeping and spending our possessions. We have to give some part of our belongings to the poor. … Capitalists say, any way to gain riches is permissible. Just earn it. You can earn it by gambling. Capitalists are ok with the money earned by gambling (ibid.).

In this quote, Uhur calls Western social forces “capitalists” and separates IBF’s point of view from theirs. His main target is these capitalists’ individualistic culture and reluctance in sharing what they gain with the poor. He also uses the term “gambling” to describe capitalism, resonating with Bolat’s (2009) comments about interest, mentioned earlier, as the core of the capitalist economy. It is “casino capitalism”, based on “gaining money from air”, and proven to be wrong by the 2008 crisis.

It is necessary to note, however, that IBF’s criticism of the system and its disadvantages does not start with the global crisis. Rather, it is a feature of their view, traced back to the political Islamist NVM as explained in Chapter 3, in which the West and Islamic societies are the two opposing sides. For instance, during the 7th IBF in 2003, approximately five years before the crisis, the world system is described as the “New World Disorder”:

Taking note of the fact that the Islamic Nations have been going through one of the hardest times ever, and are under serious threats to tackle [the] colossal challenges of the ‘New World Disorder’, the IBF strongly calls on the respected governments of the OIC to aim at achieving … more economic integration [that] will result in [greater] political rapprochement and socio-cultural integration among Muslim Nations” (IBF 2003).

This explanation is also related to global developments, particularly those placing the Middle East in trouble, and specifically the Iraq-US War beginning in 2003. Indeed, the 7th IBF was held only months after the US’s invasion of Iraq.

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IBF events are business meetings, but they also tie its members to each other on a political level through shared ownership of the problems of every Islamic or Muslim- majority country and through expressions of collective solidarity. For this reason, it is possible to find IBF reports which touch upon social issues or make calls for action. For instance, at the 18th IBF in 2004, it was stated that IBF was calling “on the member countries of the OIC to act in a united manner to resist … imposed projects on them such as the so-called Greater Middle Eastern [sic] project” (IBF 2004). Similarly, among the decisions taken during the 10th and 11th IBFs in 2006 and 2007 respectively, there were resolutions to “mobilise the means to support [the] Palestinian economy via brand awareness of Palestinian products, fairs and [a] ‘Buy Palestinian Goods’ campaign” and “to contribute positively to the solution side of the issue for the fellow businesspeople who are held under the siege in Palestine” (IBF 2006, 2007). In the same manner, at the 6th IBF, “gravest concerns” were expressed about “the aggression against Muslim people of Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir and Kosovo, as well as the Holy Masjid Al-Aqsa in Al- Qudus” and the decision was made to “support all efforts in deploying special international peacekeeping forces from OIC countries in these troubled regions” (IBF 2001). Through these efforts and others like them, IBF forms “a coherent collective identity” based on “a unity of faith” and creates “a collective image of social order” (cf. Shields 2019: 823; Gramsci 1971: 326; Cox 1981: 136).

This is done in the context of a binary conception of the global political economy, similar to that of WHEF but putting Muslim communities on the other side of the West, not Hindus. In IBF’s conceptualisation, the West is not fair but is powerful, whereas Islamic societies – the majority of the rest – have the ‘right’ guidelines from Allah but are not powerful. For IBF, this is not only a problem affecting Islamic countries, but a general problem affecting everyone globally in terms of sustainable economic growth and development. For instance, at the 18th IBF in 2014 it was stated that

Western countries which have more than 60% of total voting power in institutions like IMF and World Bank and also oligopoly financial institutions in the global banking system, serve [the] general interest of [these] countries. This constitutes a barrier to sustainable economic growth and development (IBF 2014b).

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This also legitimises IBF’s efforts to form a collective identity based on Islam, opening space for their business activities, as these activities are not supported by the leading neoliberal institutions. Uhur summarises his views on this issue by referring to a story in the Bible, David and Goliath, and by drawing an analogy between this story and the current situation:

Sure this is like David and Goliath! There is a tiny David against a giant Goliath. But we have always said that we are responsible for working but we are not responsible for winning. Allah is not going to ask us why we did not gain the results. He will ask whether we worked or not. All that matters is to try our best. Human life is a struggle. From the point we are born – it starts with the baby coming out of its mother – life starts with a cry. It is actually not a cry; indeed, it is opening of lungs. That cry is to empty the water in the lungs, because the child has not had a single breath until that point. The child has been feeding on water. There is a need for a cry. Islam is able to hear the cry of humanity. Today, humanity has a cry. There are vast riches on earth. But there are also hungry people (TU5).

This is thus understood as a general problem, the problem of humanity. IBF presents itself as a part of the solution, answering humanity’s cry despite the extreme challenge involved. Keeping in mind that “tiny David” ultimately won his battle against “giant Goliath”, the alternative that IBF suggests is thus perceived as a step towards Islamic countries’ victory over the West. It provides the reason for IBF’s establishment, this representing the creation of a tool sufficient to meet the challenges of the global setting. IBF views globalisation as “an inequitable economic mechanism favouring only the advanced and developed countries of the West[,] and hereby call[s] all IBF members worldwide to adopt carefully formulated strategic moves in facing challenges of globalisation” (IBF 2001).

As seen in this section, WHEF’s and IBF’s criticisms are more significant when they focus on the moral side of problems in the existing global political economy. This is because they see Western values as intrinsic to capitalism, and thus provide the basis for their rejection of it, at least on a discursive level. Global economic crises and sustainability problems are linked to the savings habits and individualistic culture of the West, rather than the material structures underlying capitalism. As seen in the previous sub-section, when they talk about these structures and economic practices neither forum targets the social relations producing them, thus providing them with room to see religion and religious values as the solution. The next section will look at the alternative models

164 suggested by both forums, and how they employ religion-based ideas to mediate neoliberal ideology.

5.2- Two Alternative Models Based on Hinduism and Islam?

This section examines the ideational grounds of WHEF’s and IBF’s supposed alternatives to socialism and capitalism. Although these forums have no relationship with each other, they both refer to their own models with the word “civilisation”, with WHEF promoting “Hindu civilisation” (WHEF 2013b: 31) and IBF advocating “Islamic civilisation” (TU3). Since both forums criticise the current model as being alien to their respective countries’ values, each “civilisation” focuses on Hindu and Islamic legacies, social institutions and alternative financial tools.

This section elaborates upon the building blocks of these alternative models. I argue that although both forums construct their models with ideas stemming from different religions, the way in which they do so is significantly similar. I also highlight that this similarity stems from the importance that both place on the international, as they both articulate forms of neoliberalism (with its underlying accumulation strategy) and seek to join global struggles over wealth, power, and knowledge production in their own ways (cf. Murphy 2000). In this, they illustrate variegated political-ideological expressions of neoliberal ideology (cf. Macartney 2008, 2009).

5.2.1- Hindu Civilisation: Knowledge Production, Spiritual Enrichment, and Community Finance

WHEF claims that their model, “Hindu civilisation”, stands for a “Hindu philosophy of wealth creation” (IN5), representing “a new and creative response … which can propel [the] creation of surplus wealth to rescue the world economy from its current crisis” (WHEF, n.d.b). This response consists of three elements: knowledge production, spiritual enrichment and community finance. These three elements, which define both the economic model and the nature of its confrontation with the West, also represent the building blocks of its construction as the ‘correct’ form of the global political economy. WHEF articulates neoliberal ideology with respect to these elements, illustrating how religion acts as a social process which mediates neoliberal ideology. Thus, this model can

165 be thought of as an alternative within contemporary neoliberal ideology, not an alternative to it.

WHEF describes itself as a “dharma-based” forum, and the knowledge it produces is particularly based on Hindu dharma. WHEF’s description of Hindu Dharma is as follows:

Hindu is an unbounded word and symbolizes “sanatan” – “eternal”. Dharma means “That, which sustains” … Individual, Family, Community, Society, Nature, Living and non-living beings; that which ETERNALLY SUSTAINS EVERYTHING, is Hindu Dharma. There is NO word in English or any other language that accurately conveys the real meaning of Dharma. The closest English words by which we can try to express the meaning of Hindu Dharma in some way could be “Hindu Civilization”. Therefore, [WHEF] could be described as a Civilization Based Economic Forum, which has been created to cater to the requirements for sustaining everything. This is why the driving vision of WHEF is “Dharmasya Moolam Arthah” i.e. “sustaining through economic prosperity”. WHEF welcomes all of those communities and groups, which believe in and practice Dharma (WHEF 2013b 31; original emphasis).

“Hindu civilisation” is thus suggested as the best translation of “Hindu dharma”, though this concept itself needs more explanation. Hinduism is not an Abrahamic religion like Islam; for that reason, there are controversies over whether religion as a category correctly fits in the Indian case. Dharma as a concept is therefore generally used in order to “[privilege] an Indian category” over Western equivalents in Hindu nationalist circles (Viswanathan 2014).

Knowledge production is the first key element of WHEF’s Hindu civilisation model. Dharma, being different from other religions, provides its own knowledge with which to guide Hindus in today’s global political economy. As was explained previously, WHEF’s mission is to make Hindu society prosperous and to strengthen the Hindu economy on a global scale. To this end, it brings people together to produce and “spread the knowledge of how wealth is made to all Hindus” (WHEF 2013a). In other words, keeping its criticism of the existing global political economy in mind, it agrees with Bhamidimarri (mentioned earlier) that the “[s]tatus quo is not going to work” and that WHEF “need[s] to bring a change through knowledge and innovation” (WHEF 2013: 19).

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According to WHEF, this dharmic knowledge comes from ancient Hindu civilisation, but can easily be applied to today. Gururaj Deshpande, a businessman from the US and WHEF 2016 panellist, states that “Hindu Dharma is a living thing and has an amazing ability to reinvent itself and stay relevant – it is very entrepreneurial in a lot of ways” (WHEF 2016b: 6). WHEF, as a collective organic intellectual of religiously-oriented elites, finds this ‘entrepreneurial’ spirit in Hinduism and uses it as the basis of its articulation of neoliberalism. There are several examples of this. For instance, the importance of the family structure to WHEF – expressed in the previous section in its criticisms of the West – is further stressed by Satya Narayan Bansal, CEO of Barclays Wealth in India and WHEF 2014 panellist, who emphasises how this structure works for economic growth:

Our civilization is one of the oldest incubation facilities. Example: People are encouraged to work in a family business environment, and after developing business acumen they are encouraged to start their own business. Many of the current billionaires owe it to such an environment for their success (WHEF 2014b: 21).

Similarly, Jayaprasad Vejendla, a young entrepreneur from Silicon Valley and WHEF 2015 panellist, relates this Indian familial ‘incubation’ to the concept of mentorship, which has a particular importance in Hinduism. Referring to the way in which skills and knowledge in Ancient India were transferred to the next generation by gurus – mentors in Hinduism – he suggests emulating this via “entrepreneur incubation funds” in Silicon Valley, introduced by and for Hindu entrepreneurs (WHEF 2015b:16). I revisit the issue of mentorship in the next chapter, because WHEF elites consider themselves ‘business mentors’, transferring knowledge to subordinate groups like SMEs and young entrepreneurs. These examples are illustrative of how WHEF appropriates ancient India’s legacy to talk about – and develop solutions for – today’s global political economy.

Issues of governance and government are also approached through this ancient Indian lens. For instance, for Debroy, good governance can be achieved by learning from an ancient trade practice in India wherein “the business had ‘Shreins’ or what the modern world calls ‘Guilds’.” (WHEF 2013b: 8). Governance, in this system, was performed mainly by these guilds – groups of business professionals holding certain knowledge and practices in common – rather than by politicians; Debroy states that they “performed the same role [that] is expected from the Government today … They regulated [competition],

167 maintained standards and effectively took care of traders and [the] business community as well.” (ibid.). His conclusion – that there should only be minimal state involvement in the economy – thus follows naturally: “[if] there is no government involvement, the Hindu economy will certainly do better as it doesn’t depend upon government traditionally, as mentioned in the Arthashastra of Kautilya and Mahabharata.” (WHEF 2014: 6). Again, the reference points are drawn from ancient India: Kautilya’s Arthashastra, a treatise on the state, economy and politics, and the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata. A similar conceptualisation can be found in Puranam’s ideas on the state’s relationship with the economy (IN5). He says that the state’s role is not to conduct business; rather, it should only facilitate its growth.

What Debroy and Puranam say resonates with New Right ideology, privileging the market over the state but keeping the latter in play to support the former when needed. However, although Debroy himself joined the MPS, he cites Kautilya rather than the ideologues of neoliberalism. This matters to the overall project of making sense of neoliberal ideology in India for its religiously-oriented elites (as well as its subordinate groups as will be seen in Chapter 6), drawing upon not Western concepts or lines of thought but Hindu sources. It is an important aspect of the way in which WHEF operationalises its intellectual project to legitimise neoliberal ideology, relying on ancient India’s legacy and, therefore, upon common sense and historical sedimentations. In the end, the knowledge produced by WHEF – in defining the ‘correct’ form of global political economy – ultimately serves to reproduce neoliberal common sense, albeit in a manner mediated by religion.

Building upon the base represented by this knowledge, the integration of Hindu values and spirituality with material growth becomes the second important dimension of WHEF’s model. To WHEF, spiritual enrichment based on Hinduism is concomitant with wealth creation. Its abandonment – i.e. through the application of other, non-Hindu or Western, economic development models – has been proven harmful to India, as demonstrated by colonial and recent post-colonial history. A speech given by Indian businessman and WHEF 2012 panellist Ashok Chowgule highlights this conviction:

The reason [for] our low growth in [the] past was that we had an important ethos from outside, which did not work for us. It is Hindu spirituality … which has raised Bharat’s growth to an ascendant part today. At present

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one can see much spirituality in the business field, for which awareness was already there but has changed from being sub-conscious to conscious. Kautilya’s ‘Arthashastra’ needs to be studied in detail as it contains a lot of advice beneficial to businessmen in present times too. The planning and administration that is mentioned in Arthashastra is remarkable (WHEF 2012b: 8).

Again, Kautilya’s text is brought forward to guide Hindu businesspeople today to work under neoliberal ideology in a manner informed by Hindu spirituality. Similarly, Deshpande, mentioned earlier for his ideas on dharma, speaks about three main pillars of a healthy living environment, namely “economic activity, social impact and spiritual growth” (WHEF 2016b: 6). Invoking memories of India from his own upbringing, he states that “there was a lot of scarcity and hardly any business, but there was an abundance of Hindu values such as respect and love. Even after centuries of subjugation, Hindu values and Hindu Dharma survived and thrived” (ibid.).

With these examples, it is clear that the platform WHEF provides helps people to bring their religious identity and values together with their technical knowledge. Ravi Tilak, CEO of a large company in the US and chairman of the organising committee of WHEF 2016, further elaborates on this issue, saying:

[B]usinesses are realizing that there is something beyond analytics and pragmatism, which is passion. It is very interesting how passion is strongly correlated with religion. Society gives us religion and we develop a value out of that – it is this value which we need to inculcate in business. … If you leave your Hindu identity at home, then you will end up having a split identity. Living in an integrated way with your religion is so vital. Our love for the word ‘Hindu’ and all that it stands for has brought us here (WHEF 2016b: 5)..

This passage is a good example of religion’s key role in the model that WHEF proposes. Rather than constituting the WHEF model on its own, religion instead serves to mediate other social relations.

Although Tilak states that it is “love for the word ‘Hindu’” that brings people together under WHEF’s banner, there is actually one more decisive determinant of attendance at these business-related knowledge-sharing meetings: class. As outlined in Chapter 4, WHEF is ultimately composed of, and speaks to the class interests of, a particular group of religiously-oriented elites. However, its focus on religion – based on creating a ‘coherent’ collective religious identity – helps to obscure the class relations behind

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WHEF’s model. Thus, it is religiously-oriented elites that organise and attend these forums, not everyone bearing a Hindu identity (such as religious subalterns). However, its knowledge and strategies are all expressed in universal terms, framed as being beneficial for everyone, or at least all Hindus. For example, Puranam states that

Hinduism bears a universal value. We do not have any interest in convincing other people to be Hindu but this system works for all because we suggest a sustainable economy based on universal values. This would support the poor in organising distribution of wealth (IN5).

Again, however, this represents only the application of some Hindu spirituality to existing social relations.

The last main component of WHEF’s model is community finance. During WHEF 2013 “trust-based community finance” is promoted as an alternative model of finance:

[C]ommunity finance is usually based on knowing your borrower and social support to ensure their success. We trust introductions from trusted parties. Trust provides that community cohesion, which builds and bonds stronger community relationships. Important opportunities can be accessed and obstacles a business may encounter can be overcome by creating effective networks. Therefore one of the greatest … [bases] for useful opportunities for Hindu business is availability of quality community networks (WHEF 2013a).

This focus on community can be traced back to India’s Hindu nationalist movements beyond its strategic utility to WHEF. In general, as was explained in Chapter 2, the search for an alternative system is not peculiar to WHEF; instead, it can be traced back to the mid-1960s, when the Hindu nationalist Jan Sangh, the forerunner of the BJP, argued that adopting an alternative way suitable to India’s development (Nanda 2011: 27-28). In this sense, WHEF – as an organisation coming from that tradition – builds upon the common sense created through these historical sedimentations, but combines it with contemporary financial tools such as trust-based community finance. This integration of traditional ideas with contemporary financial techniques and knowledge is important to understanding WHEF’s vision.

Based on their compatibility with its social values, for instance, certain investment methods are also promoted by WHEF. For instance, Saresh Kumar from the Federal Bank of India, a WHEF 2015 panellist, suggests raising investment capital through non- traditional methods – such as venture capital, hybrid debt, and securitisation – on the

170 basis that traditional methods – such as evergreen loans, overdrafts and term loans from banks – represent a “colonial legacy that masks inefficiencies” (WHEF 2015: 8). Similarly, Rajeev Srivastra, CEO of an MNC in Southeast Asia and a WHEF 2015 panellist, suggests “venture philanthropy”, which involves both investment in high-risk projects and the allocation of funds for social causes. For him, to engage in venture philanthropy is to

support Social Entrepreneurs who create successful for profit, non- exploitative and sustainable organizations that include community development as the core element of the Business Model. Employees of such transparent virtue based organizations feel more engaged and empowered (WHEF 2015: 9).

Again, “community development” is presented as the core motive for investment in this passage, along with an injunction to be “non-exploitative”. However, without any change in labour-capital relations and in the mode of production, applying these methods – which essentially integrate finance and social causes or economic propositions and Hindu values – is not sufficient to constitute an alternative to neoliberal ideology. Indeed, these financial tools have been created within the scope of neoliberalism, and WHEF is not the only platform to promote or use them.

Thus, the main pillars of WHEF’s “Hindu civilisation” model – knowledge production based on Hindu dharma, spiritual enrichment in the sense of bringing Hindu values into business strategy, and community finance – do not represent a striking departure from neoliberal ideology and its working mechanisms. Hindu values and identity matter, and are able to give their colour to the business world in a general sense, but these values and identities do not necessarily create or refer to a model outside of contemporary neoliberal ideology. Instead, they demonstrate the variegated political-ideological expressions of it as mediated through varying social relations in different contexts, with religion this mediator in the Indian context.

5.2.2- Islamic Civilisation: The Charitable Sector, Islamic Financial Culture, and Participatory Finance

Having examined the ideational grounds of WHEF’s model, this sub-section takes a closer look at those of IBF’s. With the same motivation as WHEF – that is, creating a unique strategy distinct from capitalism and communism – IBF claims that its model,

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“Islamic civilisation”, has arisen as “a Muslim response to [the] existing global economic setting”, having its roots in the historical legacies of Islam (TU3). A summary of this model is as follows:

Islamic civilisation is suitable for a social market economy and for free trade; however, it is against interest and capitalism. Islamic civilisation says yes to growth; however, it is against growth and development via exploiting others, oppressing others and ill-gotten gains. As it is based on a social market economy, it says yes to free trade, entrepreneurship and production, but stands against the system which hurts others, which disqualifies others unfairly and harshly, and which accumulates interest, because interest is a burden on costs. This creates a sharp conflict between Islam and the economic system of Western hegemony (ibid.).

This model, too, has three pillars: the development of the charitable sector, the creation of a new financial culture based on Islamic values, and the use of Islamic finance along with a new generation of investment and funding tools. As seen in the above quote, IBF suggests that these three components together comprise an alternative to capitalism.

IBF is a forum for producing and sharing knowledge, and this knowledge has its roots in the historical legacies of Islam. Although IBF, like WHEF, goes back to ancient times to reconstruct these legacies, this process is not restricted only to Turkey’s history, instead covering all regions where Islam is the popular (if not the official) religion. For this reason, IBF underpins its model with references to the Asr-ı Saadet, the period during which the Prophet Muhammed was alive and thus presided over all Muslims irrespective of backgrounds. This consists of two shorter periods – the Mecca and Medina periods – defined with respect to where the Prophet lived. While the Mecca period involved his being a prophet and engaging in wars for the sake of Muslims, the Medina period refers to the span of time encompassing the establishment of the Islamic state and administration. The latter has a particular importance for IBF. President of IBF states that the first market that brought Muslims together to trade based on faith and morals was the Medina Market, established by the Prophet himself (IBF 2014a).

Uhur repeats that what IBF does today follows the logic of the Medina Market (TU5). During the interview, he elaborates on this view:

Islam is a holistic perception of life beyond being a religion. That means, in contrast to what the West sees – i.e. a relationship between individual and God – religion, specifically Islam, gives a mission to Muslims, which

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covers every area of life, business, family, etc. Prophet Muhammed, who brought this mission to humanity, was also a merchant. For that reason, we also perceive Muhammed the merchant in the Prophet Muhammed. Besides, the only prophet bearing the feature of being a merchant is our prophet. As there would be no prophet coming to the earth after him, he left us this great feature and activity of all times. What did our prophet, his serene highness, do then? When he immigrated to Medina where he founded the state, the first thing he established was masjid for all Muslims to gather and the second was the Medina Market (ibid.).

From these words, it can thus be seen that IBF identifies its mission as that of the Prophet. In this sense, its activities turn out to be for Islam itself. Every aim of IBF – i.e. prosperity and power in the global political economy – comes to be related to religion. This presents a transcendental reason for members to gather, overshadowing their worldly aims and interests. IBF’s knowledge and practice, therefore, come to be constructed around a collective Muslim identity rooted in the Prophet’s activities and in Islamic ways of thinking.

Basing its mission on the legacies of Islam, the first element of IBF’s model thus comes to be the development of the charitable sector. This paves the way for the easy introduction of Islamic moralities. The charitable sector also helps IBF to discuss issues on both the individual and institutional levels; for instance, at the 18th IBF, it “recommend[ed] the development of the charitable sector through [the] institutions of zakat, waqf and sadakah to unlock the liquidity that exists in these unique Islamic institutions” (IBF 2014b). Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam, and consists of a mandatory donation of a particular amount of wealth to the poor and needy at a particular time each year. On the other hand, waqf and sadakah are not obligatory, being donations of any size that can be made at any time. Waqf consists of an endowment to a religious, educational or charitable organisation, while sadakah refers to voluntary giving to the poor on an individual basis.

Bolat (2009: 115) states that Islamic civilisation can also be called “waqf civilisation”, as it is based on voluntary entrepreneurship. These three social institutions – zakat, waqf and sadakah – are applicable both to individuals’ daily lives and to institutional bodies such as non-governmental or non-profit organisations, and both are urged to ensure that these institutions are “used effectively for the development of [the] entrepreneurial ecosystem” by IBF (2016). The point of adopting Islamic moralities – which are relevant to each and

173 every Muslim – is therefore to link them to economic activities, such as creating funds or promoting entrepreneurship. At the 20th IBF it was announced that “zakat and [the] foundation system [charity/donation system] should be widespread. Especially if the foundations are properly assessed, millions of dollars of new funds will be created and it will lead to significant positive results in terms of entrepreneurship” (ibid.).

Uhur also touches upon this issue, with a national focus:

We need to be establishing charities; we need to try hard to give to the poor. Otherwise, what is the point of riches? We tell all Muslims that we need to gain wealth. For what? Not to brag, just to give to those who cannot get it, we say. Reach out to them. May your hand be the one which reaches them. Look, Turkey is the second biggest donor state on earth today, after the US. Why? Because Erdoğan follows this philosophy, too. Turkey has become the second country that helps poor countries the most, after the US. We came second! Not the UK, not France, not Germany… None of those countries are there. They are five, six times richer than us. We need to have a sense of responsibility (TU5).

IBF’s organic relationship with JDP – as detailed in Chapter 4 – is also possible to see here, in Uhur’s demonstration of Erdoğan’s philosophical common ground with IBF. However, this emphasis on the charitable sector does not necessarily place IBF’s model outside of capitalism; on the contrary, religion-based charities may in fact reinforce neoliberal common sense by reaching those who are disadvantaged by current conditions, i.e. the poor in IBF’s discourse (cf. Murray and Worth 2013). This illustrates how IBF, similarly to WHEF, sets out the problem as one of distribution rather than of the social relations of production.

The second building block of IBF’s model is the creation of a new financial culture based on Islam. During the 21st IBF, the current president of MÜSİAD, Abdurrahman Kaan, stated that:

We now need a new financial system, or more importantly ‘a change in the financial culture.’ We need to move away from the traditional financial system to the side where we can share our profit with those who deserve it. When we look at it, the risk factor will exist in any system … but a system that balances risk and gains is possible. It is risk-sharing participatory finance which promises change [in] that regard. Participatory finance by nature is a sustainable model [and] therefore it has the potential to not only become an alternative, but also become the main financial system (IBF 2017).

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The desire to universalise a particular form of knowledge – represented by the IBF model – is also visible in this quote, despite its specificity to the Islamic-oriented business elite. As wealth distribution is a problem of the global political economy, Kaan states, IBF’s model sorts out this problem by distributing wealth among those who deserve it. During the same forum, Kaan also calls this new financial culture “humane finance”, and emphasises the need to “rule out the concept of interest” (ibid.).

Thus, IBF accepts the prominence of financialisation, but attempts to ‘correct’ the mistakes of traditional finance systems by making them more ‘human’, namely by sharing financial gains with the poor. More importantly, IBF’s new system would be a sustainable one, free from current sources of crisis and instability. This would be true not only for Muslims but for everyone, leading Kaan to speculate that the new system might even replace the old one altogether. This resonates with ideas expressed by Uhur, who claims that the IBF model should be the “thesis” rather than the “anti-thesis” of the global political economy:

We like to be the thesis, not the anti-thesis. … This is the nature of humans, we say. … A Muslim finds these answers via the holy book – Quran – that guides them and via the Prophet that guides us through the book. And the Muslim takes over this mission. He becomes the mission itself. This means, we are the thesis. … We say that this is the mission of humanity. Not only [that] this is the mission of a Muslim (TU5).

As in the case of WHEF’s model, this results in a kind of conflict. On the one hand, IBF’s alternative – bringing about a new set of values and culture – is for all humanity, and described on the basis of universal values such as fairness, humanity, and freedom from exploitation. On the other hand, this culture is already the culture of Islam, and is being advocated by elites. It is this specific culture which needs to apply everywhere. Also, similarly to WHEF, the collective Muslim identity created by IBF is presented as a ‘coherent’ and class-free one.

The third building block of IBF’s model is the use of Islamic finance along with a new generation of investment and funding tools. Bolat (2009: 72-73) states that there is an urgent need for an alternative system in the world economy, and that this alternative system should be based on a multi-polar financial system and on interest-free financing as opposed to the existing unipolar system. The former is necessary because the current global economy has one financial centre (New York) and one reserve currency (US

175 dollar), meaning that problems in either impact upon other parts of the world, as seen during the global financial crisis (ibid.: 72). In place of this, therefore, there is a need to create a system having multiple financial centres – such as the US, the Eurozone, the Middle East-Gulf regions, and East Asia – to cope with the problems resulting from the US system. Relating this to the broader criticism of capitalism, he explains:

Global capitalism has removed the obstacle to high interest rates by advocating the free movement of capital, while at the same time limiting others’ economic activities. If Muslims want to take precautions against the effects of capitalism and against financial terrorism they should form organisations and make investment plans for creating funds that other Muslims can make use of. Islamic unity should be seen as a step towards developing a collective conscience for the sharing of information, reforms and production of technology. Turkey and the countries that form the Islamic world should definitely overcome obstacles such as quotas and customs tariffs that hinder trade and the circulation of goods, financial barriers affecting banking services and the validity of credit, and obstacles to land, sea and air transportation (ibid: 175; emphasis added).

As seen in this passage, the current system is criticised in terms of its capitalistic nature; however, the Eurozone is used as a source of inspiration for Islamic countries as if it is not a part of this same capitalist system. Moreover, the whole passage reveals a “problem-solving” (Cox 1981) disposition, in the sense that it accepts finance (albeit a different form of it) and focuses on removing obstacles to its operation rather than rejecting it outright.

As interest is forbidden in the Quran, the problem of interest is frequently addressed in IBF documentation and interviews. Kolonyacı, for instance, states:

Interest is an instrument which we are forbidden both to receive and to give in our belief system; therefore, we have always encouraged interest- free systems to become widespread. We have worked for obstacles, such as regulations. … The interest-bearing system, with exorbitant interest rates, has a seriously high cost. However, the most important thing is that if Allah forbade this, we cannot discuss, we have to obey. This is our code of beliefs. If a guy is overlooking this, this is his own responsibility, to carry to his sins and good deeds gallery. However as MÜSİAD and IBF, we never encourage interest and we want it to be avoided. Therefore we wish for interest-free financial institutions to get stronger and we use them (TU3).

From these words, it is clear that IBF is against regulations in the global political economy and sees considerable disadvantages to interest-based financial systems. Kazan,

176 a member of senior staff of MÜSİAD responsible for organising IBF events as discussed in Chapter 4, similarly highlights the ways in which this system creates inequalities for those who believe in an interest-free economy when they attempt to integrate with the world (TU2).

IBF never issues contradictory statements on interest-based financing and never promotes it in its documents, but some interviewees provide differing accounts. For instance, Uhur responds to the question of whether any IBF members work with interest in the following way:

We have friends who do not use interest and some who do, saying “Brother, we are only the 5% of today’s financial world, how can we not use the 95% of the system?” However, I do not know anyone who puts their money in the bank and lives on the interest it brings. But there is a duality in taking bank credit. Shall we do murabaha [a form of credit sale under Islamic law] or shall we take credit from the bank? There are people that are very sensitive about this and there are those who use both. However, there is a thing that no Muslim would do: they would not put their money, say 100 lira, in the bank and live on the interest of it. They would not do that; this is the red line (TU5).

Mirroring his earlier analogy between the David-Goliath story and today’s global political economy, here the violation of an Islamic rule is explained by Uhur as an occasional necessity following from the hierarchical structure of the global economy, in which Islamic countries are disadvantaged. Under these circumstances, rather than earning money from interest – which is clearly forbidden in the Quran – it is earning money from interest without working that becomes the red line.

Islamic countries’ coming together under platforms like OIC and IBF has helped Islamic finance to grow over time. At the 18th IBF in 2014, it was announced that the “Islamic Finance Industry is … entering its fifth decade in its contemporary phase” and that “despite its small size, [the] Islamic Finance Industry is now part of [the] Global Financial system with a role in contributing to economic growth and financial stability” (IBF 2014b). Pointing to the statistics of the previous year, it was stated that the Islamic finance industry “saw annual growth of 18.6%” and that Islamic finance assets stood at “approximately 2 trillion dollars globally with more non-Muslim markets opening up to Islamic Finance including the UK, South Africa, Hong Kong and Singapore” (ibid.).

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The main mechanism promoted by IBF in terms of Islamic finance is risk-sharing participatory finance. Within that mechanism, financial instruments such as sukuk [an Islamic financial certificate, the equivalent of a bond in Western finance] and murabaha are encouraged (TU5; IBF 2016). What differentiates them from bonds and credit is that they are based on valuation and repayment mechanisms which are not founded on interest. During the 20th IBF in 2016, it was stated that “Islamic financing instruments that reach to 2.3 trillion dollars in the global economy [represent] an important opportunity in terms of access to finance and entrepreneurship. Islamic finance instruments like Sukuk should be widespread and encouraged.” (ibid.). As stated, Islamic finance is indeed a growing sector and the economic unity of the Islamic-oriented countries helps it to be more effective in the world economy. However, it should be noted that these instruments are most effective in sectors – such as the “multimillion dollar halal sector” (IBF 2014b) – in which Islamic-oriented participants are dominant, with many other sectors employing Western financial instruments.

Thus, interest-free financing is a mechanism which is by definition promoted by – and which works in sectors mostly dominated by – Islamic countries. However, other financial instruments are not totally rejected in practice, especially when working with non-OIC countries. For this reason, during the 18th IBF it was suggested that “the transition towards risk sharing participatory finance has to be gradual and should involve existing equity market architecture” (ibid.). Hence, similarly to WHEF, IBF discusses and suggests applying a new generation of investment and funding instruments, such as angel investment and crowd-funding. During the 20th IBF, it was stated that:

Angel investment[, which] has reached 24.1 billion dollars in US [and] 5.5 billion euros in the Eurozone as of 2014[,] should be extended in our country. Incentives for angel investors that offer an important alternative model against the problem of access to finance due to high interest rates should be increased. … Crowd-funding … should be developed. This type of funding, which aims to provide capital for entrepreneurs in the form of co-investment by many small investors, can present an important alternative model for entrepreneurs because it can be easily used via [the] internet (IBF 2016).

As seen in this passage, these investment tools are utilised not only by IBF, but by ‘capitalist’ Western institutions. Moreover, neither doing the same thing with Islamic sentiments nor using Islamic financial tools in a ‘problem-solving’ manner within the existing financial system necessarily represent alternatives to neoliberal ideology. In

178 other words, the ‘correct’ form that the global political economy ought to take is still constructed in line with neoliberal common sense, focused on boosting integration with the world, forming regional economic unities and, more importantly, ignoring the labour- capital relationship and focusing on the accumulation of (financial) capital. In this sense, similarly to WHEF, IBF contributes to neoliberalism’s variegated political-ideological expressions with its own Islamic-oriented colour. In constructing its alternative, meanwhile, it claims that it erases class dynamics and creates a ‘coherent’ collective identity based on religion.

5.3- Concluding Remarks

In this chapter, I illustrated that WHEF and IBF fulfil the second component of the intellectual function: that is, constructing a particular conception of the world based on religion – in line with neoliberal ideology as the ‘correct’ form of the global political economy – and universalising it by obscuring class dynamics. This is important, because by way of these religiously-oriented elites acting as organic intellectuals in constructing neoliberal common sense (in addition to their organising – Chapter 4 – and persuading – Chapter 6 – capacities), religion comes to mediate contemporary neoliberal ideology in both countries. This provides important insights into the ways in which WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects (RQ3) and into the wider global relevance of their similarities in doing so (RQ4).

Firstly, I showed that both forums read the global political economy through a global developmentalist lens, in which their respective countries are placed in the periphery against a Western core. For this reason, their construction of a particular conception of the world entails a confrontation with the West. They make similar arguments in their confrontation with the mainstream economic practices of the West, focusing upon their effects upon the rest of the world (5.1.1) and their underlying moralities (5.1.2). I illustrated that both aspects of this critique are grounded in distributional problems and that they intentionally ignore the social relations of production. In this respect, they are not critical of the free market economy or of capital’s dominance over labour. Rather, they are critical of wealth’s condensation in the West, opening up space to apply these same core principles of neoliberal ideology for themselves, albeit with Hindu and Islamic inflections.

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Based on this, in the second section I examined WHEF’s and IBF’s alternative models based on Hinduism and Islam, respectively (5.2) and argued that they are only alternatives within neoliberal ideology, not alternatives to it. For WHEF (5.2.1), I analysed the ideational grounds of its model based on three building blocks: knowledge production, spiritual enrichment and community finance. By way of these three elements, WHEF seeks to underpin its model with reference to India’s Hindu legacy. By turning to the sources of Hinduism (holy books, stories, certain important texts), it suggests what is already prominent in neoliberalism, but with a religious focus: the dominance of business over government and the reduction of regulation (to accommodate wealth accumulation by Hindus), collective organisation (as Hindus, under WHEF) in order to integrate with the world economy as a solid actor, and the necessity of financialisation (on a trust-based community basis, amongst Hindus). This creates a ‘coherent’ collective identity – a Hindu-oriented business elite – under WHEF, and suggests this system based on that identity. For IBF (5.2.2) the process is no different, apart from its cultural context being Islam (and the Quran) and, in particular, the legacy of Prophet Muhammed’s time in Medina. IBF’s model also has three building blocks, namely developing the Islamic charitable sector, creating an Islamic financial culture, and expanding Islamic financial tools. In this case, the ‘coherent’ collective identity created is that of an Islamic-oriented business elite under IBF.

What all of this implies for this thesis’s RQs specifically is as follows: firstly, the way in which the forums operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion (RQ3) is contingent upon each forum’s construction of a particular conception of the world and its universalisation, through which it is presented as working for all Hindus/Muslims. These conceptions represent forms of religious mediation which serve to make sense of neoliberal ideology in the Indian and Turkish contexts. This universalisation of a particular knowledge is key to producing neoliberal common sense (Macartney 2008; Shields 2019), and in IBF’s and WHEF’s cases this is achieved through religion, or in other words, what Gramsci (1971: 325-326) calls the “unity of faith”, despite its fragmented basis in class relations.

Secondly, considering that their confrontation with the West is limited to criticism of inequalities in distribution – and not production, due to their neglect of class relations – neither forum offers a radical or systemic critique of neoliberal ideology, instead offering

180 only alternatives within it. In this sense, the wider global relevance of the similarity between the two approaches (RQ4) is that their particular conceptions of the world are not a simple repetition of neoliberal common sense as we know it; rather, they are in competition with other conceptions of the world which reproduce neoliberal common sense in Western capitalism (cf. Murray and Worth 2013). They attempt to improve distribution relations (not to the extent of equal distribution of wealth, but narrowing – if preserving – the gap between the rich and poor) and to blend neoliberal common sense with social causes (e.g. philanthropy, expansion of the charitable sector, etc.), in both cases based on religious principles. In this sense, both forums create an impression that neoliberalism is ‘fixable’ once blended with ‘universally correct’ Hindu or Islamic ideas.

Having explained the ideational grounds of WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects, the next chapter will show how both forums manufacture consent for their projects, primarily by mobilising subordinate parts of the business community.

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CHAPTER 6

WHEF AND IBF AS PERMANENT PERSUADERS: MANUFACTURING CONSENT FROM SUBORDINATE PARTS OF THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY

Having presented WHEF and IBF elites as organisers of religiously-oriented elites (Chapter 4) and constructors of neoliberal common sense (Chapter 5) and explained religion’s particular place in these processes, this chapter seeks to examine the last component of WHEF and IBF’s organic intellectual function: their acting as permanent persuaders of subordinate groups within the business community. As explained since Chapter 1, it is these religiously-oriented elites’ activity – with WHEF and IBF being particular (business-specialised) groups within these elites – which enables religion to mediate neoliberal ideology. This chapter serves the same purpose. It reveals the tools, ideas and activities that both forums employ in order to manufacture the consent of subordinate groups in the business community, thereby reinforcing neoliberal hegemony. Recalling from Chapter 1 that hegemony is a consensual order of capital over labour, business elites’ coming together under WHEF and IBF and their construction of a particular knowledge as universal are both complemented by a process of active persuasion of subordinate groups within the business community by WHEF and IBF elites.

I argue in this chapter that both forums expand neoliberal common sense – mediated by religion – by generating consent, particularly amongst SMEs, but also amongst young start-up entrepreneurs and students. This reveals the last important part of the way in which the forums operationalise their intellectual projects (RQ3). In doing so, I also argue that both forums’ operations are again similar, this time in terms of the ways in which they manufacture the consent of these less advantaged groups. The wider global relevance of this similarity (RQ4) comes from the importance of the international, which compels these groups to adjust themselves to the requirements of the global political economy – such as the adoption of export-oriented developmental strategies – by expanding their horizons using these forums’ transnational networks. Both forums make

182 sense of neoliberal ideology by promoting export-oriented developmental strategies in their intellectual projects. In this way, in addition to making these groups part of their religion-based neoliberal intellectual projects, WHEF and IBF also make them part of their struggles within neoliberal hegemony.

In this chapter, I first clarify the reasons behind these forums’ significant focus on SMEs. In the first section (6.1), I highlight the ways in which the elites of both forums legitimise their activities among SMEs by using their specialised knowledge. I show that this is constructed as a ‘need’ for SMEs and as a ‘social service’ provided by the forums’ elites. Then, in the second section (6.2), I engage with the specific tools, ideas and activities that the forums use to mobilise SMEs and make them part of their intellectual projects. In this section, young start-up entrepreneurs and students are also discussed, as they are considered future SME owners. In doing this, I examine the forums’ persuasive capacity by highlighting how the forums’ elites remain, in Gramsci’s words (1971: 10), “specialised and political” based on their specialised business knowledge and expertise, without becoming “directive” in generating consent.

It is important to note that this chapter only engages with the political-ideological construction and mobilisation of the SME sector as a whole (cf. Perren and Dannreuther 2012). Sectoral differences among SMEs and the varying levels of importance attached to SMEs by sector for their respective countries are beyond this thesis’ scope.

6.1- Reasons for Focusing on the Subordinate Parts of the Business Community

This section explains that both WHEF and IBF place particular importance on SMEs in terms of their operational strategies. There are three main reasons for this focus on SMEs, which – according to both forum documentation and the statements of interviewees – are all closely related to India’s and Turkey’s political economic structures. The first reason is the large number of SMEs, which positions them as key sites of consent formation in that they allow the forums to reach as many people as possible. The second reason is their disorganisation and lack of access to the advantages provided to large Indian and Turkish companies – i.e. the old elite – by the state. The forums’ organisational support, particularly in the creation of new networks, is thus expected to be most welcome among

183 this social group. The third reason is that SME owners are considered ‘common men’ bearing each country’s religious values, as opposed to the owners of large companies, whom WHEF and IBF elites regard as alienated from society.

6.1.1- WHEF: SMEs as a Disadvantaged and Disorganised Majority

The name of the first panel of its first forum in 2012 – “Making small and medium-sized enterprises successful in the global marketplace” – is illustrative of WHEF’s fundamental focus on SMEs (WHEF 2012b: 18). WHEF started its journey by discussing SMEs’ key role in the global political economy, and Guna Magesan, an Indian scientist and currently CEO of WHEF, drew attention to SMEs’ significant share of economic growth, which at that time represented 75% of GDP and 60% of employment worldwide (ibid.:19). From this panel on, one of the main reasons expressed for focusing on SMEs and for making them an important part of WHEF’s intellectual project was their crucial importance both to the global political economy as a whole and to India’s economy in particular.

Citing similar figures, Ganguli also underlines SMEs’ global employment capacity in his interview, and states that “India might be seen as a little story within the global context but it is a very important story because of the size of the SME sector and numbers” (IN3). While WHEF is therefore in agreement with mainstream accounts of SMEs as the backbone of the global economy (Matlay and Westhead, 2005), it retains a particular focus on the Indian case, in which the economy is dominated by informal sector SMEs in both manufacturing and services. This is supported in particular by micro and small-scale businesses, and indeed, micro-sized enterprises represent the largest share of the economy among the small and medium categories in the Indian context, as seen in Table 2. For this reason, WHEF’s discussion covers MSMEs but generally refers only to SMEs. I follow the same procedure for clarity.

TABLE 2: Distribution of enterprises in categories in India (Numbers in Lakh)

Source: Ministry of MSMEs/ India (2018: 25)

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FISME, mentioned in Chapter 4 – an institution representing Indian SMEs –, is a strategically important institution for WHEF, and its general secretary Bhardwaj is a regular participant in WHEF events. At WHEF 2014, he stated that the SME sector “comprises 45 million units employing more than 100 million people” (WHEF 2014b: 10). Bhardwaj (2018) also attended WHEF 2018, where he shared data collected over several years showing that SMEs “account for almost half of India’s production and exports”. Similarly, Jaikishan Jhaver of the Jhaver Group – which claims to have “7500 employees in more than 60+ locations”, mainly in India but also abroad (Jhaver Group, n.d.) – highlighted this same issue at WHEF 2016, adding that SMEs “account for 40% of total exports and 8% of Bharat’s GDP” (WHEF 2016b: 11).

Vaidyanathan – a finance professor mentioned previously – draws attention to another aspect of this situation, namely the need to make calculations about SMEs with reference to the “non-corporate sector”, which refers mainly to the informal sector which “accounts for 40% of national income” (WHEF 2014b: 5). In line with his book, titled “India Uninc.”, he argues that without realising that this sector is the real engine of India’s economy, India’s economic “growth story” remains incomplete (ibid., also see Vaidyanathan, 2006). Similarly, Debroy claims that only 8-15% of the Indian economy is organised and that the rest is informal and unorganised (WHEF 2013b: 18). SMEs in this latter group cannot be ignored if economic development is to be possible.

Calculations and numbers vary depending on the factors included. Nevertheless, the main point of the abovementioned examples is that they are used to underline the need to focus on SMEs, both in terms of their share of the Indian economy and their share of employment. In Ganguli’s words,

They are all suppliers for bigger corporations. All suppliers. A majority of them. But on a human scale, they are very important for society because of the employment that they generate, the livelihoods of many. So, this organisation [WHEF] has a capacity to make a direct impact that may not be very large and aggregative in terms of numbers but in terms of numbers of people affected (IN3).

As seen in this quote, WHEF’s aim is to reach out to this majority. The numbers cited above thus all serve to legitimise WHEF’s strategy with respect to SMEs, because WHEF’s ultimate aim is to empower itself in the business community by securing consent as widely as possible.

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Targeting SMEs is also instrumental to WHEF because they are less advantaged and comparatively less organised than Western-oriented fractions of capital in India. In this sense, they are more receptive to the tools and business strategies that WHEF offers, as Goswami notes in his interview:

The reason for focusing so much on SMEs in WHEF is … that [they are] where the most of employment in business is happening. And those are the kinds of people who could make much more use of the benefits that WHEF offers (IN4).

Despite SMEs’ significant contribution to the Indian economy, WHEF emphasises that they are not paid enough attention either by the state or by business associations and/or organisations throughout history. In Goswami’s words:

SMEs are not really at the centre right now. The other big corporations have their growing groups, like FICCI or CII. I think others are also kind of falling into the Western MNC model to a large extent. … I think they [SMEs] might not be heard there [FICCI or CII] (ibid.).

This quote is clearly in accordance with what has been explained in the previous chapters: first, WHEF organises and represents the new business elite, in contrast with the old elite which follows the Western model (Chapter 4); and second, WHEF articulates neoliberal ideology while confronting the West as part of its struggle over wealth, power and knowledge (Chapter 5). In this sense, involving this SME majority in its project against the powerful old elites (i.e. big businesses) in India also represents part of its struggle over neoliberal hegemony. Having organised India’s religiously-oriented business elites and articulated neoliberal ideology, persuading SMEs represents the last crucial component of WHEF’s intellectual project. Besides, as seen in Goswami’s above- stated words and as Ganguli explains in his interview, India’s large corporations – that is, its old Western-oriented elites – do not need WHEF (IN3). They are already organised under institutions such as FICCI or CII and their connections abroad are already established; in other words, it is more difficult for WHEF to engineer the consent of that group. For this reason, WHEF stands for SMEs and draws attention to their problems.

Although SMEs have their own body – FISME, founded in 1995 – Goswami states that this organisation has yet to achieve the necessary advances for SMEs, despite regarding it as a positive (IN4). As mentioned above, FISME’s General Secretary Bhardwaj attends

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WHEF’s meetings, communicating and collaborating with WHEF elites on matters related to SMEs. As he summarises, this includes problems such as “access to financing, access to commercial and industrial space, access to technology, access to market and ease of doing business” (WHEF 2014b: 10). Despite their key place in the Indian economy, Vaidyanathan notes that “the share of outstanding bank credit to these businesses is just 36%” (ibid.: 5). Furthermore, as Jhaver underlines, “SME lobbying [among the] highest levels of Government of Bharat is weak” (WHEF 2016b: 11). Keeping in mind that India’s history has been dominated by economic protectionism, the business world has not had an easy relationship with governments since independence, as explained in Chapter 2. One manifestation of this difficulty specific to SMEs, Bhardwaj (2018) and Ganguli (IN3) explain, has been a high number of unregistered enterprises, resulting from the hardship caused by bureaucratic procedures and challenges.

This has created a complex relationship between this group and the government, even if only a weak one, considering that most SMEs want to stay outside of state regulatory arrangements according to Debroy (WHEF 2013b: 18). In contrast with the formal minority consisting of the government and corporate sectors – commonly called “India Inc.” (Dutta 2007) – the informal sector (Vaidyanathan’s [2014] “India Uninc.”) is a less advantaged and even disadvantaged majority in the Indian economy, deprived of the opportunities presented to the former. The confrontation between the two most prominent fractions of Indian capital (that is, Western-oriented and Hindu-oriented) is thus reflected in the confrontation between big business and SMEs, and the latter are therefore a key target of persuasion into WHEF’s intellectual project.

WHEF’s approach to SMEs as explained up to this point, then, is that despite their significant contribution to the Indian economy, the latter are a disadvantaged majority who have not been given sufficient importance throughout India’s history. WHEF thus posits a large gap between the importance of SMEs and the attention paid to them by governments, then positions itself to “fill this gap” (WHEF 2016b: 11). The way in which it does so comes down to its role as a collective intellectual, based on the WHEF cadre’s organic relations with the government (i.e. the connections of its own bureaucrats, technocrats and wealthy businesspeople to the government and its academic advisors). In Ganguli’s words,

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SMEs have many disadvantages by virtue of size … If you have the correct policy package and access to policy-makers – this is a highly interesting topic – I think that [WHEF] people can actually make a difference to the lives of a lot of people who need (IN3).

Therefore, it is WHEF’s capacity to discuss policy issues through economists like Ganguli, and to secure access to policy-makers, that positions it to improve SMEs’ disadvantaged situation.

It is necessary to note that WHEF’s criticism is directed mainly towards the governments preceding Modi’s. As was already explained in Chapter 4, RSS/VHP, BJP, and WHEF elites were all part of the same Hindu nationalist network, and WHEF is a platform through which the elites of these bodies are selectively and strategically organised and connected. Moreover, as we know from Chapter 2, SMEs are also an important issue for BJP and the tradition from which it takes its roots. Modi himself verifies this in the very first booklet of the Ministry of MSMEs (2015), issued after BJP came to power:

While many think that large companies dominate, in reality, it is over 5.5 crore (55 million) small units like yours, which drive our economy through small manufacturing, trading and service businesses. … You should be able to run your business easily, not be harassed by officials, and get loans for your day-to-day activities, material for your operations and markets for your product.

From highlighting the majority status of SMEs within the business community to focusing on the need to solve their problems, Modi’s approach is thus in accordance with WHEF’s. This common approach to the issue increases WHEF’s capacity to persuade this group, and to mobilise the government’s support.

Moreover, the consent secured by WHEF among this group is transferable to the BJP government and its own neoliberal project. WHEF itself acknowledges this fact and makes a great effort to mobilise SMEs, knowing that their consent matters to the new elites established around the BJP government, of which they are an organic part. For this reason, it is also possible to find BJP bureaucrats talking about SMEs and potential solutions to their problems at WHEF meetings. For instance, Nitin Gadkari, a BJP government minister introduced in Chapter 4, gave a presentation titled “SMEs – The Backbone of Economy” at WHEF 2014, arguing: “politics is the instrument for socio- economic reforms. (…) [T]he government is taking several measures to help [the]

188 common man and businesses of all sizes with infrastructure resources.” (WHEF 2014b: 9).

This brings us to the third reason for WHEF’s focus on SMEs: this group is seen as comprised of “common men”, as seen in Gadkari’s words, who lack the technical and managerial skills to perform the tasks that WHEF is willing to undertake on their behalf. As Ganguli puts it, “SMEs cannot do some tasks because of size constraints, and if [we work for them] there is a positive spill-over, there is a spin off” (IN3). SMEs are the “less fortunate members of [the] Hindu community”, as stated at WHEF 2013, and “WHEF is needed worldwide” (WHEF 2013b: 28) to help them. Thus, WHEF’s efforts on behalf of SMEs consist not only of making their situation better in India, but also of reaching out to Hindu-oriented owners of SMEs in other parts of the world and making them a part of the WHEF network, lobbying for legislation both in India and in other countries for their benefit (ibid.: 4, IN3).

Having outlined and discussed the main reasons for WHEF’s focus on SMEs, it needs now to be underlined that each one relates to issues of persuasion and the generation of consent. SMEs’ high numbers and their significant contribution to the economy, their disorganised character, and their character as ‘common men’ lacking technical and managerial skills are all instrumental to WHEF for its growth as an organisation, as well as for its efforts to join the struggle over hegemony as a collective organic intellectual representing religiously-oriented fractions of the Indian capitalist class against the Western-oriented ones. In this sense, the relationship between WHEF and SMEs is not a one-sided one, in which WHEF considers and helps the subordinate parts of the business community. Rather, the SME majority matters, and WHEF needs its consent to carry out its intellectual project effectively.

6.1.2- IBF: SMEs as Cells in the Body

As with WHEF, the primary reason for IBF’s focus on SMEs is their majority status in the business community. As Uhur explains:

SMEs are in fact what developed economies call the ‘backbone’ [of the economy]. There are approximately 15 million SMEs in the US; 3 million in Germany. You might think Mercedes, BMW, Bosch or Bayer when I

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say Germany but the companies making the goods of these big brands are millions of individual SMEs with a perfect research-development mechanism. … They employ the most, [and] create the most added value (TU5).

The explanation thus departs from SMEs’ status as the “backbone” of every economy, based on their significant contribution to economic growth and employment. During the 9th IBF, it was stated that IBF aims to provide “greater support to SMEs so that they can play their pivotal role in accelerating growth, providing employment, [and] mobilizing local sources for global competitiveness” (IBF 2005). Uhur continues:

I wrote theses in the US on the comparison of big businesses and SMEs; on their governance; on their methodology. I have reached this conclusion: the stronger SMEs are in a country, the stronger the country is. It would not be strong with respect to its big companies; rather, it is SMEs which matter on this subject (TU5).

Uhur only discusses SMEs’ contribution in terms of national economies. However, as much as SMEs’ contribution to countries is important to note, something else is also crucial: their contribution to particular class fractions. Islamic-oriented business elites’ emergence as a significant class fraction in Turkey is illustrative of this. As detailed in Chapter 3, the success of these elites – themselves composed primarily of MÜSİAD and JDP elites – was built upon the mobilisation of SME owners in Anatolia and upon successfully linking them to global markets in the 1990s. In this sense, IBF legitimises its strategy by departing from the idea that SMEs are key for the country’s development, but in fact empowers itself in the business community by securing the consent of this majority.

As IBF does not represent only Turkey, its discourse on SMEs is more general than that of WHEF. Neither in annual reports nor in interviews is its argument for focusing on SMEs made with reference to country-specific statistics and information. However, this focus nonetheless arises from Turkey’s economic situation and from SMEs’ particular position within it. In order to make this clear, some statistics may be helpful. Considering that IBF has been operating for more than twenty years now, two sets of statistics – one from the early 2000s, another from the late 2010s – are worth examining. The situation of SMEs in the early 2000s was as follows:

According to the most recent estimates, the SME sector, including services, accounted in 2000 for: 99.8% of the total number of enterprises,

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76.7% of total employment, 38% of capital investment, 26.5% of value added, roughly 10% of exports and 5% of bank credit. Therefore, while SMEs dominate the economy in terms of employment, they evidently operate with comparatively little capital equipment, generate relatively low levels of value added, make only a small contribution to Turkish exports and receive only a marginal share of the funds mobilised by the banking sector (OECD 2004: 27).

This was the period just before JDP came to power, with MÜSİAD having begun its efforts to mobilise this majority a decade prior (and succeeded, as mentioned in Chapter 3). By the late 2010s, SMEs were still protecting their dominant position in Turkey’s economy: “They make up 91.9 percent of all enterprises, represent 78 percent of all employment and constitute 55 percent of GDP and 50 percent of total investment” (Başçı and Durucan 2017: 59). The support of SMEs was therefore instrumental to IBF’s success because, as in the Indian case, Turkey’s economy is dominated by these enterprises.

While IBF maintains a significant focus on the development of SMEs in its discourse, what ultimately matters is its practice. And as the following section shows, here IBF is equally committed, introducing SMEs to investors in foreign countries, helping them to develop strategies and tools to aid their global competitiveness, and opening doors for them within Turkey’s export-oriented development strategy. For this reason, IBF’s discourse on SMEs has been significantly formed by MÜSİAD’s activities and ideas about them at the beginning of the 1990s, where the clashes between the Western- oriented (İstanbul-based) and religiously-oriented (Anatolia-based) fractions of Turkish capital were more prominent and in which the latter was highly disorganised, deprived of governmental support, and facing obstacles to becoming a significant actor in Turkey’s economy.

Therefore, as was seen in WHEF’s case, IBF’s second reason for focusing on SMEs is their disorganised and disadvantaged character. Although in 1990 Turkish SMEs were given their own institutional body – the Small and Medium Industry Development Organisation (Küçük ve Orta Ölçekli İşletmeleri Geliştirme ve Destekleme Dairesi; KOSGEB) – this was not enough for their needs at that time. Kolonyacı explains their first interactions with SMEs in the following way:

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MÜSİAD, for sure, is an NGO that concerns SMEs significantly. It is very important for SMEs. Turkey’s economic history necessitated that. … When Anatolian entrepreneurs started to grow after 1983 thanks to Özal, they were incompatible with TÜSİAD, which was founded by the upper crust of Turkey’s businesspeople and had an elitist club logic. Indeed, TÜSİAD never wanted to involve them. Therefore, it felt necessary to establish an organisation like MÜSİAD in 1990. And MÜSİAD embraced those entrepreneurs that were in Anatolia or in big cities but rooted in Anatolia (TU3).

In this quote, the conflict between the two most significant fractions of Turkish capital – represented by the TÜSİAD and MÜSİAD circles – is again clear. The former represents the “upper crust of Turkey’s businesspeople”, while the latter consists of Anatolian SMEs who are disorganised and have been left behind by TÜSİAD’s elitist logic. This fraction is thus more receptive to what MÜSİAD/IBF offer in organisational and ideological terms. Kolonyacı continues:

They felt at home under MÜSİAD’s roof. Why? They felt close to it both pragmatically and mentally. So, TÜSİAD represents a certain worldview and hosts fifteen to twenty rich families in Turkish business life. However, MÜSİAD is an organisation which is local, national and conservative, and with which religious entrepreneurs identify themselves (ibid.).

Thus, against this advantaged minority of rich families, MÜSİAD represented the disadvantaged majority. And thanks to IBF and MÜSİAD business fairs, the position of this majority was eventually improved, enabling IBF to become a significant actor in Turkey’s political economy with its SME support base. A former senior member of staff at MÜSİAD Bekir Yüzey, who participated in organising IBF events, explains:

There were business associations before MÜSİAD. However, MÜSİAD focused on businesses in Anatolia, on SMEs who remained a secret treasure trove at that time and had yet to be reached out to. MÜSİAD said, “If we teach those friends, hold their hands and help them, they will mark a new epoch in the country’s development”. Indeed, they did. If you look at what we did since the day one, you will see. We held their hand, took them to foreign countries, helped them get in touch with foreign businesspeople through forums and business fairs. And after this contact, they expanded their businesses through increasing their export volume, they improved themselves by learning what they needed to do, what foreign markets expected from them, what the culture and technology looked like in other countries, so on and so forth (TU4).

Yüzey highlights two important issues in this quote. The first is the perception of SMEs as “a secret treasure trove yet to be reached” in those years. The second is the perceived need to “hold [SMEs’] hands”.

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The first point contains a criticism of previous governments’ policies which, in MÜSİAD/IBF elites’ view, failed to support SMEs and to give them what they deserved. By contrast – and similarly to BJP in WHEF’s discourse – the JDP government is different, because it is pro-SME despite never underestimating large companies’ role in political-economic terms, as explained in Chapter 3. Buğra and Savaşkan (2014: 80) explain:

Already in 2002, the first year of [JDP] rule, there were indications that the new government was discontented with the regulatory framework of public tenders. As Erdoğan stated, “The Public Procurement Law, as it [is,] serves the interests of 50 or 60 firms. I will not leave the construction of [a] 15,000-kilometre long highway to 50-60 firms”. The ensuing changes in legislation and application indeed allowed a number of smaller firms to benefit from government contracts.

Like Modi and BJP, Erdoğan’s support of SMEs has been solid since the JDP government was formed. Again, the precise numbers cited vary depending upon the speaker – what was described as fifteen to twenty rich families by Kolonyacı becomes fifty to sixty firms in Erdoğan’s words – but the point in either case is to take the side of the disadvantaged majority over this privileged minority. As was explained in Chapter 5, the similarity of MÜSİAD/IBF elites’ discourses to those of JDP elites is not coincidental; rather, it is a result of their being part of the same political Islamist network, and therefore carrying out the neoliberal project together. In this sense, what MÜSİAD/IBF elites promised to SMEs was more achievable, and finding ways to support them in national and transnational settings was easier, with the JDP government’s support.

The strategic relations established by IBF (as explained in Chapter 4) are instrumental to managing this process, especially in supporting SMEs on a transnational level; indeed, KOSGEB itself also supports IBF, as seen in IBF’s reports (IBF 2006; IBF 2008). IBF has played an important role in the transnationalisation of Turkish SMEs, and its focus on them is still significant: the MÜSİAD/IBF elite still represents them against the TÜSİAD elite, and conflict and competition continues between these fractions. Kolonyacı highlights this situation by pointing to the annual fees of the two associations: “Our [MÜSİAD’s] annual fee is 3,500 Turkish Liras (TL) whereas TÜSİAD’s annual fee is about 30-35,000 TL” (TU3). He adds that most SMEs are not able to pay this latter sum.

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They are therefore still ignored by TÜSİAD, and MÜSİAD still represents their best platform through which to organise, not to mention capitalise upon the opportunities IBF offers abroad.

At this point, it is necessary to revisit the second important issue in Yüzey’s words above, which is “the need to hold [SMEs’] hands”. As in WHEF’s discourse, SMEs are conceptualised as ‘common men’ who lack the skills to improve their situation. This brings us to the third reason for IBF’s focus on SMEs: namely, this perceived need of technical and intellectual support, which must therefore be provided by those who are in the same community but who have these skills (TU3; TU4). The following section deals with how IBF elites occupy this latter role, but the following quote from Uhur is helpful to understanding why these elites prefer working with SMEs:

[T]hey preserve the social fabric most because they are close to the people. They employ 50, 100, 150 people who are common men, like cells in the body. I am not against big businesses; however, when they are big, they become state-minded: slower; bureaucratised; lacking flexibility (TU5).

What Perren and Dannreuther (2012: 47) call the “romantic associations” of SMEs are observable in this narrative, in which they are positioned as common men and as protectors of the social fabric. Additionally, Uhur’s analogy between SMEs and “cells in the body” warrants attention, particularly with respect to IBF’s consideration of SMEs in terms of “mobilising local sources for global competitiveness” (TU5). These “cells” of Anatolia were key in the 1990s/2000s, and are still key to MÜSİAD/IBF elites’ efforts to reach out to and take control of these sources. By making SMEs a part of their project, these elites also gain access to grassroots, local resources and to local businesses contributing significantly to employment.

Moreover, thanks to their place in the social fabric – being “conservative”, “flexible” and “common men” – SMEs are already receptive to IBF’s ideas (ibid.). With the forum being part of a broader political Islamist network, also incorporating JDP and its (political Islamism-mediated) neoliberal project, SMEs are drawn into this network through their involvement with the forum. In other words, while IBF develops tools to increase their competitiveness in the global market, SMEs in return increase MÜSİAD/IBF elites’ competitiveness within Turkey, and provide their support base in their struggle over

194 neoliberal hegemony. Therefore, the same three reasons operative in WHEF’s case also hold for IBF’s, and all are instrumentally useful to the IBF elites’ interests. Again, this is an issue of persuasion and of generating consent amongst the SME majority, and refers to a reciprocal relationship rather than a one-sided one.

6.2.- Mobilising Subordinate Groups, Creating Tools, Ideas and Activities

Having explained the reasons why SMEs are instrumental to WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects, this section elaborates the specific tools, ideas and activities developed by these forums to manufacture consent among this group. While existing SMEs represent the primary target population for these tools, ideas and activities, young start-up entrepreneurs and students are also both included, because they are considered the future generation of SMEs. Both WHEF and IBF construct their own role as one of ‘mentorship’, and approach these groups’ problems accordingly. From funding and investment problems to risky business environments, they share their knowledge with these groups and make an effort to develop tools and ideas relevant to their problems. Related to this, they also organise planned networking sessions (WHEF) and business matching sessions (IBF), to introduce these groups to large investors and businesses either in their own countries or abroad. Additionally, both organise training sessions to improve these groups’ skills, and offer internship and workshop opportunities for students in foreign countries.

6.2.1- WHEF: Helping Subordinate Groups Find the Right Business Guru, Improve Their Skills and Connect with the World

At all WHEF forums, there is at least one panel reserved for discussion of SMEs and start-ups. Similarly, another panel is reserved for young people, consisting of students’ presentations on the economy. While youth involvement in the forum is important for the future – in terms of their being raised in accordance with WHEF’s objectives – the involvement of SMEs represents an issue of serious present-day importance, both in terms of improving their performance domestically and of easing their access to international markets. WHEF thus aims to have active participation from these groups, and tries to make their involvement in meetings easier. As seen in Figure 7, there are

195 different categories of fees, and these groups pay less than others such as large company owners, bureaucrats and academics.

FIGURE 7: Fees according to category of attendee

Source: WHEF (2019)

As well as making their participation easier, WHEF aims to link these groups to its intellectual project through mentorship. This is not restricted to the annual forums, but is rather a relatively long-term process in which WHEF mentors help these groups to develop business strategies for either domestic or global markets.

Mentorship

When it was explained in Chapter 5 how WHEF constructs its articulation of neoliberal ideology, it was argued that it does so by confronting Western capitalism and by combining neoliberal principles with Hindu elements (symbols, traditions, teachings, etc.). It was also highlighted that one of these elements is the role of mentorship and gurus in Hinduism. Looking at how gurus and mentors guide Hindus in coping with the difficulties of life, WHEF suggests applying this concept in business too. Mentoring, in other words, is central to WHEF’s mission, and its network also exists to provide the less experienced with the help of the more experienced. Business gurus or mentors are thus among WHEF’s cadre class, defined in Chapter 5 (cf. van der Pijl 1998). Specifically, they are wealthy businesspeople, sympathetic bureaucrats, and academics who are able to produce relevant knowledge. This combination of specialised knowledge is claimed to provide subordinate groups with the right business strategies in the global political economy.

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Figure 8 is illustrative of the place and role of mentors in WHEF’s intellectual project. They reside between “Finance” (i.e. investors, sponsors, employers etc.) and “Human Resources” (SMEs, young entrepreneurs, students etc.). Mentors are thus understood as key to these groups’ meeting sources of finance, and thus obtaining or creating relevant technologies and thereby (improved) market access. In other words, in a circular but unidirectional representation, mentors are those who lead these groups on the right path, particularly in terms of funding and investment.

FIGURE 8: The WHEF’s operation

Source: Muradlidhar (2018)- WHEF 2018 Presentation

Although financing is described as “the most important issue” facing SMEs and young entrepreneurs (IN3), WHEF does not itself provide financial support, but rather networks and ideas. For instance, Dhamodaraswamy – the CEO of the Saraff Group, mentioned in Chapter 4 – talks about successful SME models from elsewhere in the world, and suggests the adoption of policy initiatives such as “credit guarantee schemes for SMEs and financial support for overseas expansion, [an] SME bank, [and] venture capital for start-ups” (WHEF 2014b: 10). The idea of an SME bank is a particularly important one for WHEF, and it is possible to find other panellists talking about different variations on this idea, including a “Hindu bank” (WHEF 2015b: 6; 2016b: 10; IN3), a “WHEF bank”,

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“WHEF fund” or “WHEF bond” (WHEF 2015b: 6), and a “Hindu Growth Fund” (WHEF 2015b: 9). A proposal for the latter – a Hindu Growth Fund – made by Shyam Penumaka, a businessman in Silicon Valley and WHEF 2015 panellist, is shown in Figure 9 (with mentors in Figure 8 styled as “fund managers”).

FIGURE 9: Hindu Growth Fund proposal

Source: Penumaka (2015)- WHEF 2015 Presentation

This fund is designed for “companies with significant Hindu ownership”, and targets SMEs particularly. Another proposed initiative is a “Hindu Incubation/Innovation Fund”, one tenth of the size of the Hindu Growth Fund and targeting young innovators and entrepreneurs who are “doing research in commercially viable ideas/ products based on ancient Hindu traditions … that have a direct impact on Hindu society” (Penumaka 2015).

The main idea behind such funds is to offer a solution that can protect SMEs and young entrepreneurs from conventional banking procedures and provide them with immediate financial support, in line with WHEF’s articulation of neoliberal ideology as explained in

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Chapter 5. The forum’s specific focus on lobbying for legislation and on exercising due diligence, as explained in Chapter 4, is also related to these kinds of funding-centred strategies. Ganguli explains:

For example, I was very keen that we do due diligence where they [SMEs] apply for loans; that we have a system. You come to me as a small guy and you are having trouble. … Banks are looking for collateral. … That’s why we [have proposed] the Hindu Bank (IN3).

Therefore, the mentorship that WHEF provides is about constructing a system to support subordinate groups within the business community, originating and discussing proposals which might save these groups from conventional procedures and attach them to WHEF.

Another way in which WHEF provides mentorship is by giving examples of successful Hindu businesspeople, and by underlining the idea that SMEs and the start-ups of young entrepreneurs can have similar success stories by following their paths. These successful people are touted as role models, taking their roots from mentor-role models in Hinduism. Vejendla, a young Silicon Valley entrepreneur mentioned in Chapter 5, says:

We have great mentorship role models in our civilization like Lord Krishna who was a guiding force for Pandavas, and Guru Dronacharya who imparted his skills to Arjuna. We need to emulate entrepreneur incubation funds in Silicon Valley like [the] ‘Billion Dollar Baby’ fund. Silicon Valley forgives failure, and this is best exemplified by Steve Jobs. It encourages the purest form of wealth creation & value generation (WHEF 2015b: 16).

The “Billion Dollar Baby” fund that Vejendla mentions is not simply an example, but is in fact co-chaired by his ‘business mentor/guru’ Raju Reddy. Vejendla describes Reddy as a successful entrepreneur who is highly active in promoting business between the US and India, such as through the founding of the Silicon Valley Indian Professionals Association and by “mentoring young entrepreneurs to realise their dreams by sharing experiences” (ibid.). This is exactly what Vejendla sees in the Hindu figure of Lord Krishna, who is similarly a “leader, manager, negotiator, motivator, and influencer” (ibid.). Following his mentor Reddy, Vejendla started his first services company in 2003, and this ultimately “grew over $100m by 2013, both organically and through M&A [mergers and acquisitions]” (ibid.). Thus, success in the business sector for him depends upon having the right mentor.

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The success stories of mentor-role models are important in motivating the subordinate groups. For instance, Nat Puri, the rich Nottingham-based businessman mentioned earlier, is presented as “a role model for many young entrepreneurs” (WHEF 2015b: 4). He narrates how he started his career as a truck driver in India before coming to the UK and reaching his current position (WHEF 2015b: 3). He also offers both financial support and places in which to do business for SMEs and young entrepreneurs in Nottingham (IN1; IN3). Debopam Muhherjee, a businessman in India, similarly talks about his own experience, saying that he became an entrepreneur early in his business career and started running “a small company in the US that developed the technology behind Skype” (WHEF 2015b: 16).

These kinds of stories are key to motivating the attendees, linking them with WHEF and reinforcing their presence there. As long as success in business is related to finding the right business mentor, WHEF also appears as “a source of hope” for these subordinate groups, as a provider of these mentors (WHEF 2013b: 26).

Planned Networking Sessions and Training/Internship Programmes

Not only does WHEF emphasise the importance of mentorship, it also directly helps subordinate groups to find and connect with mentors through its planned networking sessions. Considering that WHEF does not provide any financial support, the importance of these sessions is to help these groups meet potential financiers or financial advisors. In the pre-conference survey conducted to plan the networking session at WHEF 2015, 60% of respondents were reported as keen to invest in start-ups (WHEF 2015b: 11). In 2016 this number became 70%, with 40% of respondents also “seeking investment for their ventures” and 40% “looking for [a] market for their services” (Kumar 2016). Such a situation paves the way for an active persuasion process between organisers and attendees; in other words, between WHEF elites and the subordinate groups, reinforcing the former’s role as a collective organic intellectual.

These sessions are key to solving two important problems for the subordinate groups, namely market access and access to affordable capital. WHEF Governing Council member Shajjan Bhajanka (2016) explains that with respect to the former, WHEF provides information about “new emerging markets such as Africa, Myanmar, Vietnam

200 and Sri Lanka” and identifies “coordinators” for each region “who will act as a nodal point to facilitate Hindu business in their areas”. Goswami adds to this by highlighting WHEF’s strategy of “product connectivity”:

Product connectivity [is a strategy] that WHEF now has established in so many different places. If somebody wants market access, somebody [who is] a small producer of handicraft goods somewhere in Delhi and he also wants markets in South Africa… Now we at least have a point of contact there, who is known as a reliable person, who can talk about the South African market to this person sitting there. So, I think WHEF offers more for those people [SMEs] rather than the companies who already have their connectivity (IN4).

WHEF therefore becomes the organisation that provides this connectivity to those who lack any (or sufficient) access to markets outside India, key to increasing the volume of trade by small businesses and to helping them find export opportunities. As for affordable capital, again, “WHEF aims to connect business persons with investors and educate [them] about different investment avenues” (Bhajanka 2016).

At each of WHEF’s planned networking sessions, there are different “zones” formed according to the potential needs of different entrepreneurs, such as “joint ventures/partnership opportunities”, “investment, start-up and finance”, “export, import, trading and services”, and “emerging markets and new ventures”. An example of this system can be seen in Figure 10, which details the schedule of one such session from 2018. In this schedule, it is also possible to see the names of previously mentioned people in the role of “facilitators”, including Reddy from Silicon Valley, former Chairman of LCC Thakrar, Puri from the Purico Group and Jhavier from the Jhavier Group. These facilitators are mentors capable of providing financial support or information to those who need them. Therefore, although WHEF does not provide direct financial support, it remains actively involved in mediating this provision. As Sanjay Kumar and Srinivas Chidumalla, who designed these sessions at WHEF 2015 and WHEF 2016, put it: “WHEF facilitates, you make the deal” (Kumar and Chidumalla, 2015; Kumar, 2016).

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FIGURE 10: Planned networking session in WHEF 2018

Source: WHC (2018b)

Referring to the achievements of past events that “have enabled entrepreneurs to tie up with investors”, Bhajanka (2016) states that WHEF offers “a win-win for both”. Ganguli takes the same view, describing the sessions as a “mutual favour” between those who have time and resources and those who do not:

SMEs often don’t have time and resources to keep running around the world. They are happy with somewhere they can transact. Because they need to spread around the world, we would do [a] mutual favour for each other. Let’s say I am a company with five employees. With those resources, I cannot sail around the world. Maybe I have initial contacts with somebody else to facilitate. And these become an international relation [through WHEF]. They [SMEs] would be very attached to this (IN3).

Thus, WHEF helps SMEs to connect with the world through this facilitating mechanism – i.e. taking them abroad, or bringing businesses owners from abroad to India – and SMEs in turn become attached to WHEF’s project. When asked whether or not SMEs and young entrepreneurs are satisfied with the opportunities that WHEF offers, Goswami answers to the same effect:

They really are. We have been doing these annual conferences. So, people who come there … really get a lot of benefit. Because for the first time, you know, they are meeting Indians who are successful in the US and in

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Europe. So, they do networking which really helps them. We also have sessions where people share ideas. If somebody likes, they can invest, you know. They can collaborate. So, we make time, especially for those sessions during those annual conferences (IN4).

One young entrepreneur’s WHEF experience demonstrates this. Manoj Melett, one of the founders of Aditya Trade Links, says that their company “was formed by 4 people who participated in the WHEF 2012 annual forum at Hong Kong, and currently they are running a business with turnover of more than Rs. 300 crores [10,000.000]” (WHEF 2014b: 20).

Besides facilitating business between different groups by bringing them together physically, WHEF also discusses and organises a number of training and internship initiatives. In this way, those who have expertise and experience teach those who do not. For Vaidyanathan, this would also facilitate “the creation of global universities” built upon the cooperation among academics, experts and businesses (WHEF 2016b: 2). For instance, Hardev Singh, a businessman in the UK and WHEF 2014 panellist, talks about initiatives to support subordinate groups within the business community. These initiatives include the “World Youth Networking Platform”, the “Enterprise Lab” and the “Student Venture Challenge” for young entrepreneurs, and the “Ingenuity Network” for existing SMEs, which aims “to provide leadership training” and to help businesses “innovate, implement and solve problems using new ideas” (WHEF 2014b: 20). This is another way in which WHEF performs mentorship. Goswami similarly talks about “incubation centres” in this fashion, extolling WHEF’s benefits to SMEs and students, and therefore to society:

So, SMEs… If they grow, if their business grows, they end up helping more people. That is one of the indirect benefits. Secondly, it is for students who definitely want to grow to a stage where we can start mentorship programs, we can start off bringing incubation centres. Some proposals have been done in that regard. … We want [students] yes. Yes. Why not? So, if a student wants to do an internship somewhere in the UK, somebody is willing to [support] him (IN4).

This “somebody” who is willing to support students who would like to intern in the UK is Nat Puri of Purico. In his interview, Purohit, mentioned earlier, does not give any specific examples or numbers, but admits that the company does offer internships to Hindu students (IN1).

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To sum up, what is expressed as “mentorship” is closely related to WHEF’s role as permanent persuaders. It consists of developing tools and ideas to solve subordinate groups’ problems in the global market, bringing them together with funding bodies or potential buyers in planned networking sessions, and arranging training and internship programs. WHEF engages in an active persuasion process to involve these subordinate groups in its intellectual project, based on religion and supported by these tools, ideas and activities. Consent is produced by WHEF elites by means of their specialised knowledge of the business field, and thanks to this knowledge, the elites remain specialised as experts not directive (Gramsci, 1971: 10). Having explained this, the following sub- section now looks at the corresponding tools, ideas and activities developed by IBF.

6.2.2- IBF: Developing Subordinate Groups’ Self-Esteem and Creating a Transborder Synergy for Business

Similarly to WHEF, IBF makes an effort to improve the conditions of existing SMEs and to create new opportunities for young entrepreneurs by developing tools, ideas and activities to help them enhance their market access and reach potential financiers. As IBF brings several different countries together, the process is supported by the signing of “cooperation partnerships” and of “memorandum of understanding” (MoU) agreements between these countries (MÜSİAD Fairs 2012). Research and development (R&D) is taken very seriously by IBF – and their efforts are therefore condensed into bringing academics, research centres and businesses together – because it is crucial to improving SMEs’ competitiveness and to enabling young entrepreneurs to catch up with existing technologies. In line with this, training and internship programmes are available to students, who are considered the future of ‘Islamic civilisation’. All of these efforts are considered part of ‘mentorship’, which, as in the case of WHEF, is designed to be a long- term influence on subordinate groups’ business journeys rather than something restricted to annual conferences.

Mentorship

For IBF, mentorship is closely related to financial problems, which are (again, similarly to WHEF) considered the primary issue facing SMEs and young entrepreneurs. IBF’s mission is therefore to produce knowledge of relevant business strategies and to improve

204 tools to create more funding for those who need it. As in the case of WHEF, mentorship is delivered by those who own intellectual means of production or have experience in the field, with recipients those who lack experience or funding. An example from the 20th IBF summarises this point:

The concepts of funding and mentorship often act together. It has been observed that success for investment that is taken mentorship support has increased. Mentorship is an important qualification for a successful investment ecosystem. Therefore, mentorship support for new investment should be encouraged in many respects such as primarily market and growth potential and product-market compatibility (IBF 2016).

Therefore, IBF elites presented as “organic organisers” in Chapter 5 – i.e. wealthy businessmen, bureaucrats, academics, etc. – take up the role of mentors for the subordinate groups. This is particularly relevant to SMEs’ efforts at adaptation to export- oriented developmental strategies, and therefore to attempts to create new opportunities for them to export their goods and services to foreign countries. Unlike in the case of WHEF, however, mentorship does not have any particular meaning in Islam, beyond solidarity and respect for experience.

Although IBF maintains a particular focus on improving the banking system to help SMEs acquire loans, unlike WHEF, it has never attempted to create an “Islamic bank” because IDB, explained in Chapter 4, already serves this purpose. The Bank works with OIC and COMCEC, of which IBF is the official business forum since 2006, and actively attends and supports IBF events. At these events, IDB elites deliver speeches on the opportunities they offer (IBF 2005, 2006, 2014). For this reason, IBF’s main emphasis is on retaining strong ties with IDB. An example of the relation between IDB and the Turkish economy is given in one IDB document:

In his opening remarks, President Erdoğan praised the role of the IDB Group in supporting the Islamic banking industry in Turkey, noting that the Group contributed this year US$ 570 million to finance two important projects i.e., the construction of the country’s VakıfBank, and provision of a credit line to the Export Credit Bank of Turkey to promote SMEs in Turkey and support their competitiveness in global markets (IDB 2015).

IDB’s President Al-Madani adds that this bank, which works on Islamic finance, plays this role not only in Turkey but also in other countries, supporting their SMEs (ibid.). In addition to fostering its relationship with IDB, IBF also promotes private banks based on participatory risk-sharing finance, as explained in Chapter 5.

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Having transferred the issue of funding to IDB and private banks, IBF’s direct mentorship is thus more about providing

a concrete base for sharing a transborder synergy through mutual trade, common investments and industrial projects. New markets and opportunities were built for establishing a union of minds and strength on an axis of mutual values and economic cooperation (MÜSİAD Fairs 2012).

If an IBF event takes place in İstanbul, participants are invited to MÜSİAD EXPO following the event. If IBF’s event is in another country, MÜSİAD instead takes its members abroad to introduce them to foreign investors and financiers. Thus, this “union of minds and strength” established by IBF is formed through MÜSİAD’s institutional body.

This is an important aspect of the mentorship supported by IBF and of the narrative established around SMEs by MÜSİAD, particularly in relation to the beginning of the 1990s, which was a crucial period for both MÜSİAD’s and IBF’s development. During this period, individuals running SMEs in Anatolia lacked certain skills or means to grow transnationally (e.g. foreign languages, passports, etc.), and therefore needed an outside party to lead them abroad and establish trade links. In a documentary narrating the story of MÜSİAD’s first twenty-five years, it is said that:

Businessmen were hesitant in the beginning. They were saying “Without knowing English, what would we do in business fairs abroad?” MÜSİAD let them develop their self-esteem in 3-4 years so that Anatolia broke its shell, got to know the world. Those entrepreneurs who did not even have passports discovered global markets and the great transformation has started (MÜSİAD 2015b).

This narrative resonates with Ganguli’s explanation of the opportunities provided by WHEF, in the sense of helping subordinate groups who do not have time and resources to “sail around the world”, or else bringing the world to them. As seen in the quote, these groups are presented as the locomotive force of a great transformation of Turkey, with MÜSİAD/IBF’s help.

This great transformation of the country is also accompanied by a great transformation of SMEs. Yüzey (mentioned previously) – a businessman, a former senior member of

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MÜSİAD and organiser of multiple IBF events – explains this transformation in the following way:

I sell heating systems, especially industrial heating systems. For that reason, I went almost everywhere in Turkey, particularly organised industrial zones in order to sell goods to companies. You can see how they have changed in time. Most of the companies which improved a lot were our members. Some of them were those who came from apprenticeship, those who have not gone to university. I saw how they improved in time; the next generation, their children or grandchildren have become able to speak two or three languages, at least one foreign language. Some of them came to the big cities, owned business centres while a considerable majority of them went back to their hometowns but improved their businesses a lot. … Of course, to provide this improvement, we used different methods, i.e. organised forums [IBF], attended to the business fairs, and organised business fairs, so on and so forth (TU4).

Particularly given Turkey’s political-economic developments in the 1990s, the MÜSİAD/IBF elites’ efforts are not only considered ‘transformative’, but ‘emancipatory’. Kolonyacı explains:

[SMEs] needed to be supported in terms of skills. Therefore, MÜSİAD introduced its members to the world, thanks to its efforts in training, foreign affairs, organising business fairs and forums [IBF], sending export committees and arranging business meetings with foreign committees visiting Turkey. For us, it was vital to integrate our country with the world as well as exchange information on imports, exports, investment and technological knowledge. What I mean is, if they had not known what was going on around the world, they would have been trapped and left barren. Therefore the aim was put as making business with the world (TU3).

Being “trapped” here refers to two circumstances: first, SMEs’ lack of means to adapt to an export-oriented strategy precipitated by a military coup rather than through a gradual process, and second, their concomitant difficulty in competing with large businesses originating in İstanbul, which were already open to the world even by the 1980s, as explained in Chapter 3. In this sense, MÜSİAD’s transnational orientation, crystallised by IBF and their mentorship, helped to rescue SMEs from the potential traps of the Turkish economy. However, it is equally important to note that without persuading this subordinate group and securing its consent, MÜSİAD/IBF elites would also not have been able to consolidate the capitalist class fraction they represented as a major one within Turkish society.

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Business Matching Sessions, Cooperation Agreements, R&D and Internship Opportunities

Revisiting Uhur’s words in Chapter 4, IBF is the “ideology” whereas MÜSİAD fairs are the actual “practice”. Trading activities and partnerships between businesspeople are promoted at IBF events and take place at the fairs. An example explaining the importance and achievements of the fair in 2010 is as follows:

[T]he fairs [are] extending its goal [by] increasing national and international attendance. The International MÜSİAD Fair[,] visited by thousands of foreign individuals from tens of countries and hundreds of thousands of Turkish nationals[,] has become a global showcase where hundreds of companies from different industries exhibit their products and [provide] goods and … international investors and businessmen and dynamic Anatolian entrepreneurs came together. … This resulted in new partnerships and cooperation across the world. Thus, the gates were open for trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars (MÜSİAD Fairs 2012).

Just before people are directed to the fair area, they are subjected to a preliminary examination through IBF. Like WHEF, IBF does not directly fund any business; rather, it mediates the process whereby those searching for funding and market access meet those who have them. Crucial to this process are “business matching sessions”, similar to WHEF’s planned networking sessions, which coordinate the creation of “successful business ventures among member businessmen” (IBF 2003).

As was expressed during the 6th IBF, “the anchor feature of the [event]” is “the unique opportunity to identify their prospective business alliances … among themselves in a series of dedicated business matching sessions throughout ... [the event] where buyers meet sellers and vice versa” (IBF 2001). In line with this, Figure 11 shows how Anatolian cities and Anatolian entrepreneurs are promoted to foreign business delegates in order to achieve business-to-business (B2B) commerce.

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FIGURE 11: Business matching session at the 16th IBF

Source: IBF (2012)

These sessions guide participants in the right direction to “pursue their individual trade and investment interests” (IBF 2003), so that SMEs can benefit from the fairs by turning their ideas into businesses. One questionnaire conducted in 2010 is helpful for giving an idea of the business deals made during these fairs: according to Figure 12, 46% of 611 participants surveyed were in the process of negotiating business deals at the time of answering, and 35% had already made such deals. Among that 35%, more than half made deals with both local and foreign companies, 23% made deals only with foreign companies and 19% with local companies. As with WHEF’s surveys shown in the previous section, this kind of information is expressive of an effective persuasion process between IBF elites and participants.

FIGURE 12: MÜSİAD’s questionnaire at the 13th MÜSİAD EXPO

Source: MÜSİAD (2012)

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Having said this, neither B2B agreements nor any other kind of business deal are restricted to the MÜSİAD fairs held in İstanbul. As mentioned earlier, SMEs are also taken to other countries to attend IBF meetings abroad, and make use of the business matching sessions there (IBF 2003).

To give some examples, at the 9th IBF in Jeddah in 2005, Yağızsa – an İstanbul-based company specialising in carpet production – signed an agreement to export carpets to Samed Al Alize, a company based in Jeddah. This B2B agreement was signed under the auspices of President of IBF and the President of MÜSİAD at the time (Yeni Şafak 2005). At the same meeting, Çilek Mobilya, a Turkey-based furniture company with two branches in Jeddah, decided to increase its branches to twenty-five (ibid.). Furthermore, KOSGEB – the institution responsible for SMEs mentioned earlier – was present at the same meeting, sharing with the participants its proposal for a database of SMEs in Turkey, to be compiled and shared with the world (Türkiye Gazetesi, 2005). This project was decided upon as a model for other Islamic countries, and IDB thus also decided to form its own database which could be accessed online, and could therefore facilitate the gathering of information about potential B2B agreements among Islamic countries (ibid.).

Not only B2B agreements, but also other cooperation agreements and MoUs are signed thanks to IBF’s activities. During the 7th IBF in 2014 in Morocco, MoUs were signed between MÜSİAD and the Enterprises Business Association of Morocco and between MÜSİAD and the Morocco Medical Devices Professional Society (Electricity Turkey, 2014: 32). During the 20th IBF (and, within that, the 16th MÜSİAD EXPO), MoUs were signed between MÜSİAD and three important organisations, namely the Iran Chamber of Engineers, the Iranian Chamber of Cooperatives and the Association of Russian Muslim Businesspeople, in order to extend Turkey’s “trade and collaboration network in the world and contribute to the country’s economy” (MÜSİAD 2016). Similarly, another MoU was signed between IBF and Bosna Bank International (BBI) in 2019, indicating that “a promise of cooperation has been made for various topics including visits to be paid in different timeframes and [support for] each other’s activities to be organised” over the following three years (MÜSİAD 2019). Following this, IBF authorities attended the Sarajevo Business Forum organised by BBI, and there met businesspeople and investors based in Sarajevo (Reel Ekonomi 2019). In line with this, the 23th IBF in 2019 was subsequently decided to take place in Bosnia Herzegovina, a first for the Balkans.

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All of these efforts are key to expanding IBF’s influence on a transnational level. Such agreements, going beyond individual business agreements, also form an institutional base for IBF’s persuasion process that links SMEs and young entrepreneurs with other countries’ investors.

Improvements in R&D are equally important to IBF, which sees them as vital to the competitiveness of SMEs and young entrepreneurs. In this sense, IBF’s efforts on behalf of these subordinate groups also require investment in this area. Professionals working in R&D support this process via training programs and speeches during IBF meetings, such as one 2016 seminar on the importance of digitalisation for SMEs (IBF 2016). Kadir Şener from Microsoft Turkey delivered a speech during the 20th IBF, saying:

[SMEs] innovate and develop. In fact, we do not determine our industrial agenda; rather, they do it. We take seriously our SMEs’ digital transformation as they create a significant value for Turkey’s economy. If SMEs’ technology usage is increased by 10%, there comes 15 million $ additional income and 360,000 new employment opportunities. While investing in technology causes in an increase in efficiency of 95% of SMEs, it decreases [the] cost of doing business for 93% of them (Hürriyet 2016).

As seen in this quote, bringing experts into meetings with SMEs and sharing research on R&D are both crucial for SMEs’ development. Moreover, for IBF, prioritising research also helps SMEs to grow and to increase their export capacity. In Yüzey’s words:

If you improve the volume of trade [and business] of SMEs … first of all, you technically let them work in the system and then pave the way for their growth. … When SMEs enter the market, first, they preserve their existence in it, then get involved in other activities to improve themselves. In that process, our research activities are crucial (TU4).

These research activities are key for those who lack the intellectual means to understand the complex nature of the economy and business world. Yüzey continues:

For instance, imagine an economic crisis is coming up. If you do not suggest a meaningful way to cope with it, those people might not know what to do. They might not know what to do with the unexpected increase in exchange rates. However, if you explain to them what is going on and how to cope with problems, you can give them a shield to protect themselves against crises. There are lots of examples of that. Our research activities are for making sure that they exist in the market and then become able to expand their trade and export volume, and grow (ibid.).

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In this sense, research activity carried out mainly by academics or experts contributes to SMEs’ transformation from within. It also illustrates academics’ and experts’ key role for IBF, as explained in Chapter 4. For this reason, therefore, it was argued at the 20th IBF that “[c]ollaborations should be increased, academic information should be made available in the industry, and companies should expand their capacities with local or foreign collaborations” (IBF 2016). IBF also places importance on “strategic research centres, and investment in education, human resources development and capacity building measures” as means of developing intellectual property resources (IBF 2009).

It is important to note that IBF not only supports existing SMEs, but also shapes the next generation of businesspeople, i.e. today’s young entrepreneurs. At the 18th IBF, it was stated that “[IBF] recommended that a greater effort should be made to develop the next generation [of] Islamic finance professionals through effective and holistic educational and training programmes” (IBF 2014b). Thus, IBF makes an effort “to support entrepreneurship activities to be carried out by academicians and university students in order to bring new products and technologies to the economy”, in order to create “university-industry cooperation” (IBF 2016).

The idea of “university-industry cooperation” resonates with what WHEF suggests, and specifically with Vaidyanathan’s stated goal of “creating global universities”, indicating a holistic understanding in which research and training/internship form an active component of business strategies. Thus, it is also possible to find internship programs for university students supported by IBF. The OIC International Student Internship Programme (OIC-ISIP), which was officially launched during the 14th IBF in İstanbul, is

a special international internship programme developed under the OIC- VET Programme, and aims to enhance the quality of [the] workforce employed in OIC Member Countries and strengthen [the] integrity and convergence of labour markets, and promote [the] competitiveness of OIC economies through increasing [the] knowledge and skills of university students about to enter into the labour market in accordance with national legislation and practices (SESRIC 2010).

The pilot application of this programme was conducted in Turkey before it was officially launched. Also at the 14th IBF, Turkey’s then-president Abdullah Gül, presented plaques to fourteen university students from ten different OIC member countries, who had each

212 completed internship programmes in companies affiliated to MÜSİAD in Turkey (MÜSİAD, n.d.b). At the same meeting, it was also announced that

[f]rom the year 2011 on, the OIC-ISIP programme is intended to operate fully as an internationally recognised internship programme by all OIC Member Countries under the International Business Forum (IBF), which will cater to the basic training needs of the university students pursuing different degrees in OIC universities (SESRIC 2010).

Similar to B2B agreements, internship programmes aim to achieve long-term partnerships. These internships are also a form of IBF’s mentorship of students, who are regarded as the next generation of Islamic finance professionals. For instance, in a brochure prepared by MÜSİAD to promote OIC-ISIP, one of the company owners hosting these students states that: “The most important contribution of this [programme] to our company is that these students from abroad serve as our messenger when they go back to their countries.” (MÜSİAD, n.d.b: 15). Another company owner adds that:

For the first time, we had a student from abroad as an intern. … We also utilised the information about their country. I think [that these kinds] of activities as part of other efforts to increase our country’s [Turkey] exports are very beneficial. Particularly those who export or would like to export [their goods and services] can expand their connections with a country by incorporating these students from that country into their companies. And these young people can represent … our companies in their countries after they graduate (ibid., 14-15).

When the profiles of these companies are examined, it becomes clear that they are SMEs searching for opportunities to expand their links abroad. Therefore, while students from other countries are being trained as part of IBF’s project of raising the future generation of Islamic entrepreneurs, SMEs are also participating in this process in hopes of expanding their profile and activity in other countries via these same students.

Therefore, like WHEF, IBF is also engaged in an active process of persuasion directed at these subordinate groups. Despite this not having a particular meaning in Islam, IBF also conceptualises what it does as “mentorship”, and it makes an effort to provide these groups with relevant tools, ideas and activities to solve their problems and develop their skills. Supporting this endeavour with business matching sessions and training programmes, IBF makes these subordinate groups a part of its intellectual project.

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6.3- Concluding Remarks

This chapter has explored the last component of WHEF’s and IBF’s role as collective organic intellectuals of religiously-oriented elites. Both WHEF and IBF act as permanent persuaders of subordinate groups within the business community, manufacturing their consent and drawing them into their intellectual projects which, as previous chapters have showed, reinforce neoliberal common sense. These groups consist of SMEs, young start- up entrepreneurs and students. This chapter showed that neither WHEF nor IBF represent self-enclosed and self-fulfilling intellectual projects. Rather, they constantly seek to mobilise these subordinate groups in order to consolidate their class interests in the business field and secure consent for neoliberal ideology. Thus, I argued that while both forums support these groups by providing ideas, tools and activities to aid their competitiveness in the global political economy, each also consolidates its own position – that is, as part of the other major fraction of the capitalist class in its own country – by securing their consent. This chapter therefore completes my answer to RQ3 (the way in which the forums operationalise their religion-based intellectual projects) and RQ4 (the wider global relevance of the similarities between these projects).

First, I looked at the forums’ rationale for focusing on the subordinate groups, which is mainly discussed with reference to SMEs (6.1). Three reasons for prioritising the persuasion of SMEs and for securing their consent were explained in detail. In two separate sub-sections (6.1.1 for WHEF and 6.1.2 for IBF), I illustrated the following: 1) SMEs’ significant contribution to their countries’ GDP and employment are main considerations for both forums. Both the Indian and Turkish economies are dominated by SMEs, and reaching out to them thus brings more people into contact with their projects. 2) Both Indian and Turkish economies failed to produce comprehensive and practical solutions for small producers’ problems in the past; rather, they supported large companies belonging to Western-oriented secular fractions of capital. For this reason, SMEs were left disorganised and unskilled in contrast with these companies, which has made them more receptive to both forums’ organisational and ideological strategies. 3) Both forums conceptualise SMEs as ‘common men’, and therefore as conserving the social fabric, which is claimed to be Hindu and Islamic by WHEF and IBF respectively. For this reason, it is believed to be easier to address their religious sentiments and to establish a common ground between the WHEF/IBF elites and these ‘common men’.

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Secondly, having explained the rationale for focusing on SMEs, I next focused on the specific tools, ideas and activities presented by each forum as means of solving SMEs’ problems and improving their skills (6.2). Young entrepreneurs and students are also involved in this part of the discussion, as both forums also involve them in their projects as future SME owners. For WHEF (6.2.1), its role as permanent persuader is expressed through the idea and practice of mentorship. A mentor is understood by WHEF as a business guru, guiding those who need social and technical support in the business field just as a Hindu guru guides people in life. IBF (6.2.2) also expresses its role as permanent persuader with the concept of mentorship, offered by the IBF elite to those who lack technical skills, expertise and networks in the business field. This section also showed that through this mentorship role, both forums also produce knowledge of solutions and strategies for the subordinate groups’ main problems, particularly financing and access to global markets. To this end, both WHEF and IBF schedule specific sessions to boost interaction between the elite and subordinate groups, through which the latter can the find the right mentors; that is, ones who both can give them advice and are willing to buy their products or invest in their ideas. Both forums also carry out training and internship activities, designed to improve R&D among SMEs and to raise the future generation of Hindu and Islamic entrepreneurs.

Considering the RQs of the thesis specifically, the final important way in which WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion (RQ3) is through the manufacturing of the consent of subaltern groups within the business community. Having argued that WHEF and IBF are organising (Chapter 4) and articulating (Chapter 5) neoliberal hegemony in their respective countries, I therefore argue here that the consent intrinsic to hegemony is manufactured amongst SMEs (and young entrepreneurs and students) through both forums’ activity as permanent persuaders. This last important part of the answer to RQ3 also represents the last component of WHEF’s and IBF’s organic intellectual function as defined by Gramsci. Both forums construct subordinate groups as “backward” not because of the contradictions and inequalities intrinsic to capitalism (cf. Perren and Dannreuther 2012: 58; Gramsci, 2005: 87), but because of the activity of previous (Western-oriented) governments.

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This positions WHEF and IBF elites – who have organic relations with the BJP and JDP governments leading neoliberal projects in India and Turkey respectively – as those who help these groups in compensating for what they lack, owing to their specialised knowledge as well as their technical and intellectual means of production. Similar to Gramsci’s discussion of the Rotary Club (Ives and Short 2013: 640), this turns out to be a “social service” provided by these forums that does not need any return. However, I argued in this chapter that it does indeed have a return, in the sense that the consent of these groups consolidates WHEF and IBF elites’ class positions within one of the two main fractions of capital in their respective countries. In performing this service, the forums correctly capture the key place of SMEs in capitalism, in terms of the high numbers of people that they represent (the difficulty of defining business size, as e.g. micro/small/medium-sized, means that the category can conceivably encompass everyone outside of very large businesses and extremely poor subalterns), their collective disorganisation (which makes them available for mobilisation) and their place in everyday life (i.e. as common men and preservers of the social fabric) (cf. Perren and Dannreuther 2012: 40). This engenders an active process of persuasion between the religiously-oriented elite and SMEs.

I also showed that WHEF and IBF perform the role of permanent persuaders in a similar way, despite their intellectual projects being based on completely different religions. The wider global relevance of this similarity (RQ4) again comes from the importance of the international. The focus on SMEs and on solutions to their problems emerges from India- or Turkey-specific problems, but in the end the tools, ideas and activities which pave the way for the manufacturing of consent are built upon the idea of making SMEs competitive within the context of a neoliberal ideology reflected upon its export-oriented developmental strategy. In this sense, it is WHEF’s and IBF’s transnational orientation that most contributes to the subordinate groups’ drive to exist, improve and compete within neoliberalism, an objective which is fulfilled through their entry into the collective created by the forums and by their location of mentors who are business/investment advisors and/or investors/financiers.

Having presented these last empirical findings, I now move to the next section, which concludes the thesis. This section brings together these findings with those of the previous two empirical chapters, and reorganises the answers to each research question.

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CONCLUSION

In this thesis, I sought to answer the following main research question:

RQ1: How does religion interacts with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey?

As my case studies I took the intellectual projects of two religion-based business forums, WHEF from India and IBF from Turkey, with organic relations to the religiously- oriented fractions of capital that are leading neoliberalism in their respective countries. To answer this overarching question, I sought to answer the following three subsidiary RQs:

RQ2: What role has religion played at particular historical junctures in India and Turkey? In other words, what are the historical legacies behind WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects?

RQ3: In what ways do WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion? Why is religion important for neoliberal ideology?

RQ4: What are the similarities and differences between WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects? And what is the wider global relevance of these similarities/differences?

In answering these questions, I adopted a historical materialist approach to religion based on a Gramscian framework (see Chapter 1). This approach was rooted in Gramsci’s own discussions of religion, and combined these with neo-Gramscian IPE, to put religion and religion-based forums in the context of the global political economy. I obtained primary data from each forum’s documentation (i.e. annual reports, brochures, audio-visual material and panellist presentations) and from interviews with forum elites. Employing qualitative research methods based on the triangulation of document analysis with these interviews, I arrived at my findings and ultimately made original contributions, which are summarised in this concluding chapter.

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The thesis’s main original contribution comes from comparing India and Turkey, and religion’s role in mediating neoliberal ideology therein. This is a solid contribution to the social sciences as, firstly, there are only a few studies comparing these two countries. Only in recent years has social-scientific scholarship turned to making this comparison, and even then, this has been in terms of socio-political and socio-economic issues, lacking any particular attention to questions of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology. Therefore, this thesis represents a timely contribution, shedding light on striking similarities between the two. Secondly, comparing India and Turkey represents a significant contribution to the study of the political economy of religion, with the comparison of Hinduism and Islam adding new dimensions to the discussion, as explained throughout the thesis and summarised in this concluding chapter. For historical materialist approaches based on Gramscian frameworks and discussing religion with respect to neoliberal hegemony, India and Turkey are new empirical cases even individually, let alone in comparison. Thirdly, this thesis represents the first research project to pay serious attention to WHEF and IBF as case studies. Although its focus is on comparing the two, it also reveals detailed information about each forum and discusses their (similar) social functions in their national and transnational contexts, which have been ignored in the Indian and Turkish social science literatures.

Keeping these aspects of the thesis’s originality in mind, the first three sections of this chapter correspond to the abovementioned three subsidiary RQs, highlighting the main arguments made in answering them in relation to the main research question (RQ1). The subsequent section sums up the overall argument, making the answer to RQ1 clear. The final section discusses avenues for future research.

Answering RQ2

What role has religion played at particular historical junctures in India and Turkey? In other words, what are the historical legacies behind WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects?

I dealt with RQ2 in Chapter 2 for India and Chapter 3 for Turkey. Answering this question placed WHEF and IBF in historical context and set the stage for understanding

218 the main arguments in my empirical chapters. In accordance with the theoretical framework explained in Chapter 1, these chapters clarified religion’s status as a fragmented phenomenon which differs across class strata (Gramsci 1971: 429) and argued that both Hindu nationalism and political Islam are elite articulations of their respective religions. Both chapters focused on religion as a social process contingent upon the social relations of production, and highlighted religion’s different roles depending upon its interactions with different social forces in different historical periods (Roberts, 2015: 1664). Ultimately, these chapters differentiated religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology from that of previous periods – though acknowledging its links with them – and underlined that the rise of Hindu nationalism and political Islam happened in both cases during periods of neoliberal transition. Acknowledging differences between the two historical contexts under examination (explained further in answering RQ4 below), these chapters were nonetheless designed to reflect an important parallel between them, namely religion’s similar role across three main historical periods in both countries: the founding, the planned economy and neoliberalisation.

Chapter 2 showed that in India there have been two main elite articulations of Hinduism marking the country’s contemporary history. One was INC’s secular perspective on Hinduism as an important but secondary element of the Indian nation. The other was RSS’s Hindu nationalist perspective, which saw India as a Hindu nation. Although the former was mainstream and the latter was marginal during the period of founding, the following decades saw a total reversal of the two, particularly in the years since the start of India’s neoliberal transition. The chapter explained that these two articulations of religion corresponded to different fractions of the Indian capitalist class, referred to as the old (or Western-oriented) elites and the new (or religiously-oriented) elites. The former consisted of INC and the large, often state-supported businesses that grew around it, and remained the dominant fraction of the Indian capitalist class until the neoliberal transition in the second half of the 1980s. The latter comprised Sangh Parivar members, RSS, VHP and their political representatives – namely Jan Sangh from the 1950s until 1980 (including its dissolution into Janata) and BJP from 1980 onwards – as well as SMEs, representing one of the smaller fractions of the Indian capitalist class which, with neoliberalisation, managed to become competitive with the dominant one.

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Informed by these class dynamics (see Chapter 2 for details), Hindu nationalism became one of the main sites of opposition to INC from the 1960s under Jan Sangh and was subsequently mainstreamed by BJP, which became one of the two main actors in Indian politics from the 1990s on. This chapter examined neoliberalisation’s impact on this process, which took three main forms. Firstly, the Mandalisation of politics initiated by INC resulted in declining support among business elites, who increasingly saw BJP as an alternative vehicle for their class interests. Secondly, the politics of mandir carried out by BJP mobilised these elites along Hindu nationalist lines, reflecting the rise of communalism following from the growth of Islamic movements and the Kashmir problem. And thirdly, neoliberalisation helped Hindu-oriented business elites to grow their businesses, and to reach different social classes through private educational institutions and local governments’ infrastructural initiatives.

I also highlighted that neoliberalism was initially a political project of India’s Western- oriented elites; however, it was taken over and rendered hegemonic by the Hindu- oriented elites organised under BJP, and with other Sangh Parivar members such as RSS and VHP it was ultimately expanded through the incorporation of different social classes into the process of reinforcing neoliberal hegemony. This chapter also underlined that WHEF arose as a result of this process of neoliberalisation; as detailed in the subsequent empirical chapters, it is rooted in the same Hindu nationalist socialisation processes as Sangh Parivar (RSS, VHP, BJP), and integrates these organisations’ ideas into its own intellectual project. Indeed, the topics addressed throughout Chapter 2 represent the historical legacies behind WHEF: INC’s domination over Indian politics and particularly the Indian economy through its protectionist policies, which benefitted only the Western- oriented fraction of Indian capital; the ongoing conflicts between this fraction and the religiously-oriented one represented by Sangh Parivar; the reviving and deployment of ancient Hindu culture against Western influence and against India’s significant Muslim minority (i.e. communalism); the religiously-oriented elites’ focus on SMEs; and the modification of Hindu nationalism via its mediation of neoliberal ideology. These legacies are still observable in WHEF’s intellectual project, in the form of historical sedimentations integrated into the version of neoliberal common sense stabilised and reinforced by the organisation itself.

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As for Turkey, Chapter 3 showed that three main articulations of religion have marked contemporary Turkish history. The first was RPP’s and TSK’s secular articulation of Islam as a popular element of the Turkish nation, though one that needed to be controlled by the state. The second was centre-right parties’ (DP, JP, ad MP) populist articulation of Islam as a key element of the Turkish nation, which helped them to secure popular support. The last was NVM’s political Islamist articulation which saw Turkey as an Islamic country, mainly represented by NVM’s various political arms – NOM, NSP, WP, VP and FP – which, for the most part, represented the same party under different names owing to successive military interventions. This latter perspective was similar to RSS’s and its political arms’ articulation of Hindu nationalism. JDP emerged from the NVM tradition, but adopted the second articulation until 2007, after which point it made a significant turn towards the third.

Whereas the first articulation was mainstream and the third was marginal throughout Turkey’s founding period, a total reversal of these positions occurred along with neoliberal transition, similarly to the Indian case. Another similarity consisted in the fact that each articulation of religion corresponded to different groups of elites representing different fractions of the Turkish capitalist class, with the old or Western-oriented elites represented by the first articulation and the new or religiously-oriented elites represented mainly by the third, albeit with an element of the second too. The former group primarily consisted of RPP and the state tradition (mainly secured by TSK until the 2010s due to RPP’s lack of popular support) along with large businesses that had grown thanks to state support (i.e. the TÜSİAD group), and remained the dominant fraction until the 2010s. The latter had its roots in NVM, represented one of the smaller fractions of the Turkish capitalist class, mobilised and organised SMEs under MÜSİAD, and through the activity of JDP and the onset of neoliberalisation ultimately grew to be competitive with the older, dominant fraction.

Conditioned by these class dynamics (see Chapter 3 for details), political Islam became a primary site of opposition from the 1970s under NVM’s various political arms, and was finally mainstreamed by JDP from the 2000s onwards. Once again, neoliberalism – initially a project of Western-oriented elites – came under the sway of religiously- oriented elites, who in turn rendered it hegemonic. As in Chapter 2, I underlined the impact of neoliberalisation itself on this process, which similarly took three main forms.

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Firstly, the Turkish-Islamic synthesis initiated by the military regime to control social opposition following the 1980 military coup, which also began Turkey’s neoliberal transition, actually worked in favour of political Islamic groups. Secondly, the increased participation of Islamic financial institutions from the Gulf region – spurred by the neoliberal strategies of the 1980s – caused an expansion of the Islamic sector in the Turkish economy and helped Islamic-oriented elites’ businesses to grow. And thirdly, as in India, neoliberalisation helped these elites – particularly MÜSİAD – to expand their economic power and to reach different social classes through private educational institutions and local governments’ infrastructural initiatives.

This chapter also highlighted that IBF, like WHEF, arose as a result of this process of neoliberalisation. It is rooted in the same political Islamic socialisation processes as JDP and the NVM tradition, and integrates their concerns into its own intellectual project. Again, the topics addressed through Chapter 3 represent the historical legacies behind IBF, ranging from its forebears’ anti-Western stances, their criticisms of the founding period based on the state’s hostility towards religion and religious organisations, the state’s own bureaucratic controls over business and support for Turkey’s Western- oriented business elites, and the opposition’s historical focus on SMEs. These are still observable in IBF’s intellectual project, in the form of historical sedimentations integrated into the version of neoliberal common sense stabilised and reinforced by the organisation itself.

Answering RQ3

In what ways do WHEF and IBF operationalise their intellectual projects based on religion? Why is religion important for neoliberal ideology?

I answered this question in the empirical chapters 4, 5 and 6. This was key to answering RQ1, in terms of engaging with the religion-based forums through which the thesis traced religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey. Having explained that neoliberalism was made hegemonic by the religiously-oriented elites of both countries, this question shed light on the intellectual and moral leadership underpinning neoliberal

222 hegemony and on religion’s particular place therein, with WHEF and IBF both participating in this leadership through their particular intellectual projects.

In accordance with the theoretical approach explained in Chapter 1, these chapters focused upon religiously-oriented elite agency and on religion’s and religion-based ideas’ relationship with hegemony in order to understand its interaction with neoliberal ideology (cf. Shields 2019; van Apeldoorn 2000). WHEF and IBF are illustrative of this role, because as I argued in these chapters, both act as collective organic intellectuals of the religiously-oriented elites leading neoliberalism in their respective countries. Their specific social function in this process is explained with reference to Gramsci’s (1971: 10) explanation of the intellectual function, being built upon their connective and organising capacity (Chapter 4), their construction of neoliberalism as the ‘correct’ form of the global political economy (Chapter 5), and their role as permanent persuaders of subordinate groups within the business community (Chapter 6). Each component of this intellectual function revealed the ways (or stages) in which these forums operationalise their intellectual projects, as each is mediated by religion. Religion’s particular importance was illustrated in terms of its ability to universalise the particularistic interests of WHEF and IBF elites (Chapter 5). Answering RQ3 also revealed the striking similarities between the ways in which both sets of forum elites operationalise their intellectual projects and universalise their particular interests, which will be further summed up for RQ4 below.

Organising and Connecting Religiously-Oriented Elites

Chapter 4 argued that WHEF and IBF organise and connect religiously-oriented elites in operationalising their intellectual projects. This represents the first component of their role as collective organic intellectuals of particular fractions of Indian and Turkish capital, involved in catalysing support for neoliberal hegemony (cf. Mittelman, 2014).

Unpacking WHEF’s and IBF’s networks in this chapter served to reveal the main social channels that they were built upon, as well as the main strategic areas across which both forums operationalise their intellectual projects. It showed that both first organised at the national level, utilising social channels that they were organically connected to: mainly, the religious organisations/movements and the political parties arising from these that

223 were mentioned in Chapters 2 and 3. WHEF and IBF elites were therefore part of the “new elites” in both countries, specifically those who specialised in business. WHEF’s social channels consisted primarily of RSS/VHP circles and BJP, in addition to academics (mainly those specialised in economics and finance) connected to either or both. IBF’s consisted mainly of MÜSİAD/NVM circles and WP (before 2002)/ JDP (after 2002), and again academics connected to either or both.

Within the WHEF network, some participants belonged to the upper ranks of VHP, some were members of RSS, and others worked as advisors to BJP PMs. IBF’s case was similar, with the forum working directly under MÜSİAD, and its network consisting of some members who had organised around NVM and others from the upper ranks of JDP. This challenges WHEF’s and IBF’s narratives of their own independence from wider society; in fact, both occupy critical places in their respective countries’ state-society complexes and have organic relationships with their religiously-oriented elites, representing particular fractions of Indian and Turkish capital precisely by organising and connecting the business-oriented elements within these elites.

Moreover, I argued that WHEF’s and IBF’s organising and connective capacity is not limited to the national level. Although they are rooted in this level, they also transcend it by creating transnational religion-based business networks through the translation of their social channels into strategic areas. Aiming to integrate with the global political economy more effectively and seeking to promote their particularistic interests (i.e. identifying potential assets, carrying out lobbying activity, creating funds and sourcing investment), both forums exercise their transnational capacities by organising and connecting religiously-oriented elites worldwide under collective religious (Hindu for WHEF and Islamic for IBF) identities. For WHEF, the Indian diaspora is instrumental. Within this, the primary strategic areas are Hindu nationalist civil society (mainly RSS/VHP chapters abroad and wealthy businesspeople thus affiliated), other countries’ bureaucracies/technocracies (and thus high-ranking Indian-origin bureaucrats and technocrats, e.g. the president of LCC), and academia (i.e. Indian-origin academics specialising in business at well-known universities [e.g. MIT, LSE] or in particular intellectual groups [e.g. MPS]). For IBF, other Islamic or Muslim-majority countries are instrumental. Within these, the primary strategic areas are political society (e.g. bureaucrats, technocrats and chambers of commerce), political Islamic civil society (e.g.

224 key NGOs such as OIC and IDB), and academia (mainly academics belonging to universities in the Islamic world, and preferably also taking part in important institutions, e.g. the presidents of OIC and IDB).

This further clarified how WHEF and IBF elites acknowledge the importance of having a transnational orientation in mediating neoliberal ideology, and how they bring together religiously-oriented business elites at different institutional levels (i.e. business, bureaucracy, technocracy and academia) by employing a shared religion as the base of their transnational networks.

Constructing Neoliberalism as the ‘Correct’ Form of the Global Political Economy

Having clarified the first component of WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual function, I dealt in Chapter 5 with the ideational grounds of their intellectual projects, revealing the second such component: their construction of neoliberalism as the ‘correct’ form of the global political economy. I argued that each forum constructs a particular conception of the world based on religion – one which promotes neoliberal ideology and reproduces neoliberal common sense – and then universalises it by obscuring class relations. This was key to understanding the way in which religion interacts with neoliberal ideology, as per RQ1.

This chapter highlighted that both WHEF and IBF claim to stand for alternative economic models based on their religions, which are supposedly distinct from both capitalism and socialism and which operate through the participation of each forum’s religion-based transnational networks in the global political economy. Dealing with them comparatively, I examined how WHEF and IBF construct these models (called “Hindu civilisation” and “Islamic civilisation”, respectively) around their criticisms of the existing Western-led global political economy. Both involve a confrontation with the West – as the core of this existing global economy, against India and Turkey as its periphery – and therefore resonate with a global developmentalist outlook.

Both forums are critical of this Western core, pointing to economic practices that have had tremendous knock-on effects in India and Turkey and to underlying moralities which are incompatible with the (Hindu or Islamic) values of their own countries. Despite the

225 prominent critical tone of these arguments, this chapter showed that they never target the social relations of production underlying the existing global political economy; rather, they focus on distributional problems. In this sense, what they are critical of is wealth’s condensation in the West, rather than neoliberal ideology and what it promotes (i.e. the free market, financialisation, privatisation and capital’s dominance over labour). Based on this, I argued that these criticisms serve to open up space for making sense of neoliberal ideology within the forums’ own models, albeit with Hindu or Islamic inflections; that is to say, they create an understanding of neoliberalism as ‘fixable’ through the application of religious precepts.

For WHEF, the three building blocks of the alternative are knowledge production, spiritual enrichment and community finance. Rather than directly advocating neoliberalism (a Western model), they extract its main logics from the legacies of ancient India by turning to history and to the main sources of Hinduism (holy books, stories, certain important texts). They thus advocate a leading role for Hindu businesses in the market with minimal or no government intervention, the collective organisation of Hindus in the business world, and financialisation within the Hindu community to enable its effective integration into the global political economy. By obfuscating differences within the Hindu community (e.g. the existence of Hindu subalterns or subordinate groups), WHEF creates a ‘coherent’ collective identity and universalises the particularistic interests of its elites and the corresponding fraction of Indian capital (cf. Shields, 2019: 823; Macartney, 2008: 430).

The same is observable in the case of IBF. The three building blocks of its model are the development of the Islamic charitable sector, the creation of an Islamic financial culture, and the expansion of Islamic financial tools. Neoliberal ideology is again extracted from religious history, this time from the Medina period of the Prophet Muhammed’s life and from Islam’s holy book, the Quran. This leads IBF to advocate the creation of wealth through the Islamic finance sector and its distribution through the Islamic charity sector, the eschewal of Western financial tools in favour of Islamic finance following Quranic rules, and the unity of Islamic communities operating within the global political economy. Again, the Islamic community is presented as a ‘coherent’ whole obscuring class relations, and IBF creates a ‘coherent’ collective identity which universalises the particularistic interests of IBF elites and the corresponding fraction of Turkish capital.

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On this basis, I highlighted religion’s importance to such intellectual projects and argued, in line with Gramcsi (1971: 325-326), that both forums are able to claim as universal their particular conceptions of the world thanks to religion’s provision of “a unity of faith between a conception of the world and a corresponding norm of conduct”, despite its fragmented basis in class relations. Given that they do not challenge its main logics, both forums make sense of neoliberal ideology in their national contexts by employing religion, and reproduce neoliberal common sense in a manner mediated by religion. In this sense, despite their own claims, they offer alternatives within, rather than to, neoliberal ideology.

Persuading Subordinate Groups Within the Business Community

Having explained the first two components of WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual function in the previous chapters, in Chapter 6 I explained the last such component. In this chapter, I argued that WHEF and IBF act as permanent persuaders of subordinate groups within the business community (SMEs, young entrepreneurs and students), manufacturing their consent and drawing them into their intellectual projects in the process of reinforcing neoliberal common sense. I showed that while these forums are elite institutions, they are not self-fulfilling networks; rather, they constantly seek to consolidate their (fractional) class interests by securing subordinate groups’ consent.

Given the importance of SMEs to the class fractions represented by WHEF and IBF throughout Indian and Turkish history, both forums focus particularly on this group. Their reasons for doing so reflect this importance, which takes three main forms. Firstly, SMEs represent a majority within the business communities of both countries, both in terms of their numbers and in terms of the numbers of employees under their control. Manufacturing consent among them is therefore key to securing the religiously-oriented elites’ class position against that of the Western-oriented elites, who mainly mobilise large businesses. Secondly, they are more receptive to WHEF’s and IBF’s organisational and ideological strategies, owing to structural features of the Indian and Turkish political economies which have left SMEs un- or less skilled and disorganised in comparison to their larger competitors. Thirdly, both forums find it easier to address SMEs than large enterprises, claiming that there is shared (religion-based) ground between them and these subordinate groups. To both forums, SMEs represent ‘common men’ conserving the

227 social fabric of their respective countries: that is, their Hindu and Islamic values (cf. Perren and Dannreuther and 2012: 40).

Based on the above, forum elites enter into an active persuasion process with these subordinate groups. Both WHEF and IBF develop specific tools, ideas and activities to mobilise not only SMEs, but also those who they see as future SME owners (or Hindu or Islamic entrepreneurs more generally), namely young entrepreneurs and students studying business, finance, marketing and other related areas. In doing so, both forums express their role as permanent persuaders through the practice of mentorship. For WHEF, the concept of mentorship is rooted in Hinduism, whose gurus guide people in life. WHEF elites therefore claim the mantle of ‘business gurus’, guiding these subordinate groups in their business lives using specialised knowledge and experience. IBF also practices mentorship on behalf of its subordinate groups, despite the concept lacking any comparable significance in Islam. In accordance with this self-appointed role, both forums provide these groups with business knowledge, funding, and networking strategies (i.e. funding schemes, information about financing tools, methods of accessing global markets, R&D tools, training and internship activities). They also schedule specific events to introduce them to mentors from abroad, i.e. potential investors and trade partners who share the same religion-based collective identity.

With respect to the above, I showed that while both WHEF and IBF elites construct these subordinate groups as backward (i.e. disadvantaged, disorganised and un- or less skilled), they relate this to the dominance of Western-oriented elites in Indian and Turkish business life, not to the contradictions and inequalities of capitalism itself (cf. Perren and Dannreuther 2012: 58; Gramsci 2005: 87). Therefore, they present their activities as a sort of ‘social service’ rendered to these groups without expectation of any kind of return. However, I argued that these activities indeed have a return: mobilising these groups and manufacturing their consent is key to both forums because it paves the way for their command over the majority of the business community, and consolidates their class position against the Western-oriented elites.

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Answering RQ4

What are the similarities and differences between WHEF’s and IBF’s intellectual projects? And what is the wider global relevance of these similarities/differences?

I answered this question together with RQ3 in the empirical chapters 4, 5 and 6. From the beginning of this thesis, I made it clear that India and Turkey have certain national specificities accompanied by cultural, geographic, and demographic differences between the two countries. These were briefly depicted in the thesis: for India, they included its colonial past, INC’s Western-oriented founding ideology (and its initial dominance), the Fabian socialist period, and the country’s long-term membership of NAM; for Turkey, they included its imperial past, RPP’s Western-oriented founding ideology (secured instead through the military’s dominance), the period of state-led capitalism, and the country’s participation in the Marshall Plan (and openness to US influence). WHEF and IBF, as products of these historical contexts, also therefore have differences, which were also mentioned briefly in the thesis.

Firstly, they are based on fundamentally different religions. Whereas Hinduism is non- Abrahamic, largely condensed in India, and draws its legitimacy from multiple ancient scriptures and deities, Islam is Abrahamic, common across a region which includes Turkey, and draws its legitimacy from a single holy book and prophet. Secondly, WHEF mainly makes use of the Indian diaspora in the West and of the business elites within it; by contrast, IBF focuses on all Islamic or Muslim-majority countries, and thus not necessarily a Turkish diaspora. It is therefore more common to see elites from Western institutions (e.g. LCC, MPS, MIT) at WHEF events, despite the forum’s critical tone regarding the West and its institutions. IBF, by contrast, does host elites with relationships to these organisations but generally makes more use of non-Western institutions (e.g. OIC, IDB). Relatedly, IBF’s anti-Western stance and criticism of Western capitalism is more prominent, at least on a discursive level. Thirdly, as regards their ‘alternative’ models, IBF’s suggestion of an alternative form of finance is more structured than that of WHEF, as there is an already-existing Islamic financial sector in the global political economy which has already grown to some extent with the involvement of Islamic countries, particularly those in the Gulf region. The community

229 finance supported by WHEF, by contrast, has been appropriated by WHEF elites rather than originating from Hinduism as such.

More differences can be identified; however, this thesis drew attention primarily to the striking parallels between religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology in India and Turkey and the similarly striking parallels between WHEF’s and IBF’s religion-based intellectual projects, despite their markedly different historical and religious contexts. These similarities were already clear in the previous section addressed to RQ3, which explained how the forums operationalise their intellectual projects with respect to each component of the intellectual function. To highlight these similarities more precisely: first, they both label their alternative models with the word “civilisation” (i.e. “Hindu civilisation” and “Islamic civilisation”) in order to legitimise their (religion-based) strategies by evoking their respective countries’ Hindu and Islamic pasts (Chapter 5). Second, although these models evoke some sort of closeness (being premised on a religious identity), they are both transnationally-oriented (Chapter 4). Third, although they claim to advance anti-Western and anti-capitalist frameworks, neither challenges Western capitalism or the primary logics of neoliberal ideology; rather, they contribute to both by reproducing neoliberal common sense (in a manner mediated by religion) and by advocating neoliberal economic strategies (Chapter 5). Fourth, both make use of their specialised business knowledge to mobilise and manufacture consent among subordinate groups in the business community (Chapter 6).

I subsequently argued that the reason for, and wider global relevance of, these similarities between these two intellectual projects – rooted in completely different religions – comes from the importance of the international. Firstly, although there is no cultural or regional commonality across the forums, both aim to be important actors within the global political economy, itself impacted by transnational social forces. In this endeavour, they join “struggles over wealth, power and knowledge production” (Murphy 2000: 799) with their own intellectual projects, transnational religion-based networks, and allegiances to particular capitalist class fractions. Secondly, given that neoliberalism’s political- ideological expressions are variegated across different (national) contexts (Macartney 2009: 459; see also Bruff 2008), the forums’ religion-based intellectual projects are only two of many different and competing political-ideological positions within this variegated terrain. Therefore, their particular conceptions of the world not only confront those of the

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West but also compete with them (cf. Murray and Worth 2013: 733). Thirdly, each forum’s focus on SMEs and on solutions to their problems emerges from India- or Turkey-specific problems, but in the end the tools, ideas and activities thus developed are built in order to make SMEs competitive within the context of neoliberal export-oriented developmental strategies. Thus, the international dimension does not erase national specificities, but it does limit them. As a result, it is possible to see how different business strategies based on completely different religions come to suggest similar neoliberal logics.

Summing up the Overall Argument: Answering RQ1

How does religion interact with neoliberal ideology in Turkey and in India?

By examining religion’s historical role in India and Turkey, and by tracing the particularity of religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology empirically with reference to two religion-based business forums – which I identified as collective organic intellectuals of the religiously-oriented elites leading neoliberalism today – I ultimately answered RQ1, with the help of the subsidiary RQs explained in this concluding chapter. For clarity, I briefly repeat this answer to RQ1 in this section.

Religion does not have either a general ‘coherent’ definition or any transhistorical role. It is neither straightforwardly constitutive of political-economic developments nor a simple variable affecting them externally. It is fragmented along lines defined by the social relations of production. With respect to its interaction with neoliberal ideology, therefore, this thesis has argued that religion’s elite agency is crucial. In light of this, the overall argument developed in relation to RQ1 is the following: Religion interacts with neoliberal ideology by mediating it through the activities of organic intellectuals of religiously-oriented elites – representing particular capitalist class fractions in India and Turkey – and their involvement in the intellectual and moral leadership underpinning neoliberal hegemony. These organic intellectuals organise and connect religiously- oriented elites worldwide, construct a particular conception of the world that reproduces neoliberal common sense with Hindu and Islamic inflections, and persuade subordinate groups of this conception. However, the thesis has also argued that this elite agency,

231 expressed through the activity of intellectuals, is restricted by transnational social forces. Although the religiously-oriented elites in India and Turkey originate from different historical contexts and fundamentally different religions, they have devised strikingly similar intellectual projects.

The thesis further elaborated religion’s interaction with neoliberal ideology and argued that religion provides solid ground for the universalisation of religiously-oriented elites’ particular interests. It helps these elites to create ‘coherent’ collective religious identities out of neoliberalism’s contradictory and exclusionary ideology by obscuring class relations. It also helps them to make sense of neoliberalism, which could not become hegemonic under Western-oriented elites’ intellectual and moral leadership in the Indian and Turkish national contexts. That is to say, religion enables religiously-oriented elites to create an understanding of neoliberalism (of which they are supposedly critical) as ‘fixable’ once it is amended with the correct religious principles.

Avenues for Future Research

To conclude, I here identify research topics which represent possible avenues for future research looking to build upon this thesis.

Firstly, I traced the role of religion in India and Turkey with reference to two religion- based business forums which mobilise religiously-oriented elites, namely WHEF and IBF. In doing so, I focused on the creation of ‘coherent’ collective religious identities under these forums. Although I questioned the coherence of these identities to some extent, there remains space for questioning them further by directly focusing on conflicts within the forums themselves. These conflicts were never apparent in the forums’ documentation, but some interviewees hinted at them (IN3; TU4). With the help of more interviews or a different engagement with the interviewing process (e.g. ethnographical research), this side of the situation is therefore worth examining, particularly insofar as it might reveal further contradictions and conflicts within neoliberal hegemony.51

51 For a good example of such an attempt in a different context, see Bayirbag (2011).

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Secondly, these forums do not produce policies, but do include many policymakers (e.g. bureaucrats and technocrats) in their operations, as mentioned in the thesis. I have highlighted both forums’ presence within several key institutions of neoliberal transition (e.g. NITI Aayog in India), as well as certain topics which were first discussed within WHEF or IBF and which subsequently became policy (e.g. the paradigm shift within Turkish foreign policy, and Qatar’s increasing investment in Turkey). These forums’ policy impacts therefore remain a potentially fruitful research area – also underlining the variegated nature of neoliberal policymaking – and there is space for such a discussion within neo-Gramscian IPE (e.g. Shields 2019; Macartney 2008, 2009).

Thirdly, the masculine character of both Hindu nationalism and political Islam, along with their overall gender politics (though not necessarily the political economy of gender) are frequently discussed in both the Indian and Turkish social science literatures (e.g. for India see Banerjee 2006; Bannerji 2016; for Turkey, see Gökarısel and Secor 2017). This is also reflected in the cases of WHEF and IBF. Although there are some female participants in forum events and in administrative jobs (e.g. secretarial positions), women are excluded from the decision-making processes of both organisations. This is also a reflection of women’s exclusion within the business field in a broader sense. Both forums would therefore benefit from being analysed from a feminist political economy perspective, which would also have the potential to reveal the interrelationships between gender, religion and neoliberalism in India and Turkey.

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Appendix 1

List of Interviewees

All names are anonymised

Referred in Interviewee Function Place of Date the Thesis Interview IN1 Ishan Purohit Senior member of Phone 23 February staff (Purico) Interview 2018

IN2 Karun Senior member of Phone 23 February Mahajan staff (Purico) Interview 2018

IN3 Shivaya Academic London 26 January Ganguli (LSE)- 2018 WHEF Steering Committee Member 2012-2013

IN4 Bhavin IT Manager/ New Delhi 14 January Goswami Volunteer (WHEF) 2018

IN5 Aditya Senior member of New Delhi 10 Puranam staff (WHEF) December 2017 TU1 Sevim Yardım Member of staff İstanbul 18 July 2017 (IBF) TU2 Ziya Kazan Senior member of İstanbul 18 July 2017 staff (MÜSİAD and IBF),

TU3 Osman Senior member of İstanbul 20 July 2017 Kolonyacı staff (MÜSİAD and IBF), Academic

TU4 Bekir Yüzey Former senior İstanbul 19 July 2017 member of staff (MÜSİAD and IBF), Businessman

TU5 Görkem Uhur Senior member of İstanbul 4 August staff (IBF), 2017 Businessman

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Appendix 2

WHEF Events

* Event planned but did not take place for external reasons

** Event planned but not taken place yet

Event Date Place Topic WHEF 2012 30 June-1 July Hong Kong/ China Shaping the World 2012 Economy along with Making Society Prosperous

WHEF 2013 10-11 August 2013 Bangkok/ Thailand Strengthening Economy, Shaping Future

WHEF 2014 21-23 November New Delhi/ India Thriving Economy, 2014 Prospering Society

WHEF 2015 11-13 September London/ UK Collective Growth, 2015 Secure Future

WHEF 2016 18-20 November Los Angeles/ US Explore, Grow: 2016 Share, Celebrate

WHEF 2017 * 17November 2017 Nairobi/ Kenya Africa: Growing Business, Transforming Lives

WHEF 2018 (1) 20 January 2018 Mumbai/ India Accelerating Economy of Bharat

WHEF 2018 (2) 7-9 September Chicago/ US Optimism, 2018 Innovation and Partnerships

WHEF 2019 27-29 September Mumbai/ India Prosperous Society, 2019 Stronger Society

WHEF 2020 ** 6-8 July 2020 The Hague/ The Sustainability, Netherlands Technology, Inclusiveness

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Appendix 3

IBF Events

* Reports not provided N/A - Information not available (both/either in the reports and/or online)

Event Date Place Topic 1st IBF (PBF) * 1995 Lahore/ Pakistan N/A

2nd IBF * 1996 İstanbul/ Turkey N/A

3rd IBF * 1997 İstanbul/ Turkey N/A

4th IBF * 1998 İstanbul/ Turkey N/A

5th IBF 12-13 April 2000 Cape Town/ South Africa in 2000s Africa 6th IBF 12-14 April 2001 Kuala Lumpur/ Breaking up New Malaysia Barriers in Information Technologies

7th IBF 18-20 October Tehran/ Iran The Link to Central 2003 Asia and Silk Road

8th IBF 15-18 September İstanbul/ Turkey Afro-Eurasia’s 2004 Emerging Common Market

9th IBF 2-3 October 2005 Jeddah/ Saudi Intra-OIC Trade: Arabia Challenges and Opportunities

10th IBF 22-25 November İstanbul/ Turkey Intra-OIC 2006 Investment: Partnering for the Global Market

11th IBF 26-29 November Abu Dhabi/ United Unlocking the 2007 Arab Emirates Region’s Inbound and Outbound Investment Potential

12th IBF 21-26 October İstanbul/ Turkey Financial 2008 Integration Among Islamic Countries

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13th IBF 12-15 October Cairo/ Egypt Trade and 2009 Industrial Development in Challenging Era: New Opportunities for Partnerships

14th IBF * 6-10 October 2010 İstanbul/ Turkey Importance of Technology for Development in Islamic Countries

15th IBF * 2011 Jeddah-Riyadh/ N/A Saudi Arabia

16th IBF 9-12 October 2012 İstanbul/ Turkey The Era of Economic and Political Progress in OIC

17th IBF 1-4 May 2014 Marrakech/ Tunisia N/A

18th IBF 26 November 2014 İstanbul/ Turkey Paradigm Shift: Neo-Financial Drifts

19th IBF 6 October 2015 Doha/ Qatar Intra-OIC Partnership: Developing Sustainable Co- operation in High Tech Defence Industries

20th IBF 10 November 2016 İstanbul/ Turkey Innovation Economy and Investment Ecosystem

21st IBF 18 November 2017 Amman/ Jordan Humanist Ecosystem is Rising

22nd IBF 20 November 2018 İstanbul/Turkey Pluralism And Justice In The World Monetary System

23rd IBF * 17-18 October Sarajevo/ Bosnia N/A 2019 Herzegovina

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Appendix 4

Member Countries in IBF’s Board of Governors

1- Turkey 2- Saudi Arabia 3- Malaysia 4- Indonesia 5- Yemen 6- Syria 7- Iran 8- Pakistan 9- Jordan 10- Lebanon 11- Palestine 12- Bangladesh 13- Singapore 14- South Africa 15- South Sudan 16- Ivory Coast 17- Egypt 18- Morocco 19- Algeria 20- Tunisia 21- Mauretania 22- US 23- UK 24- Bosnia Herzegovina

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