Epics are having epochal impact on Indians and Pakistanis as they live through the coronavirus pandemic. As Indians locked inside their homes stayed glued to their television sets, watching Ramayan and Mahabharat serials that are part of their cultural ethos, across the border, a Turkish historical series, Ertugrul, has captured not just popular imagination, but also acquired political, cultural and identity overtones.

Both have official blessings. State broadcaster Doordarshan is re-running telecasting the Hindu epics after over three decades; PTV’s telecasts are said to be watched by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Not just that, Khan is also seen as akin to the hero of the serial who stands for Muslim renaissance. This is in direct response to opposition leader Maryam Nawaz, the beautiful daughter of Nawaz Sharif, the three-time prime minister, being likened to the serial’s heroine.

The debate was sparked by Hina Pervaiz Butt, a provincial lawmaker belonging to Maryam’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) who tweeted: “I am watching Ertugrul nowadays and I see Maryam Nawaz has similar leadership qualities. Her strong belief in God, her courage to not give up, her conviction to stand on her principles even when everyone is against her and her ability to differentiate between right & wrong #Ertugrul.”

This has sparked a debate on which politician resembles which character in Ertugral. But the popularity of the fiction drama and the likeness of its characters to the present-day politicos are only a side-story. It is actually the  message of Muslim renaissance that is projected through its 13th-century characters, a period when the Ottoman empire ruled over much of Europe.

Turkey has a great many takers among the Pakistani elite and intelligentsia and former military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was a known admirer of Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, and tried to model himself on him. Turkish dramas and TV serials are but a small part of the larger historical, political and cultural impact and Islamabad was quick to welcome them in after Indian films were banned last year.

The debate extends to Pakistan's continuing identity crisis and Turkey's place vis a vis India from which Pakistan was carved out 73 years ago.

“At its heart, what Ertugrul represents in this scenario is a battle for the soul of the Islamic narrative and for Pakistan's own self-image,” Imran Khan, a Doha-based journalist writes for Al Jazeera.

He queries: “Does the country have a unique Muslim identity forged via Muslim India, or is it part of the wider history of the Muslim world?”  He concludes: “The answer to that is what informs its current self-image.”

Ahmer Naqvi is a cultural writer who sees Ertugrul as part of a wider agenda. "There is definitely an element of the Pakistani state pushing a certain idea of Islamic history, that focuses on conquest and expansionism and that has a long history of being used as propaganda," he says.

"This push has come at the expense of even acknowledging the history of what is now settled in Pakistan. So you would know about Muslim general Salahuddin but not about Chanakya, who lived in settled Pakistan; so yes, there is a valid concern that the state is pushing a wider history and not its own,” Naqvi says.

The debate on the mainstream and social media takes a further turn that focuses on Esra Bilgic, the lissome Turkish actress playing the female lead.

“Ertugrul, Esra Bilgic and the frustrations of Pakistani men,” Aimun Faisal writes in Dawn newspaper on the May 15 issue, adding: “If you are a Pakistani man, here's why this Turkish woman has you simultaneously exasperated and enchanted.”

She wonders why the Turkish series has gained “such meteoric rise as to “become part of the national discourse, causing several debates regarding the authenticity of cultural histories.”

Faisal dwells on the “Pakistani male misogyny” the way it perceives the Turkish actor who plays Halime Hatun, the wife of the hero.

Pakistani men accessing her on Instagram, are “disappointed by the fact that she, in fact, did not dress or behave like the wife of a Muslim warrior from the thirteenth century.”

Bilgic, media reports say, has been shamed and counseled how to dress and how to behave in public by Pakistani men on social media. 

Faisal writes: “Ever spurred on by their commitment to religiosity and piety, Muslim men from Pakistan who had looked up a Turkish actress on a photo and video sharing platform, felt it their spiritual duty to educate her, or advice her, or berate her - depending on their self-confidence - on the ethics of being a pious Muslim woman.”

The ‘catch’, Faisal says is the contradictions in the way Pakistani men view an almost-European Turkish actress with her Western mores and the way they would like a Muslim woman to be. They would like Bligic to be like a brown-complexioned compatriot.

“With a Turkish actress, it gets complicated. They want this woman to be Muslim and they need this woman to remain desirable,” Faisal writes.

“She was the ultimate Pakistani male fantasy. A miracle happened and she became real. Now Pakistani men do not know how to deal with the paradox of the dichotomy their misogyny had created.

“For years, Pakistani men had successfully maintained a dichotomy between the foreign, white woman and the Muslim, brown woman. The foreign, white woman is an object of desire and lust, at once a woman to be feared, because of her colour, and a woman to be conquered, because of her sex.

She states: “The brown woman on the other hand, is supposed to embody the brown man’s ideology. She is the keeper of the private sphere, and should submit entirely to the authority of the brown man.

She quotes a study by Frantz Fanon and Partha Chatterjee about how the encounter of men of colour with colonialism impacted gender ties in the colony.

Faisal says Pakistani men find it easy to evaluate a Pakistani actress. “These brown, Muslim women, who digressed, did not possess a local male following of such vigour and had to get used to their characters being questioned over the slightest digressions from expected behaviour. The question is: “Is this the Islamic Republic of Pakistan?”

She concludes with these scathing words: “If you are a Pakistani man, spare a thought as to why this Turkish woman has you simultaneously frustrated and enchanted. If you're a Pakistani woman who has shouldered the burden of this ungrateful, Pakistani man’s piety, look at him grapple with his own misogyny.”

(The writer is President, Commonwealth Journalists Association.  The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at mahendraved07@gmail.com)