Tourism beneficiaries as terrorism sponsors

Time to ground one-way traffic: FTT needed on trips to anti-India states

Fundamentalist nations like Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, and Bangladesh, despite being major beneficiaries of a whopping number of Indian tourists, year after year, yet are ardent supporters of radicalism and terror infrastructures, directed against India.

President of the Republic of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been a notorious India-baiter for a long time. Amid escalating India-Pakistan tensions and the looming threat of war, the arrival of a Turkish C-130E Hercules military transport aircraft in Pakistan has triggered speculation that one of Islamabad’s closest fundamentalist allies might have made an urgent consignment of military hardware. The reports were based on flight-tracking data published by open-source intelligence (OSINT) trackers. The aircraft was seen flying over the Arabian Sea on April 28. Certain reports in the Indian media have concluded that six, and not one, C-130Es landed in Pakistan, bringing military gear of unknown nature.

Turkey has been an ardent supporter of Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. In February 2025, following his talks with Shehbaz Sharif, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for a UN dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue. Separately, just hours after the Pahalgam terror attack, Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif thanked Turkey for its “unwavering support” on Kashmir during a meeting with Erdoğan in Ankara. While two fundamentalist nations patting each other is not surprising, the Indian attitude of meek acceptance of Turkey’s brazen hostility is viewed as a totally unwarranted gesture by patriotic Indians.

India has been consistently misreading the Turkish agenda since the time of the Khilafat Movement (1919-22), which was a political campaign launched by Indian Muslims in British India over British policy against Turkey and the planned dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after World War I by Allied forces. The cause of the Ottoman monarch evoked religious passion amongst Indian Muslims. Being the caliph, the Ottoman sultan was nominally accepted as the supreme religious and political leader of all Sunni Muslims across the world. Essentially, the Khilafat movement united Indian Muslims against Hindus (Kafirs), within India and outside and Gandhi’s asinine support to the movement is one among his many follies. The genocide of Hindus by Moplah Muslims in Malabar in August-September 1921 was the highlight of the Khilafat Movement. It is generally believed that in this genocide over 10,000 Hindus were slaughtered by Muslim fanatics, several thousand converted, thousands of women raped and forcibly converted.

Turkey was among the few countries that quickly recognized Pakistan after its creation and supported it to become a member of the United Nations.

On 26 October 2009, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was awarded the Nishan-e-Pakistan. Both the majority of Turkey’s and Pakistan’s populations practice the Hanafi School of Sunni Islam.

During his two-day visit to Pakistan in February 2025, Mr. Erdogan said, “The Kashmir issue should be addressed according to the UN resolution through dialogue and keeping in mind the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.”

“Our state and our nation, as in the past, stand in solidarity with our Kashmiri brothers today,” the Turkish president said.

On the day when 26 Hindus were slaughtered in cold blood in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif raked up the ‘Kashmir issue’ during his meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara. In a joint press conference with Erdogan, Shehbaz Sharif thanked Turkey for its “unwavering support” on Kashmir.

For all its brazen support for Pakistan, what did India do? Consider this – in 2024, Turkey recorded 330,985 Indian tourists, a notable increase from the 274,159 visitors in 2023. This represents a growth of 20.7% in the number of Indian tourists thronging into Turkey, making it among the world’s top five most visited destinations in 2023-24. The cost of a Turkish visa for Indian nationals varies based on the type of visa. A single-entry tourist visa costs approximately INR 4,270, while a multiple-entry visa costs around INR 14,220. Visa fees extracted from Kafirs is itself a fortune for the Turkish government. This is apart from the earnings in hotels, tourist spots, shopping, and earnings in the duty-free shop at the Istanbul airport.

In return for the bumper tourist traffic, and revenue, from India, Turkey supplied Pakistan with Bayraktar TB2 and Akinci drones. These drones are high-altitude, long-endurance combat drones, and Pakistan received its first batch of Akinci drones in 2023. The TB2’s has proven its effectiveness in conflicts like the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Visitors from Turkey coming to India is very negligible. Turkey does not figure in the Top Ten source countries for foreign tourist arrivals in India. Just like Balance of payments in trade parlance, there is a need for balance in tourist traffic, it cannot be a one-way street.

When in February 2023 a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rattled Turkey and Syria, killing more than 50,000 people, India quickly mobilised around 100 rescue workers of the NDRF along with dog squads utilising specialised Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue (CSSR) equipment and techniques. Turkey had never requested India for aid. India offered the aid unsolicited.

In a quick Thanksgiving, in March 2023, Turkey once again raked up the ‘Jammu and Kashmir’ issue at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). What Turkey has done should not come as a surprise to anyone. Ultimately, for them, Islam and fellow Muslims come first. Who helped them in an earthquake, who saved their lives, who cured them when they were ill, are all of secondary consideration if that country/person is a non-Muslim. India does not know how to deal with fundamentalists, and never even attempts to learn and study about fundamentalists.

In January 2023, a Turkish private military company called SADAT, also known as Erdogan’s private army, reportedly declared its willingness to send mercenaries to Kashmir to fight against the Indian Army.

The latest report to cause umbrage all over India is the report that Turkish Airlines is reaping major benefits from its codeshare partnership with Indigo Airlines. The two carriers operate joint flights to more than 30 European and US destinations under a long-standing agreement, with Turkish Airlines gaining the disproportionate monetary advantage. As a result of this arrangement, Indians are compelled to use Istanbul as a European transit point and pay for a Turkish transit visa if they are transiting through Istanbul. As Indigo is a private carrier, the Government of India can do very little in the matter.

But India can break the one-way tourist traffic impasse easily. The simplest, quickest, and effective way is to revive the defunct Foreign Travel Tax (FTT) scheme, which was in vogue during the 1970s. A hefty FTT should be levied on Indian tourists travelling to Turkey or using Turkish Airlines, including its codeshare partner Indigo. If 330,985 Indian tourists who travelled to Turkey in 2024 were to pay a FTT of Rs.5000 to Rs.10,000/ per head, the collection would be staggering, and would enable modernizing of security measures in remote areas of Kashmir and the borders of Bangladesh. A similar arrangement should be extended to countries like Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Maldives, which receive a bountiful number of Indian tourists but are hostile to Indian interests.

In 2023, Azerbaijan saw a significant increase in Indian tourists, with nearly 117,302 visitors from India, nearly doubling the number compared to 2022 (60,731). This surge in Indian tourist traffic has positioned India as Azerbaijan’s fourth-largest source of tourists. In 2024, the number of Indian visitors continued to rise, reaching 243,589, a 108% increase compared to 2023. Yet, Azerbaijan is hostile to India and openly supports Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Significantly, the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Pakistan conducted their first joint military drills, known as “Three Brothers – 2021,” in Baku.

Malaysia, another hardcore Islamic country, received a tourist bounty from India in 2024. Malaysia attracted 1 million Indian tourists between January to November 2024. A total of 1,009,114 Indian visitors were recorded, representing a remarkable 47% growth compared to the same period in 2019, prior to the pandemic. This also marks an impressive 71.7% increase compared to 2023. In return, Malaysia does not figure in the Top 10 Source Countries for Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India. Also, Malaysia has come out in support of Pakistan for an international and independent investigation into the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which claimed the lives of 26 Indians and left several others injured.

Further, the Malaysian government in February 2025 lifted the five-year ban on controversial Islamic terror preacher Zakir Naik, allowing him to resume public preaching despite being wanted in India for alleged money laundering. Malaysia has stated that it will not deport the Islamic preacher unless he violates Malaysian laws, as he holds permanent residency status in the country.

Maldives, another hostile Islamic country, has set a target of attracting 3,00,000 Indian tourists in 2025 after their number went from the top place in 2023 to sixth in 2024 following strained relations between Male and New Delhi. Maldives’ Ministry of Tourism’s statistics showed that Maldives received 20,46,615 visitors in 2024 compared to 18,78,543 tourist arrivals in 2023. In return, India did not receive a worthwhile number of tourists from the Maldives. Also, the Pakistan High Commission in the Maldives was permitted to host Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 5, 2025.

According to the Tourism Board of India, a total of 16,96,735 Bangladeshi tourists visited India in 2024, as against approximately 2.12 million Bangladeshi tourists who visited India in 2023. Of course, this does not include the thousands of infiltrators sneaking into the country.

Former Bangladesh general and a close aide of chief adviser Muhammad Yunus sparked a controversy with his remarks on India’s imminent action against Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack. Major General (Retd.) ALM Fazlur Rahman called on Bangladesh to occupy India’s north-eastern states if war breaks out between India and Pakistan.

In March 2025, Bangladesh’s military acquired Turkish TB-2 Bayraktar drones and has deployed them near the Indian border for surveillance. Bangladesh’s Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus has even welcomed Pakistani Army officers to visit areas closer to the Indian border in sensitive zones like the Chicken’s Neck corridor in Siliguri, West Bengal.

Since August 2024, the direction of the foreign policy trajectory of Bangladesh has tilted towards Pakistan. Several meetings have taken place between Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Adviser to the interim Bangladesh government, and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. On 16 January 2025, Lieutenant General SM Kamr-ul-Hassan, the Principal Staff Officer of Bangladesh’s Armed Forces Division, met Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Gen Syed Asim Munir in Islamabad. The visit of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency officials to Dhaka in January 2025 and Bangladesh’s participation in Pakistan’s naval exercise “Aman 25” in February 2025 reveal the hostile intentions of these fundamentalist countries.

Countries like Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Maldives, and Bangladesh share the same mentality as the Pahalgam terrorists, who were probing the undergarments of the victims to ascertain their religion. Sending a massive number of tourists and enriching such hostile nations needs to be strongly discouraged, for which imposing a stiff FTT would be appropriate and in order. Tourism is big business, and India needs to talk professionally with hostile entities. From the security perspective, there is a great risk of these rogue nations detaining the tourists as hostages in the event of a sudden conflagration between India and Pakistan.

A trenchant observation by Indeewara Jayawardane, sums it up neatly “Terrorism & tourism rhyme with each other. Yet they don’t go well alongside despite some similarities shared. If one booms it is doomsday to the other.”

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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