Author: Mahi Jha, a student at Chanakya Law College
ABSTRACT
It’s said that a photograph can speak a thousand words without saying anything. This is what happened when PM Modi posted his photos from Lakshadweep on social media, and encouraged people to go there and enjoy. After this, a huge controversy started, where an online campaign started from India to boycott Maldives from India. Many celebrities requested people to go to Lakshadweep instead of Maldives. EaseMyTrip, a popular travel website, announced that it is suspending all travel bookings to Maldives. Maldives’ ministers posted derogatory post after seeing the post. After this, other members of the ruling party posted that Lakshadweep can’t match Maldives. Many of these posts were racist, a member said that Indians can’t provide services like them, they are not clean and their room’s smell will never go away. Ultimately Maldives suspended these officials. This controversy is not just a social media boycott, but a complex geopolitical game, involving Maldives, India, China, and current President of Maldives Mohamed Muizzu, who won election by India Out campaign. Maldives has been India’s friend for years, then what were the reasons behind India Out campaign there? This legal article delves into a brief comprehensive investigation to cover all possible aspects of the reasons behind India and Maldives conflict.
INTRODUCTION
On 4th January, 2024, Prime Minister Modi, on his social media handles, posted some pictures from his Lakshadweep visit. Although there was no mention of Maldives in these pictures, but some politicians in Maldivian government reacted to these pictures in such a way that led to years of friendship between the two countries being in danger today. In few days, the situation becomes so serious that #BoycottMaldives started to trend on social media platforms. The 3 ministers of the Maldivian government, who are responsible for the controversy are Mariyam Shiuna, Malsha Shareef and Abdullah Mahzoom Majid. Their comments on India and the Indian Prime Minister, look out to be born out of feeling of insecurity. They believed that PM Modi’s agenda was to make Lakshadweep a better place than Maldives and to compete between the two, which is not true. These comments were personal opinions, they stereotyped Indians and made hateful comments, he shared photos of open urination, and said that it’s Indian culture. These led to huge conflict over social media. When Indians started posting that they are cancelling their flights and hotel bookings, the Maldivian government understood the seriousness and the Maldivian Foreign Minister stated that the opinions expressed by the ministers were their personal opinions and did not represent the views of Maldivian government. The whole controversy was driven by hateful politics, and a geopolitical agenda.
MALDIVES
Maldives is a small country. The total population of this country is only around 5,00,000 people. This country is made up of numerous islands, which is more than 1,000 islands. But, out of these only 200 islands are inhabited. Out of these, 150 islands are resort islands, which are sold to private companies. The country depends heavily on tourism. 28% of Maldives’ GDP depends on tourism, and 90% of the tax revenue for the government comes from import duties and tourism-related taxes. Considering the tourist visiting Maldives, India ranks one. In 2023, more than 2,00,000 Indian tourists went to Maldives. In total, approximately 1.75 million tourists went to Maldives this year.
RELATION BETWEEN MALDIVES AND INDIA
The relationship between India and Maldives is much deeper than that of tourism. For years, India and Maldives have been strategic allies and there has been military cooperation between the two countries. India has played a special role in initiatives like “SAGAR” which stands for “Security and Growth for All in the Region”. Around 2008, India launched its Neighbourhood first policy, which improved the relations with Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar. About 77 Indian military officers and soldiers are present on the Maldives island. Additionally, two Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters were donated by India to Maldives in 2010 and 2015. There were reasons behind military presence, such as helping during natural calamities, conducting search and rescue operations, airlifting medical patients between islands. But, apart from this, India’s warships patrol the exclusive economic zone of Maldives too. This is the sea area surrounding Maldives where illegal activity and terrorism is prevented, Maldives had requested India to do this. In 2009, when Maldivian government were concerned about potential terrorist attacks in their county, they asked India for help because they did not have the capabilities in terms of military and surveillance. But this help was the main reason behind the controversy. Political parties want India to take back its military. In fact, Maldives’ current President Mohamed Muizzu and his political party, People’s National Congress, used this issue during their election campaign as “India Out Campaign” and came to power.
POLITICS OF MALDIVES
Maldives was under dictatorship for 30 years. It was only 2008 that the new constitution was adopted and a multi-party democracy system was established in their country. The elections that were conducted in 2008 was won by “Maldivian Democratic Party” (MDP) and their new President was Mohamed Nasheed. He was a successful President for the first 4 years of his term. He spread awareness on climate change issues, pledged to make Maldives carbon neutral, and his foreign policy was “India First”. During his term, India and Maldives become close allies. So, in 2009, on his request India donated military equipment to Maldives.
But in 2012, a crisis related to politics broke out in Maldives. The next year, in 2013, when elections took place, a new party came to power – “The Progressive Party of Maldives” (PPM) and the new President was Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom. After the change of party, county’s foreign policy was also changed. This new party opposed India.
In 2016, their new government stated that India can take back the 2 helicopters that were gifted to them. After distancing themselves from India, Yameen’s government got closer to China. Chinese companies were given contracts for major infrastructure projects in the Maldivian islands. Maldives became a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Under this initiative, China wants to spend money on large infrastructure projects in different counties across world by building roads, railways, and ports in order to increase its influence in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Most of the loan terms of Chinese contracts were unsustainable. Because of this, many counties fall into China’s debt trap. During this time, Maldives borrowed $1.5 Billion from China. Because of this new government, relations between India and Maldives got weaker and India’s strategic position in this area starts weakening.
After this, the next election was in 2018, once again the governing party changed and so do the foreign policy. “Maldivian Democratic Party” (MDP) came in power and Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won elections. The first thing he did was the Indian helicopters that Yameen wanted to send back, Solih extended the contract of those Indian helicopters, as he wanted to keep them. Once again, they adopted India First Strategy as their foreign policy. Thereafter, India helps the Maldivian government. India provided billions of dollars to Maldives so that they could repay the loan taken by previous government from China. Even during Covid pandemic, India provided vaccines in Maldives. Even when Maldives wasn’t a democracy, during the 30 years dictatorship, India Maldives relations were still strong. Like in 1995, India built Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Maldives. It is still the largest hospital in Maldives. In 2020, this new MDP government was extremely enthusiastic about the India First sentiment. Many bilateral agreements were signed between India and Maldives during this time. India granted $500 million for maritime security connectivity. A Line of Credit of $800 million was given by Export-Import Bank of India.
“India First” approach was growing and at the same time, a new sentiment of “India Out” was growing. The politicians of opposition had a negative outlook towards the alliance between the Indian government and the Maldivian government. By 2021, many journalists had written articles about it, numerous posts had been made on social media, which openly criticised India and in many ways degrading India. Politicians were also unhappy and wanted to end India’s presence by giving hateful speeches. Seeing all this, the Indian High Commission in Maldives wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Maldives stating that the articles and social media posts were attacking Indian dignity and asked the ministers to do something about them. This letter was leaked to Maldives’ media. On 2nd July 2021, the MDO government officially apologises to India and expresses concern that some people who are spreading hatred against India on Maldivian media and social media is wrong. Here, a local news publication DRS was mentioned with their co-founder Ahmed Azaan had main role in spreading anti-India hate. The campaign do not aimed at eliminating India’s presence there, but the India Out movement means that they want to expel the Indian military from their country. Those people using the India Out campaign not to threaten Indians, but an issue-based movement.
The opposition claim that the agreements entered by the MDP government with India are very confidential and their details are not relevant to public. The Vice President of their opposition party, PPM, Mohamed Shareef said that if the details of the agreement are not presented to the country, then it’s a violation of democracy. The government should not hide the details by citing the excuses of national security. A joint defence action plan was signed between India and Maldives in February 2021, where India’s job was to maintain the harbour of this coast guard. Leaked document suggests that according to this agreement, the Indian military could stay here for decades and they would have the exclusive rights to this facility. Many Maldivian citizens were genuinely upset after hearing this. Even those who were not supporting India Out campaign, started supporting the opposition.
When the next elections were conducted in 2023, the governing party changed again, and the PPM party that was the opposition, came back into power. This time this PPM party formed an alliance with PNC party to be in power, and the latest President of Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu was the candidate of this right-wing party, PNC. This happened on 30th September 2023. This political party, which focused on the India Out issue during the election campaign, is in power today. It is also worth noting that, the previous MDP government been more transparent and had not kept the agreements so confidential, then perhaps the India Out sentiment would not have gained so much traction.
Since PPM party came into power, they took this India Out issue even more seriously than last time. Their new President Mohamed Muizzu, four days after winning the election, openly stated that Indian forces in Maldives will have to leave the county. On 17th November 2023, he became the President officially, and only a week later, on 23rd November, he met Indian Union Minister Kiren Rijiju, and repeated the same points in the meeting that India should withdraw its military personnel from Maldives. Then, it was only a month and a half later that Muizzu’s ministers openly started insulting PM Modi and India on public platforms. When this happened, the ex-Presidents of Maldives and the MDP party, stood in favour of India. Mohamed Nasheed and Ibrahim Mohamed Solih both condemned this hateful language against India.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is now clear that the matter was never about Lakshadweep. This all was entirely about Maldivian internal politics. The India Out sentiment was well used by politicians, as they used it in their hate speeches, and used citizens as vote bank. In 2021, when MDP government was in power and India Out slogan were raised, then one of the MDP ministers Ali Azim had said that this anti-India movement was happening because some people enjoy making hateful speeches. Few hateful words can create big tensions among nations and can affect the years long good relation between nations. Such politicians are not only in Maldives but in every country of the world, they use hate as their tool to establish their dominance over other countries and sees their citizens as vote banks. What’s unfortunate is that, many people don’t use their minds and get mislead by such hateful speeches.
