There is plenty euphoria in the media about Maldives having “reset” the bilateral relations with India, Mohammed Asim, Maldivian Foreign Minister and Special Envoy of Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen’s on a visit to India reiterating Male’s ‘India First’ policy of attaching highest priority of ties with India, and reassuring expediting work on India’s development projects in Maldives. But diplomatic niceties apart, would Asim not use the same words visiting any other country, particularly of SAARC? Asim’s India visit is being hailed as Maldives effort to end the “chill” in India-Maldives relations. But there is need to examine why did the chill happen in the first place, why did it deepen, is there a thaw now and what of the future?
Located some 600 km off the southwest coast of India and 750 km southwest of Sri Lanka, Maldives consists of a double chain of 26 atolls and over 1000 uninhabited islands spread over 90,000 sq kms of territory, Maldives is vital to India’s maritime construct. Its geostrategic value lies in its location astride three of the most important SLOCs through which most of India’s trade and oil requirements pass, its proximity to India and Sri Lanka, and India’s enhanced strategic and commercial focus on Africa. India’s assistance to Maldives in thwarting a coup in 1988 is well known. Coast Guards of both countries exercise jointly (Sri Lankan Coast Guard also joining occasionally) for maritime search and rescue, anti-piracy operations, disaster relief, marine pollution response etc. There are many more areas of defence cooperation under a bilateral defence pact signed in 2009. Maldivian officers regularly undergo military training and various courses in India. Participating at an international seminar at US Pacific Command during 2011, Commander of the Maldivian Coast Guard stated that his country would welcome an international force in Maldives to thwart the growing menace of Somali pirates. Why India didn’t taken a lead in this context beyond two helicopters and weekly Dornier surveillance flight will remain a question.
Attracting over 90,000 tourists annually and with 34,000 foreign employees in resorts spread over 100 islands, Maldives is ideal setting for terror groups like LeT and Al Qaeda. Over 100 Maldivian youth fighting alongside ISIS was reported sometime back. In 2009, the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) were worried that youth from the country were going for terror training with LeT in Pakistan since past decade or so, something that our Embassy in Male was oblivious of. The MNDF also faced the problem that the 1000 plus islands of Maldives could not be physically patrolled and aerial surveillance was not effective due dense foliage. The systematic radicalization of Maldivian youth by the LeT (covert arm of Pakistan’s ISI) needed to be viewed in conjunction rise of the Kerala-headquarterd Popular Front of India (PFI) in South India, which as per our intelligence had links with Al Qaeda and LeT (read ISI) since early 2000.
The growing radicalization in Maldives was evident when extremists attacked the National Museum in Male in February 2013, and destroyed / damaged nearly 30 Buddhist collection of coral and lime figures, including a six-faced coral statue and a 1 1/2-foot-wide representation of the Buddha’s head. The statues were destroyed on the same day that Mohamed Nasheed, who won the presidency in 2008 in the country’s first democratic election, resigned his office. Nasheed was imprisoned. He is presently on prison leave in London, and has been calling for implementation of Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) recommendations; release of political prisoners, commencement of all-party discussions and the like. Abdulla Yameen who succeeded Nasheed as President enjoys radical support who India must deal with being government of the day.
India-Maldives relations came under strain after Male terminated its 2010 agreement with GMR for modernization of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport. Four years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited all the SAARC nation heads to the swearing in of his government in May 2014, acknowledging the strategic significance of the Indian Ocean and its primacy for India’s security and for maintaining peace and stability in the region. Modi was to visit Maldives along with Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka in March 2015 but Maldives was shelved last minute because of political instability, arrest of President Nasheed on dubious grounds and CMAG contemplating placing Maldives on formal agenda over the arrest. Cancellation of Modi’s visit also postponed India setting up radar network (10 x Coastal Surveillance Radar Stations) across the Maldives linked with Indian military surveillance systems agreed under the 2009 bilateral defence pact.
On October 11, 2015, Maldives expressed hope that PM Narendra Modi would visit the country “very soon” as it admitted disappointment over his skipping the island nation on a tour to the region in March. In October 2015, EAM Sushma Swaraj did visit Maldives to co-chair the 5th meeting of the India-Maldives Joint Commission after a hiatus of 15 years to focus on cooperation in health, energy, defence sectors and other issues. Setting up of a joint business forum was also suggested by the Joint Commission. Bilateral meetings have progressed further but apparently no visit by PM Modi is being seen adversely by Maldives given the fact that Modi has visited some 50 countries since 2014. Even after the visit of President Yameen to India in April 2016, reciprocal visit by Modi was not announced. If we are awaiting return of ‘democracy’ in Maldives, that could take many years, if at all, viewed in the backdrop that China is increasingly active in domestic politics of South Asian countries and supports Yameen fully.
In September 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese head of state to visit Maldives. Significantly, this was only the second meeting between Xi and Maldives President Abdulla Yameen, both having held talks just the previous month in Nanjing. During his visit, Xi secured Maldivian support for China’s ‘21st century maritime silk road’, the joint statement read, “The Maldives welcomes and supports the proposal put forward by China to build the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and is prepared to actively participate in relevant cooperation. The two sides agreed to enhance cooperation in other areas, such as marine, economy, and security.” Two development projects in Maldives funded by China were jointly launched by the two Presidents. Yameen also secured Chinese support for an ambitious project to build a road bridge between central Male island and nearby Hululle island, where the international airport is located. China-Maldives relations have moved at a fast pace since then.
On November 29, 2017, the Yameen government pushed through its FTA with China in the Majlis (Maldives Parliament) despite much opposition. This was followed by Yameen’s state visit to China from December 6-9, 2017. The China-Maldives FTA is just only the second one that China has with a South Asian country, first one being with Pakistan, even as latter is discovering it benefits China much more. The FTA with Maldives actually will ‘only’ benefit China because Maldives will be flooded with Chinese goods without any duty while Maldives can only export fish. Maldives already owes 70% of its total external debt to China and China will extract strategic mileage in return to huge loans. Questions are being asked why Yameen has sold off the country’s sovereignty, but so has the military in Pakistan. If Pakistan has become a province of China, so will Maldives. Yameen’s gain will be the Chinese support in the November 2018 elections.
Maldives has become a popular destination for Chinese investment, especially in tourism. Chinese state-owned companies are reclaiming land, building resorts and roads as well as erecting housing to help expand the Maldivian tourist trade. According to Hu Zhiyong of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences: this part of the Belt and Road Initiative so Maldives could be more involved in the initiative; China is promoting Maldives as a maritime pivot; Maldives could become supply base for Chinese military and civil vessels sailing on the Indian Ocean. Both China and Maldives deny plans of any Chinese base in Maldives, but such Chinese plans can be taken for granted – China being consistent liar. A simile is the joint China-Pakistan military base coming up in Jiwani (Pakistan) which both China and Pakistan deny.
With Maldives under Yameen drawn firmly into China’s gravitational pull, anti-India rhetoric from Maldives was expected. Last month, an editorial in Maldivian newspaper ‘Vaguthu’ urged Maldives to find a new ally on the international stage, the headline reading, “India is not a best friend, but an enemy”. The draft possibly came from China’s ‘Global Post’ that excels in threatening India periodically, or possibly China’s Foreign Ministry that wanted to indicate itself behind the euphuism “new ally”, not that China has not pocketed Maldives already. The newspaper couldn’t have dared to so write without government backing. This was followed by Maldivian government restrictions on Maldivian nationals for meeting the Indian Ambassador in Male after some opposition councilors had met him. The government suspended the concerned councilors for three months following the meeting. This, coupled with the arrest of many independent journalists during 2016 indicates the dictatorial length to which Yameen can go.
The situation today is that backed by China, Yameen and his allies couldn’t care less about international opinion. In taking up cudgels with the international community, they appear blind to how geopolitical power is being played out in the Middle East and Af-Pak region; how easy it is to destabilize some of the widely dispersed resorts sending the tourism industry packing, which is the sole revenue earner. The impression in Indian media about Maldives ‘reset’ button in India-Maldives relations may actually be to keep India in good humour – suggested by China? Military relations between India and Maldives are excellent. A 14-day joint military exercise between the Indian Army and MNDF to enhance the interoperability between the two forces for counter terrorist operations in semi urban environment was recently undertaken in South India under the ‘Ekuverin’ series of annual exercises being held since 2009. But military relations are just one part. Relations between the Indian Military and Royal Nepalese Army too are excellent but look which way bilateral relations with Nepal have gone?
India needs to closely examine what reiteration of “India First” by Maldives actually means. Maldives certainly needs to be engaged much more consistently. Larger economic investments by China notwithstanding, there are plenty ways to safeguard our national interests vis-à-vis Maldives. Void of a national security strategy more than 70 years after Independence does lead to ad-hoc approach, even as the void doesn’t seem to rankle any government in India. But the ways how to deal with a neighbor were scripted by Chanakya centuries ago. Besides, are we focused on application of India’s CNP? For example, why have we not promoted cultural ties as part of soft power more aggressively to negate anti-India sentiments? There appears no such promotional event after 2011 on the MEA website and certainly much more thought is needed in the quality of events. Look at China’s Buddhist cultural exhibitions abroad, including in Sri Lanka, to promote its Belt and Road Initiative – and this after China’s cultural genocide against Tibetans in Tibet.
Can we learn from the Chinese speed of progressing bilateral relations? Isn’t it a shame that despite a defence pact of 2009 that included India setting up 10 x Coastal Surveillance Radar Stations across Maldives linked with Indian military surveillance systems that would benefit both India and Maldives, we are yet to get going on this project? Clearly we need more focus in our stated policies like the ‘Indian Ocean Policy’ and policy of ‘Neighbours First’. Crystal gazing into the future would indicate that China may come up with an extraordinary large military base in the island (s) of Maldives, given its need for air cover to CBGs patrolling the Indian Ocean. But natural China would portray it as a ‘strategic support base’ or joint China-Maldives military base. That would have serious implications for India and the region.
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