S Jaishankars Maldives Visit A Respite Amid Neighbourhood Turbulance

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s current visit to the Maldives augurs well for India-Maldives ties after a period of chill when new President Mohamed Muizzu assumed office last year. An expert explains to ETV Bharat why the Maldives understands why it wants India to remain as an important bilateral partner.

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s three-day visit to the Maldives starting on Friday is being viewed as signs of a thaw in the relations between India and the Indian Ocean archipelago nation after New Delhi-Male ties went downhill following the election of Mohamed Muizzu, who had carried out an anti-India campaign, as President.

According to a statement issued by the Maldives Foreign Ministry, Jaishankar will hold official talks with his Maldivian counterpart Moosa Zameer to review the existing bilateral cooperation, following which both Ministers will inaugurate the completed projects under the High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDPs) and Line of Credit facility of EXIM Bank of India and witness the exchange of memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on areas for capacity building, commerce and trade.

"Maldives is India's key maritime neighbour and an important partner in India's Neighbourhood First Policy and our Vision 'SAGAR' i.e. Security and Growth for All in the Region," a statement issued by the External Affairs Ministry here late on Thursday evening reads. "The visit is aimed at strengthening the close partnership between the two countries and to explore avenues to enhance the bilateral relationship further."

This is the first time that Jaishankar will be visiting the Maldives after assuming office as External Affairs Minister in June this year. This comes after Muizzu visited New Delhi to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June this year for the latter's third term in office. Ahead of this, Moosa visited India in May this year during the course of which he stated that there was a misunderstanding between the two countries "and we have passed that stage now". The Maldives is also running a tourism roadshow in India to attract Indians with that country's Tourism Minister Ibrahim Faisal taking a proactive role in this.

However, according to Anand Kumar, Associate Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses and author of the book Multi-party Democracy in the Maldives and the Emerging Security Environment in the Indian Ocean Region, the Maldives’ reach-out will be judged by India on the basis of what that country does on issues of strategic concern for New Delhi.

Ties between India and the Maldives had gone south since Muizzu became President. Muizzu had won last year’s presidential election on a pronounced anti-India plank. He ran an 'India Out' campaign in which he called for the withdrawal of some Indian military personnel present in his country. These personnel, numbering less than 100, were primarily involved in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief work in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation. However, after assuming office, Muizzu made a formal request to India to withdraw these personnel. These personnel have now been replaced by civilians from India.

In December last year, the Maldives decided not to renew a hydrography agreement with India citing national security concerns and the safeguarding of sensitive information. The hydrographic survey agreement was signed on June 8, 2019, during Modi’s visit to the Maldives. Under the agreement, India was allowed to conduct a comprehensive study of the island nation's territorial waters, which includes reefs, lagoons, coastlines, ocean currents and tide levels.

And then again, in January this year, the Maldives decided to allow a Chinese vessel to enter its territorial waters ostensibly to do research work. This decision came despite pressure from the Indian government and concerns raised by various quarters about the vessel being a "spy vessel". India has strongly been protesting the repeated visits by Chinese vessels to the waters of the south Indian Ocean, a region New Delhi considers to be under its sphere of influence.

Also, in early January this year, a political row broke out between India and the Maldives after Prime Minister Modi visited the union territory of Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea and promoted it on social media as an exciting tourism destination. Though Modi did not mention any other country in his comments, some Maldivian politicians took it as the Lakshadweep islands being showcased as a rival to the tourism industry in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation. They made disparaging remarks against the Prime Minister and racist comments against Indians in general.

This sparked a social media backlash from Indians, including entertainment world celebrities and sports stars. Many opposition leaders and tourism industry bodies in the Maldives also criticised the Muizzu government for this. Following this, three junior ministers in the Maldives government were suspended.

Soon after the row, Muizzu went on a nearly week-long visit to China. This was a break from the practice followed by his three immediate democratically elected predecessors - Ibrahim Solih, Abdulla Yameen and Mohamed Nasheed - who had made India the destination of their first state visit after assuming office. In fact, after assuming office in November last year, Muizzu made Turkey the destination of his first state visit.

As part of New Delhi’s Neighbourhood First Policy, the Maldives is strategically significant to India because of its location in the Indian Ocean. India and the Maldives share ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious and commercial links steeped in antiquity and enjoy close, cordial and multi-dimensional relations. However, regime instability in the Maldives since 2008 has posed significant challenges to the India-Maldives relationship, particularly in the political and strategic spheres.

Although India continues to be an important partner of the Maldives, New Delhi cannot afford to be complacent over its position and must remain attentive to the developments in the Maldives. India must play a key role within the Indo-Pacific security space to ensure regional security in South Asia and surrounding maritime boundaries.

China’s strategic footprint in India’s neighbourhood has increased. The Maldives has emerged as an important ‘pearl’ in China's ‘String of Pearls’ construct in South Asia.

However, in March this year, in what can be viewed as a sudden turnaround from his pronounced foreign policy steps against India, Muizzu said that India will continue to be the closest ally of his country and expressed the hope that New Delhi will provide debt repayment relief to the Indian Ocean archipelago nation.

In an interview with a news outlet, Muizzu also claimed that he had never taken any action or made any statement that would affect ties between the Maldives and India. “It is not nice to dismiss or disregard aid from one country to another as useless,” a report quoted Muizzu as saying. He also expressed the hope that India will accommodate debt relief measures in the repayment of the hefty loans that his country’s consecutive governments have taken over the years. India acceded to this request.

The State Bank of India subscribed for one more year the $50 million Government Treasury Bill, issued by the Ministry of Finance of the Maldives, upon maturity of the previous subscription. These Government Treasury Bills are subscribed by SBI under a unique Government-to-Government arrangement at zero-cost (interest free) to the Government of Maldives. The continuation of the subscription has been made at the special request of the Government of Maldives to secure budgetary support from the Government of India.

During India’s Union Budget 2024-25 presented last month, development aid for the atoll nation remained unabated. The development aid allocated for the Maldives is Rs 400 crore, the same as last year.

In recent times, India has also been shipping non-perishable goods to Addu in the Maldives. It is in view of all these that Jaishankar’s current visit to the Maldives assumes significance. According to a report in the Edition.mv news website, Jaishankar will be visiting Addu City where several projects are being undertaken through Indian assistance.

"Jaishankar will also make a site visit to observe the progress of the ThilaMale’ Bridge, which is being built through loans and aid from India," the report stated. "The Minister will conclude his visit and fly back to India from the Gan International Airport in Addu. The ongoing road development project in Addu is also being conducted by Indian companies. The Police College, also located in Addu City, was built through Indian aid as well."

According to Kumar, both India and the Maldives are trying to stop the decline in bilateral ties after Muizzu’s visit to China."The Maldives is facing economic problems after taking debts both from China and India," he said. "It knows that it needs India's cooperation to ameliorate its problems. The country will expect economic benefits from India."

Amid the economic turbulence in India's immediate neighbourhood that has seen Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing from that country in the wake of a popular revolt, a civil war raging in Myanmar after a military coup in 2021, frequent changes of government in Nepal, and the other Indian Ocean neighbour Sri Lanka still trying to come in grips with an economic crisis that it faced in 2022, Jaishankar’s visit to the Maldives is of immense importance not only for New Delhi but also for all other major powers trying to fend off Chinese hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, a region that stretches from the east coast of Japan to the east coast of Africa.