Lessons from the Maldivian miscue for the island nation and India

Three deputy ministers - Mariyam Shiuna, Malsha Sharyf and Mahzoom Majid - "have been suspended" for their irresponsible statements.

The social media comments of three Maldivian deputy ministers in President Mohamed Muizzu’s government have ricocheted and they had to be “suspended”. It is a curious decision. Usually, they should have been dropped from the government.

Suspended is a temporary rap on the knuckles of the belligerent ministers. It shows that personal statements made by political representatives against the head of a foreign government have serious political consequences.

Maldives’ Diplomatic & Economic Howler

What seems to have set off the social media war of words was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep and his promotion of the Arabian Sea archipelago as a tourist destination. The Maldivian ministers perceived it as a one-upmanship on the part of India’s PM to score over Maldives.

The new government of President Muizzi has taken a cold attitude towards India and showed its tilt towards China, with the Maldivian president asking India to withdraw its military personnel from the island-nation. It was indeed callow behaviour on the part of the three suspended ministers – Malsha Shareef, Mariyam Shiuna and Abdulla Mahzoom – to have written against Prime Minister Modi.

It was passable for ordinary Maldivians to make mocking statements of foreign leaders, but it does not pass muster for those in government, even when the government looks upon India negatively.

It is interesting however that the issue exploded and suspensions had to be announced when President Muizzu was leaving for China on his first official visit to that country. It can be argued that the response from the government came after  two former presidents of the Maldives, Mohammad Nashid and Ibrahim Solih, condemned the ministers’ statement on X, formerly Twitter, in strong language, and after the initial tepid response that the ministers’ statements were personal and they did not reflect the views of the government.

There is also the fact that the highest tourist arrivals in 2023 in Maldives were from India, and the Maldives government soon recognised the folly of the derogatory remarks by the ministers. And it would appear that the ministers on their part were reacting to the possible fallout of Lakshadweep turning into a rival tourist destination.

Lakshadweep, Maldives & Tourism

What seems to have set the alarm bells ringing in the Maldivian minds, including that of the ministers, was Prime Minister Modi’s snorkeling, which is a favourite island holiday to-do thing in Maldives too.  But Lakshadweep has been a holiday destination for a long time though the infrastructural facilities and marketing that mark Maldivian tourism is absent in the Indian archipelago, which is a Union Territory.

But the Maldives’ India watchers missed the point that Prime Minister Modi, who is seen as representing the majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was wooing the Muslim-majority Lakshadweep with the 2024 parliamentary elections just months away.

The lesson from the Maldivian miscue goes beyond Maldives: It does not matter what is the tilt of a government; the relations between states, big and small, are governed by geography. The Maldives government has realised that they may not want Indian troops but they would need Indian tourists.

And Indians too, amid all the social media calls for boycott, must recognise that Maldives should remain a tourist option even when Lakshadweep becomes one in its own right.

Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr is a New Delhi-based journalist. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.