In a Distinguished Lecture on “India-Turkey Historical Civilizational Ties,” organised by Delhi-based Centre for India-West Asia Dialogue, on 16 January 2022, Professor Azmi ?zcan suggested that India-Turkey relations were based on centuries-long shared legacy, cooperation and exchanges and could not be altered by any factor including their relations with third parties. Prof Azmi Ozcan is one of the most widely referred scholars on India-Turkey historical ties who has authored famous books including Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain 1877-1924, and The Question of Freedom of Conscience in the Ottoman World, and hundreds of articles on the historical exchanges between the Ottomans and Indians. In his lecture, he recalled the generous donations and medical help Indians collected and sent to Turkey during the Balkan War, the Khilafat Movement, and the War of Independence. He made a special reference to the generous support of Indians to the Hijaz Railway project that was then seen as a symbol of modernization drive by one of the strongest non-Western governments at that time. Prof. Ozcan also underlined that the revolution led by Mustafa Kemal had been a source of inspiration to India’s freedom fighters, who were then waging a serious resistance against the British colonial rule. It is a known fact that Mustafa Kemal fully reciprocated Indian support to his revolution by extending support to India’s independence struggle. Prof. Azmi ?zcan emphasized the Turkey-India ties spanning over centuries During Ottoman Era. Professor ?zcan, while describing centuries-old India Turkey historical and civilizational Ties, highlighted trade and cultural exchange, shared antipathy to British-Imperialism, and the resultant emotional connection between the people of these two great cultures in the wake of Gandhi backed Khilafat movement.
