Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s controversial visit to Jamia Millia Islamia University of Delhi on Monday was met with much handwringing and outrage amongst student and alumni. The university had planned to confer an honorary doctorate on the president. The outrage was sparked by Erdoğan’s own treatment of academics in Turkey.

Turkey under Erdoğan’s has prosecuted human right activists, journalists and academics. In 2016, 19 academics were arrested after signing a petition to denounce military operations against Kurds. Recently, Turkey, under its national security law, banned Wikipedia.

But Erdoğan’s two-day visit succeeded in downplaying these controversies. The function in Jamia did not address his ‘fascist’ regime in Turkey nor his condemnation of their constitutional court.

The protest against Erdoğan wasn’t widespread across campus. The student community was divided over his policies. The divide was seen not only among the students from the Turkish language department, who were quite vocal in supporting the conferment but also from other departments.

Raqib Hamid, a student from Political Science department, said, “What Erdoğan is now trying to do, is that he wants to emerge as world leader like stepping in between Kashmir problem and trying to mediate Indo-Pak talk.”

“Like people had [Barack] Obama as messiah from the West, Erdoğan is trying to become the same messiah for the Muslim countries and societies”, said Hamid as he tried to portray the effort behind the Erdogan’s visit. Hamid supported the conferment by saying, “If that’s going to help education and academic setup, why not?”

Aijaz Gaffar Manzil from Arabic languages department of Jamia also felt that Erdogan’s visit might help many academic setups in getting established but he was also of the opinion that the decision to confer him with a doctorate was more or less taken under the pressure of Central Government.

“Country visit is another thing than his conferment at the university. One can say the ceremony could be held in government’s pressure, but that cannot diminish his stature and visit to our country,” said Manzil.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta, an alumnus and social activist was outraged after the news of conferment and openly condemned the University’s decision. He also started an online petition on Change.org named ‘Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi, Must Not Honour Recep Tayyip Erdogan’. The petition has gathered 508 signatures till now.

Referring to people who say that all human rights violations and violence are Turkey-related issues, Sengupta said, “That’s their opinion and they have a right to put it, but we are the citizen of the world and we do raise our voice when something happens in any country which violates human rights. Being that it’s our responsibility to raise our voice on his visit.”

Referring to the atrocities faced by Nazim Hikmet to Orhan Pamuk, Sengupta said, “When the students from the Turkish language department will get to study these literary figures, I’m sure they will be thinking the tough times they had faced. They will think of those forefathers of Turkish literature, as the ones who were put on trial just because of condemning policies of the government, which was supposed to be the fundamental right of those.”

Security was beefed up ahead of Erdoğan’s visit to the university campus. Two journalists from the Quint, Meghnad Bose and Aaqib Raza Khan reported being assaulted and manhandled by the police as they tried to cover the ceremony around the visit.

Although Erdoğan’s felicitation saw almost no protest, students had some different perspectives over his recent remarks on Kashmir. Atib Maaz Khan, a student at AJK Mass Communication Research Center said, “I suppose he (Erdoğan) won’t feel good if we start talking about Kurdish genocide in India, but we are not because we are welcoming him with open arms. In that context, he should also step back before poking his nose into Kashmir issue, which has no relevance and importance of Turkish government. Apart from that, I see no point in protesting his felicitation.”