The $ 20-m reduction in India’s previous year’s funds allocation for Maldives in India’s interim budget for the fiscal year commencing on 1 April has overnight become a subject matter for the usually uninformed social media discourse in the two countries.

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That there is an overall reduction in India’s aid budget for other neighbours too, barring Bhutan, and it is also only an interim budget ahead of the parliamentary polls in summer, has not been taken into consideration.

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Nor does anyone want to recall how without any budgetary provisions, how New Delhi pumped in close to $ 4 b to Sri Lanka when it faced an unprecedented economic crisis in 2002 – the kind of funding no nation or even the IMF has matched since.

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The fact that Maldives is being discussed in the Indian social media, albeit under unwelcome circumstances acknowledge the impact of developments in the archipelago-nation, in our immediate neighbourhood; sparked by the recent controversy over three deputy ministers in Maldives joining the social media chorus and criticising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his promoting Lakshadweep as a tourist destination, and the negative publicity that now dominates the discourse.

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India however has always been on the radar of every Maldivian- just like it is in every South Asian neighbour, not just prickly Pakistan. India is a national preoccupation in these countries. They do not need an external factor, like the US during the Cold War years, and China since, to remind them of India, day in and day out.

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Like other neighbours, many, if not most Maldivians used to tune into All India Radio’s news and Vividh Bharati music programmes in Hindi every morning and evening. They had even picked up a smattering of Hindi without setting foot in India. That was before Maldives opened up to resort tourism in the late seventies and began shedding centuries-old isolation and insulation, sustained by better economic prosperity of a slew of Maldivians.

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Today, evening entertainment for every Maldivian, men and women, young and old, comes from multiple Indian TV soaps in Hindi, and a few in Tamil and Malayalam – where they have picked up the two South Indian languages by association. A couple of years ago, Parliament concluded its sitting, which otherwise runs into the night, for members to watch the grand finale’ of some Indian TV super-singer kind of programme. Such is the craze for things Indian!

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Boycott Maldives call

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On the news front, printed newspapers are uneconomical. But there are one too many news channels in Dhivehi, the national language which is an admixture of many languages known and spoken in India. Yet, those who matter and those to whom foreign policy, and hence India, matters, make sure to sit through at least one English TV news and/or talk-show from India, even if not a word is said about the Maldives.

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They were hence surprised and saddened, when almost every Indian TV channel in every Indian language they knew existed, went high-pitch on the events and circumstances surrounding the ‘Boycott Maldives’ call. Surprised, as Maldives was getting continuous mention in the Indian media. Shocked, because they were mostly uninformed and biased, flowing out of a particular political mindset.

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Indian analysts, largely seeing developments through the lens of India-China rivalry – as they once were coloured by India-US tensions in the Cold War past -- are now increasingly, pumped up by ultra-nationalism.

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When India stepped in

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During the 30-year-rule of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom (1978-2008), whom locals still dub an autocrat, bilateral relations with India were stable. It was a time when India’s ties with Indian Ocean neighbour Sri Lanka was tense, a result of the Rajiv-Jayewardene Accord (1987), the IPKF intervention. The coincidental occurrence of a failed coup bid in Maldives in 1988 and India rushing military assistance to thwart the same (‘Operation Cactus’) is still the stuff of folklore in the Maldives.

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Even without it, all Maldivians acknowledge the fact that India has been the stable and dependable source of their daily staples like rice, flour, sugar and medicines. Many also travel to Indian destinations for higher education and high-risk medical care.

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But there’s little question, bilateral ties are seen through a different lens by the political class.

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India has a blind spot too

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The Gayoom Government was ‘socialist’ in concept and content even while sticking to the inherited Sunni Islamic socio-political tradition.

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This fine distinction is not fully understood in India. So-called experts tend to follow the western line of branding nations as radical/radicalised, and thus project a ‘higher percentage’ of likely radicals in the 500,000-population in Maldives.

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Democracy and its travails

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India’s problems with the Maldives, started after the nation had embraced democracy. India was careful not to be drawn into Maldivian domestic politics, and for all the right reasons. New Delhi successfully resisted the temptation of being drawn into the domestic democratic discourse which at times took a relatively violent turn. It was left to the UK, whose Protectorate, the Maldives was until Independence in 1965, to promote partisan democracy in the distant archipelago and at the same time play the facilitator/negotiator with the entrenched Gayoom regime. India would have none of it. Maybe, the nation’s IPKF experience in Sri Lanka had something to do with it.

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Yet, when democracy became a way of life for all Maldivians, except the ruling class, India began faltering, so to speak.

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The elected rulers still operated with the mindset of erstwhile Islamic sultans, who reigned for nine long centuries, and Buddhist and Hindu kings before them. Balancing the elected rulers and the voter-population was a tricky affair.

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And it failed spectacularly when New Delhi unwittingly introduced a private player in the GMR Group to help the Maldivian government of the democratically elected President Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, to modernise and upgrade the all-important Male international airport, the gateway for foreign tourists and the mainstay of the nation’s economy.

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Would it have served India’s purpose, if a public sector entity with certain flexibility was there in GMR’s place? In hindsight, it makes some sense to recall how Maldives, at the time, was coming out of its cocooned politico-economic existence of the previous decades and centuries. It backfired as the nation was not prepared for large-scale privatisation and globalisation, including IMF funding with conditionality unacceptable to the inherited socialist ethos and governance system.

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The new rulers were familiar with the rules of the new economic game, but failed to educate and carry the people with them. They played into the hands of the ever-waiting entrenched Opposition, which anyway had won a combined majority in the parliamentary elections that came six months after Nasheed had been elected President.

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Level-playing field

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In the midst of Maldives’ domestic melee, the GMR interest, investment and intervention became a huge disaster for ‘Establishment India’.

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This was followed by New Delhi adopting the western concept of a ‘level-playing field’ for erstwhile, self-styled ‘India-friendly’ Nasheed to contest the presidential poll of 2013. At the time, Nasheed faced a possible jail-term for offences allegedly committed during his shortened term in office (2008-12). He had chosen to quit office one-and-half years before the end of his term, under so-called public pressure, which his supporters termed a ‘military coup’, albeit without evidence.

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India enmeshed

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Undesirable yet inevitable under the circumstances, India’s name got enmeshed, especially after rival candidates, Abdulla Yameen and Gasim Ibrahim, issued a rare joint statement, alleging that India’s IT experts were assisting the Maldivian Election Commission (EC) to manipulate the results in Nasheed’s favour. No one sought any proof, nor was any given. Yameen won what could be considered the most controversial election in a South Asian democracy, - barring possibly Pakistan - where the EC was seen as sympathising with Nasheed and the Supreme Court, backing Yameen, who won.

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Though it started off only haltingly and not outright hostile towards India, Yameen’s five years (2018-23) were not as much of a mixed bag as the earlier, intervening short-term Presidency of Mohamed Waheed’s from 2012-13. Waheed got the GMR out, but it was Yameen as President who paid off the Indian infra major, the otherwise unaffordable compensation and damages totalling $ 270 m, as ordered by the Singapore arbitrator.

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The source of funding has not been explained convincingly, though the Yameen government claimed that it came from the internal resources of the airport company.

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So was the case when the predecessor Waheed Government, which had Yameen’s backing, paid up $ 50 m due to the public sector, State Bank of India (SBI). China’s hidden hand was suspected behind the entire episode, beginning with the anti-Mohammed Nasheed ‘December 27 Movement’ launched by religious NGOs, and the final exit by and compensation for GMR, and there was nothing to disprove it.

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India out / Indian military out

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Yet, to Yameen’s credit should go the ‘India First’ policy-phrase of the Maldivian Government. He shunned it after coining the phrase and went back to the Foreign Policy doctrine that he had unveiled in January 2014, only two months after becoming President. It was known to have been in the works even during the Waheed presidency (2012-13).

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The basic philosophy of the document was to make Maldives economically independent (of India!) so as to guarantee ‘policy-freedom’. What Yameen professed but did not practice, now seems to be the touchstone for incumbent President Mohamed Muizzu’s India policy.

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In doing so, he leans heavier on China while drawing distant Turkey into the over-crowded Indian Ocean strategic space. His policies could well have consequences for Maldives and Maldivians and maybe his own political future. Largely because even his own ardent conservative supporters are mostly not India-haters as is being made out.

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As may be recalled, in September last, Maldivians voted in Muizzu, not heeding his call for India to pull out the limited number of unarmed soldiers flying and maintaining three India-gifted aerial platforms for medical and other emergency evacuations, and also for undertaking aerial surveillance of what he later described as the nine-lakh sq.km of Maldivian EEZ. He has repeatedly called for India to remove the unarmed soldiers, a demand originally put forth by Yameen - but long after losing power.

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Now after deciding to commence air ambulance services to airlift high-risk patients to common neighbour Sri Lanka, Muizzu can be expected to toughen his stand on the reported compromise, which could see Indian civilian pilots and technicians replace their military counterparts operating the air assets. More will be known on the future course of this and other aspects of bilateral relations when the high-level core group of officials, proposed jointly by President Muizzu and PM Modi at their maiden meeting in Dubai, have their promised second meeting in New Delhi, later this month.

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The Yameen factor

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From an Indian perspective, in more ways than one, China has been a major irritant in bilateral relations with Maldives. Now, Turkey may have joined in already or may be in the process of doing so, as Muizzu’s Maldives has begun procuring not only staple food items from Ankara, to end ‘dependence on a single source’, a ‘bully’ at that, though he did not name India. From a Maldivian angle, it may be more personal than policy-driven as both Yameen and Muizzu seem convinced that New Delhi wanted them defeated in the presidential polls that they contested, the former in 2013 and 2018, and the latter, now, in 2023, last year. There is no evidence to support their perceived suspicions but that is a different story.

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Yameen was convinced that India’s call for a ‘level-playing field’ for Nasheed in the 2013 polls was a ploy to ensure that the latter, who was still the most charismatic political leader in the country, could contest and win. Ahead of last year’s polls, faceless social media posts claimed how India did not seek a ‘level-playing field’ for Yameen. He was, incidentally, imprisoned based on a court verdict, whose appeal was pending locally, before the high court for an inordinately long time.

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With Muizzu becoming President and doing little to fast-track the court process, Yameen, should see that ‘relationship’ as being behind for his current travails.

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Few remember how peeved Yameen was at India issuing two statements in three days, supporting democracy in Maldives after he as President had proclaimed emergency on 5 February 2018, only months ahead of the presidential polls later that year. The emergency proclamation followed the Supreme Court ordering freedom for jailed Nasheed, then in self-exile, and other political prisoners, without any hearings, and posting its unanimous verdict on the court’s website.

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Yameen’s anxieties and consequent antagonism flowed further from unconfirmed social media claims in his country that India was scrambling fighter jets for a ‘short and quick operation’ and that it was aimed at forcibly evicting him from power.

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No such operation took place, yet Yameen seemed to have been convinced that the small contingent of unarmed Indian pilots, technicians and medical personnel (the last one for attending exclusively to Maldivian soldiers and their families), were a Trojan Horse, ready for action, if ordered.

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Hence Yameen’s ‘India Out /Indian Military Out’ campaign after losing power, though he soon seemed to have realised the folly of the former slogan as India still is the easiest and more dependable source of staples and other essentials for his people, that too at the lowest of prices and transportation-cum-insurance costs. In the process, he also understood the mood of his own conservative constituency was not as much for an ‘India Out’ as they may have been for his ‘India Military Out’ call.

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The China factor

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China is the core dividing factor in bilateral relations with India. New Delhi suspects Yameen’s shift even more, after President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese ruler to visit Maldives (September 2014).

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Yameen’s three visits to China in as many years (2015-17), his getting Parliament to pass amendments to rules governing long-term lease of resort-islands, and hurriedly obtaining legislative approval for signing a FTA with China and not wanting to disclose to Parliament as required under the law, only deepened India’s concerns and left many of his domestic adversaries, upset and angry.

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Yameen’s only China-funded project that the people of Maldives generally welcomed and which the political Opposition could not contest without risking unpopularity was the Sinamale sea-bridge project, connecting capital Male and airport-island Hulhulé. Other projects funded by China were worthy of being put through the scanner but the successor Ibrahim Solih government stayed its own hand. Minus strategic programmes, the Solih Government had no hesitation in commencing new development projects with Chinese funding, while simultaneously inviting both developmental and defence cooperation funding from New Delhi.

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Friend and foe

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If all these were factors in the straining of India-Maldives relations during Yameen’s regime, when he was in the Opposition, before and after his five-year term in office, he was also reportedly peeved that New Delhi was overly identifying itself with the MDP rival, both during elections and during governance. In particular, Team Yameen was upset that India was maintaining a healthy distance whenever he was not in power, and interpreted the official contacts and invitations for him to visit India as no more than a face saver.

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It is also this added perception of Yameen that has obviously influenced Muizzu’s approach and his attitude towards India. He was already identifying with Yameen’s ‘India Out/India Military Out’ campaign when MDP rival Solih was in office (2018-23). Muizzu, as his nominee in the successful Male mayor elections, also seemed to have been branded as ‘anti-India’ until he contested the presidential poll, defying Yameen, and winning it, too.

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India maintained a healthy distance from Muizzu too. It was Turkey that honoured him with an invite for an official visit. It was Turkey, that saw a political gap to make a strategic entry into the IOR, and did not miss out when the opportunity presented itself.

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The rest, as they say, is history. China knew how to play the game better than India, hide its presence locally without burning bridges when an unfriendly government took power in Male. It‘s strategy to seek out a friendly government, openly and boldly – while still doing business in secret - could not be thwarted by even an India-friendly ‘adversarial government’.

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Will the upcoming Muizzu-Modi inspired initiative, change that equation is the big question.