It is a well-known fact accepted by scholars that Anatolian culture was mainly Hellenic, and South Asian culture was primarily Hindu before the arrival of Islamic Turks from Central Asia, and from their arrival started the gradual Islamification and Turkification of these two geographies.
The jewel of the Christian world, the church of Hagia Sophia, was converted into a mosque in 1453 when Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. It has again been converted into a mosque, after many decades of being a museum, by the Islamist populist president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Similarly, a Turk, Baqi Tashqandi, also known as Mir Baqi, a general in the army of Turko-Mongol Badshah Babur, who conquered a large part of Northern India, destroyed the Hindu Shri Rama Temple, the Birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Rama in Ayodhya and constructed a mosque at its place. After a long movement to liberate this Hindu site, a Hindu temple was inaugurated here in January 2024 by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.
Religious persecution
Australian academic Peter H. Paroulakis, in his book The Greek War of Independence, writes that in an attempt at more “zealous religious persecution, Selim I – the grandson of Mohammed II – gave orders that all Orthodox churches were to be confiscated and converted into mosques and Christians were to be forced to adopt the Muslim faith.
“Matching periods of religious fundamentalism of the Ottoman Empire, Turkic-Mongol emperor Aurangzeb of India, on April 9, 1669, ordered the governors of all the provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the ‘infidels’ – Hindus and other non-Muslims- and firmly put down their teachings and religious practices.
Discriminatory taxation
The Ottomans collected Jiziya from Greek Orthodox Christians, an Islamic poll tax levied on all non-Muslims in the empire who were forced to pay to practice their religion. Similarly, in India, Jiziya was collected by the Turks and Turko-Mongols from the Hindus; it was initially imposed in India by a Turk Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the first Sultan of Delhi’s Mamluk Sultanate, who destroyed 27 Hindu and Jaina temples to build the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque (Might of Islam Mosque) in Delhi as recorded in his inscription on the central-eastern entrance.
Widespread slavery
Greeks, other Orthodox Christians, and Hindus were also enslaved by the Turks and sold in slave markets. Paroulakis’ writes: “Perhaps the most heartbreaking vision of those oppressive years was of grief—stricken parents (Greeks Orthodox Christians) whose young sons were dragged from their homes by Sultan’s soldiers and taken to Constantinople to be trained in Turkish military corps known as janissaries.” Their sons were abducted and brainwashed to become fanatical Muslims before being returned to Greece as janisaries to oppress their people unknowingly.
Alan W. Fisher, in his 1978 work on Ottoman slavery, writes that slaves, including women and children, were bought and sold in the markets called sir pazan in most of the towns and cities. These slave markets were most usually incorporated within the larger general market in the town, often comprising just a section, sometimes occupying their building (esir ham) adjacent to the market.
In 1822 during the Greek Revolution for Independence, the Turks sent a fleet to the island of Chios, to wipe out the population. No less than 30,000 civilians were slaughtered, women subjected to mass rapes and 50,000, Greeks carried off to slavery.
In Morea, (Peloponnesus) Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian naval commander, (Egypt was a vassal state of the Ottomans) oversaw the mass deportation of Greek slaves, and subjected the population to slaughter, rape and famine.
In South Asia, according to Abu Al-Nasr Muhammad Bin’ Abd Al-Jabbar’ Utbi’s book, Tarikh Yamini, published in 1023 AD, Mahmud of Ghazni, a Turkish invader, occupied Peshawar in 1001 and captured around 1,00,000 young Hindus. Again, in 1019, after his 12th raid into India, Mahmud returned with so many enslaved Hindus their value was reduced to only 2-10 dirhams per head. Greek Orthodox Christians and Hindus went through centuries of persecution by Turks.
Many Indian slaves were destined for Central Asia and West Asia and slaves hailing from the Horn of Africa were simultaneously trafficked into the Indian subcontinent, to work in the households of the elite, or serve in the ranks of the Muslim armies. Even after enduring such discrimination and persecution, Greeks and Hindus did not accept defeat; they took up arms to get back their freedom.
Rise of national heroes
Seventy members of the Kolokotroni family were killed in battles against the Ottomans between 1762 and 1806, and lakhs of Marathas attained martyrdom, fighting for the religious freedom of the Hindu people. But who were the Kolokotroni and the Marathas? While the former were Greek klephts, freedom fighters against Ottoman rule, the latter were Indian warriors who fought against the tyranny of Turks and Turko-Mongols in India for an independent India that they called “Hindavi Swarajya.”
While the preeminent leader of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) was Theodoros Kolokotronis, that of the Indian war against Turko-Mongol oppression was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
While Kolokotronis’ most significant success was the defeat of the Ottoman army under Mahmud Dramali Pasha at the Battle of Dervenakia in 1822, the tremendous success of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was against Afzal Khan, a general of Adil Shah Sultanate (Rulers of this Sultanate had Ottoman ancestry ). The wars of independence that these two heroes led in their countries against Turkic rulers became a storm that destroyed the oppressive Turkic empires in India and Greece. Theodoros Kolokotronis and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj both used guerilla warfare against their enemies and defeated them.
Greek Indian friendship
General Theodoros Kolokotronis said during the 1821 Greek Revolution, “Our race was crucified many times, but here we are, still alive,” and Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaja during the war for Hindavi Swarajya said, “The entire nation from Thanjavur to Peshawar is ours (Indians).” Greece and India are both independent today because of the sacrifices made by many warriors who fought against foreign oppressors.
Greece and India are custodians of ancient universal civilisations still connected by the heritage, philosophy and art of Indo-Greeks; we learned from each other. We went through similar oppression perpetrated by Turkic rulers and are now strategic partners with common geopolitical enemies. We need to work together to strengthen our strategic partnership and pay tribute to those Greek and Indian warriors who made Supreme sacrifices in the service of their respective countries.
Arunansh B. Goswami is an advocate in the Supreme Court of India and historian who publishes in various publications including Neos Kosmos.