A few days ago it was reported that the ‘Gates of Hell’ will be closed forever. Those of you who are familiar with the MonsterVerse may remember the movie Godzilla (2014) using the below image of the ‘Gates of Hell’ as part of a marketing campaign prior to the release of the movie1.
Unlike the gigantic, chthonic creatures that star in the MonsterVerse movies, the ‘Gates of Hell’ are very much a real thing. Located in the middle of the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, it is a gas crater (about 2/3rd the size of a football field) believed to have been set alight by Soviet scientists in the 1970s and basically, it never stopped burning. Turkmenistan has understandably tried to tout this gloriously burning hole as a tourist attraction in the past, but a few weeks ago it changed tack and declared that it would start looking for ways to douse the crater because of the health and environmental risks posed by it.
Being a perennially aflame pit is, of course, sufficient reason to be renowned but this crater has another notable claim to fame. In 2019, the President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, had not been seen on state-controlled TV for a few weeks leading to rumours about his death. Now you would normally expect the head of a state to dispel such rumours by making a calm and reassuring public appearance. Doing the normal thing, however, is just not Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s vibe. In order to quell these rumours, he chose to appear in a TV broadcast driving a rally car around the ‘Gates of Hell’ crater because let’s be honest, what better way is there to unequivocally prove that one is not dead than driving a rally car around a flaming pit?
This piece of trivia piqued my interest in Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and I thought he would be an interesting character to read about. Little did I know that calling him ‘interesting’ is like calling a cyclone a ‘gentle breeze’. The man is (quite literally) a setter of world records in all things bizarre and absurd2.
Once a dentist, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov ascended to the presidency in 2006 in a country consistently ranked at the bottom of global indices on press freedom and human rights. During his 15-year long totalitarian regime in Turkmenistan, Berdimuhamedov has: built a golden statue of himself riding a horse atop a white-marble cliff, decreed that all vehicles should be white in colour, rocked parties as the synth-pop, tune-busting DJ, built a huge golden statue of a dog, won 97% of the vote in an election where he chose his opposition candidates, and so on. Such is the notoriety of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov that John Oliver dedicated an entire episode to him a couple of years ago (brought to my attention by my good friend, Arpan), and some of his eccentricities truly live up to the ‘you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it’ billing:
Given his exploits, you would think Berdimuhamedov would be a shoo-in for the title of ‘Foremost Megalomaniac of Turkmenistan’, right? Well, not quite. Why? To answer that, we must meet Berdimuhamedov’s predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov.
When Turkmenistan splintered from the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1991, Saparmurat Niyazov was elected (unopposed) as the President - a position he would hold for life. As any despot who wishes to be taken seriously knows, building a personality cult is the foundation on which a successful regime rests. Leaders who wield absolute power, expect absolute submission from their subjects. And one of the ways to achieve such submission is to project the Leader as an all-knowing, all-powerful, almost divine presence. This is what motivates the State machinery to produce stories celebrating the remarkable, superhuman feats of the Leader: like dribbling a basketball while riding a cycle (Berdimuhamedov) or wrestling with a crocodile while still a child (You-Know-Who).
Saparmurat Niyazov was well aware of the importance of creating a personality cult and went about with gusto, though not a lot of subtlety. He conferred upon himself the title ‘Türkmenbaşy’ (Head of the Turkmen) and the month of January was re-named after him3. He built an enormous golden statue of himself, perched atop a three-legged arch. I imagine you are thinking that erecting a statue of one’s ownself is not egregiously egotistical - in fact, eyebrows would be raised if dictators did not build statues of themselves. But the Niyazov Statue was no ordinary monument. It was built on a plinth designed to rotate continuously so it would face the sun at all times. (It was relocated and stopped rotating after his death. What a shame.) Mindful of the power of words, Niyazov also wrote a seminal treatise, the Ruhnama, which was part-autobiography, part-essential reading to survive in Turkmenistan. The Ruhnama was taught in schools, government employees were quizzed on it, and verses from it were inscribed inside mosques. God himself had told him, Niyazov said, that those who read the Ruhanama would get a free pass to heaven. I don’t think anyone could say no to that deal.
Then there were his plans to build an ice palace, his outlawing of beards, lip-syncing and gold teeth, and the 37-km long ‘Walk of Health’ where he made people trek to the hills and would meet them at the finish, having reached there in a helicopter. I know it sounds incredulous, but the more I read about Niyazov the more Berdimuhamedov seemed to be a sober, understated fellow. If you had to choose one of them as the ‘Foremost Megalomaniac of Turkmenistan”, who would it be? It’s a tough one to call, isn’t it?
Incidentally, Berdimuhamedov had been invited by India to attend the Republic Day parade this year but the latest covid wave put paid to those plans. In fact, covid protocols meant that the 72nd anniversary of the adoption of our Consitution was celebrated today with minimal attendees and men in peacock suits.
To most, Republic Day is just another holiday with little thought ever being given to its significance. I must admit that for most of my life, I claimed to be apolitical. Part of that can be attributed to growing up in an environment where politics was (still is) synonymous with a sleazy and corrupt way of life. I regarded politics with disdain, believing myself to be outside its realm of influence. I was well into my 20s before I realised that nobody is apolitical. Let me amend that. Only those ensconced in privilege and too myopic to acknowledge their gilded status, can afford to be apolitical.
I also realised that ‘being political’ does not (only) mean joining a political party and contesting elections. Believing that our society is constructed on certain inalienable rights which need to be protected at all costs, is also ‘being political’. The active participation of many, who would otherwise be politically apathetic, in the protests against the proposed Citizenship Amendment Act which swept the country in 2019, proved that our society is political. And it is critical for it to remain so.
Over the past few years, there has been an undeniable change in our national temperament. Majoritarianism and mob-mentality are on the rise, with fault-lines more entrenched every day. Political leaders routinely invoke religious identities to suppress minorities. There is a clear attempt to abandon the pluralist, multi-cultural ethos of our society and impose the majoritarian culture as the only permissible way to live. India’s ranking in democracy indices has been on a steady decline and as things stand there is unlikely to be a reversal of this trend. A few months ago, India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, made a worrying statement about civil society being the ‘new frontier of war’. A State which believes it needs to wage war on its own citizens can hardly call itself a democracy.
Stories about the peculiarities of autocrats, like Niyazov and Berdimuhamedov, can be amusing but only when viewed from a distance. We should remember that these regimes, with laughable laws and over-exuberant statue-building, are ruthlessly maintained at the cost of people’s freedoms and often, their lives. Countries like Turkmenistan show us what lies at the end of the road if we keep chipping away at our Constitutional ideals. It is up to us, as a society, to decide if that’s the road we want to take.
If you are oblivious to what MonsterVerse means then you are a normal, functioning adult. Congratulations.
Under Berdimuhamedov’s rule, Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, acquired the record for the city with the most white marble buildings. He also organised the longest single bicycle parade, which is a world record for the most pointless record.
The commonly used Roman names of the months and days of the week were changed to honour Turkmenistan heroes or, in the case of April, Niyazov’s mother. These freshly minted, state-imposed names were used in official documents for more than 5 years. After Niyazov’s death, this project was abandoned and the country reverted to the original Roman names.