This is the question that Ece Temelkuran, a Turkish journalist and writer, suggests that we should be asking ourselves. In her recent book, How to Lose a Country, she describes how her homeland was stolen from her by what she considers the dictatorship of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Subtitled “The seven steps from democracy to dictatorship”, the book outlines a saptapadi that Indians have become intimately familiar with over the past six years. Oddly enough, this book is useful precisely because it is saying nothing new, nothing that we do not already know. The first is that this journey towards an authoritarian communalism is flagged off by neoliberalism and the values it promotes.

Source: The Hindu February 20, 2020 18:33 UTC