New Delhi: With Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party People’s National Congress (PNC) attaining majority in the parliament following the elections held Sunday, speculations are rife about what the relations between India and the Indian Ocean archipelago nation would be given his pro-Beijing and anti-New Delhi foreign policy approach.
The elections were held amid a dispute between Muizzu and the outgoing People’s Majlis, which blocked several of his initiatives as well as the appointment of three of his nominated cabinet members.
The result was a landslide victory for Muizzu’s PNC and a heavy defeat for the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which won a similar landslide in the 2019 elections. The results were seen as an endorsement of Muizzu’s plan to press ahead with closer economic cooperation with China and a rebuke of the pro-India MDP, which had sought to disrupt efforts to realign Maldivian diplomacy.
But the fact of the matter is that the Maldives cannot afford to antagonise India, which is in close geographical proximity.
“Any leader who comes to power has to be pragmatic,” Smruti Pattanaik, Research Fellow in the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) who specialises on South Asia, told ETV Bharat. “All the rhetoric during election campaigning time is a different thing.”
Muizzu’s anti-India posturing
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 are now being 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 Prime Minister Narendra 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 is 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.
Muizzu further upped the ante against New Delhi by targeting the health sector. Till now, hospitals empanelled under Aasandha, the Maldives’ universal health insurance scheme, for overseas treatment of Maldivian patients were restricted to just India and Sri Lanka, the majority of them in India. The largest amount of money disbursed by Aasandha to foreign hospitals went to Indian hospitals. Over Rs 7.5 billion has been disbursed to hospitals in India over the past 10 years.
Now, following directives issued by Muizzu, the state-owned Aasandha Company, which acts as a third-party claims administrator, has started work to expand the scope of overseas treatment for Maldivians beyond India and Sri Lanka. The company is now in talks with Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Both countries are leading medical care providers but at a relatively higher cost.
Why Maldives is important for India
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.
Why Maldives cannot afford to antagonise India
The Maldives is located in close proximity to India, situated just a few hundred kilometers away from the Indian mainland. This geographical proximity makes India a critical partner for the Maldives in terms of security and strategic considerations. India plays a crucial role in ensuring the safety and stability of the Indian Ocean region, which is of utmost importance to the Maldives, given its dependence on maritime trade and tourism.
The Maldivian economy heavily relies on tourism, which accounts for a significant portion of its GDP and foreign exchange earnings. India is a major source of tourists for the Maldives, and any strain in diplomatic ties could adversely affect this vital sector. Additionally, the Maldives imports a substantial amount of essential goods, including food and construction materials, from India. Disruptions in trade relations could have severe consequences for the Maldivian economy and the well-being of its citizens.
India has been a longstanding development partner for the Maldives, providing significant financial and technical assistance for various projects, including infrastructure development, healthcare, education, and capacity building. The Maldives relies heavily on this assistance, and strained diplomatic ties could jeopardise the continuation of such aid, hampering the country's development efforts.
India is a regional power with significant influence in the Indian Ocean region. Maintaining cordial relations with India is crucial for the Maldives to ensure its strategic interests are protected and its voice is heard on regional and international platforms. India’s support is also vital in addressing pressing issues such as climate change and the threat of rising sea levels, which pose an existential threat to the low-lying Maldives.
The Maldives has traditionally maintained a close relationship with India to counterbalance the influence of other external powers in the region. Straining ties with India could create a vacuum that might be filled by other actors, potentially compromising the Maldives’ sovereignty and independence.
A significant number of Maldivians reside in India for educational, employment, and other purposes. Additionally, there are deep cultural and historical ties between the two nations, including shared religious and linguistic connections. Maintaining strong diplomatic relations helps to preserve and foster these vital people-to-people links.
Muizzu’s bid to assuage India
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,” the Edition.mv news website quoted Muizzu as telling Dhivehi news outlet Mihaaru.
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.
“The conditions we have inherited are such that there are very large loans taken from India,” Muizzu said. “Hence, we are holding discussions to explore leniencies in the repayment structure of these loans. Instead of halting any ongoing projects, proceed with them at speed. So, I see no reason for any adverse effects (on Maldives-India relations).”
The Maldivian government under former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had taken loans amounting to $1.4 million (MVR22 million). Together with this, the amount owed by the Maldives to India by the end of last year stood at MVR6.2 billion (around $401 million), according to Edition.mv.
Muizzu said that he is discussing with the Indian government to explore options to repay the loans to the best of the Maldives’ economic capabilities. He expressed his hope that India would facilitate debt relief measures in the repayment of these loans. “President Dr Mohamed Muizzu stated that India will continue to remain the Maldives’ closest ally and emphasised that there was no question about it,” the report stated.
According to Pattanaik, India does not believe in decoupling ties with neigbouring countries. “Despite all the rhetoric of Muizzu, India did not make any noise,” she said.
Though India had imposed a ban on export of onions since the end of last year, it has selectively relaxed the ban for certain countries, including the Maldives, because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and soaring prices of the crop because of shortage of supply.
Earlier this month, upon the request of the Government of Maldives, the Government of India allowed the export of certain quantities of essential commodities for the year 2024-25 under a unique bilateral mechanism, wherein, the quotas for each of these items have been revised upwards. The approved quantities are the highest since this arrangement came into effect in 1981.
The quota for river sand and stone aggregates, crucial items for the booming construction industry in the Maldives, have been increased by 25 percent to 1,000,000 MT. There has also been an increase of 5 percent in the quotas for eggs, potatoes, onions, sugar, rice, wheat flour and dal (pulses).
Amid all this, India went about opening a new naval base in Lakshadweep and inaugurating a slew of projects in Mauritius extending its maritime footprint in the Indian Ocean region. This is a message that could not have gone unnoticed by Muizzu.
Read More
President Muizzu's Party Sweeps Maldivian Polls, What It Means for India
Second Batch of Indian Military Personnel Leaves Maldives: President Muizzu
Stop Being 'Stubborn' and Mend Fences with Neighbours: Ex-Maldives President Solih Tells Muizzu
