Social media turmoil underscores India's importance for Maldives; Muizzu’s 'India Out' campaign must take a backseat

The weekend has proven to be a diplomatically charged one with the exchange of heated conversations between sitting ministers in the Maldives government and a section of X users in India. The controversy grew to such a proportion that the Indian government had to formally raise the issue with the Maldives and in response the Maldivian government had to issue a warning to its ministers to behave appropriately before firing three of them from the job. It all started with an innocuous tweet by @MrSinha_ , a Surat-based political commentator in which he claimed that the promotion of Lakshadweep Island by Prime Minister Narendra Modi would hurt the tourism potential of Maldives. He also referred to the country’s government as a ‘Chinese Puppet’. The tweet went viral immediately and even caught the attention of ministers in the newly-formed government of President Mohamed Muizzu. In response to his tweet, a politician from Maldives, Zahid Rameez posted a very racist remark about Indians calling their rooms dirty and always full of smell. Rameez is a member of President Muizzu’s coalition party, the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM). Not just this, a sitting minister in Muizzu’s cabinet, Mariyam Shiuna in a separate tweet called India’s prime minister as a “clown” and “puppet of Israel”. Shiuna, who is deputy minister of Youth Empowerment, Information and Arts in Maldives thereafter went on a blocking spree and blocked every single Indian account that pointed out the disrespect in her remarks. X users also pointed out how another deputy minister Malsha Shareef also mocked the Indian prime minister by posting laughter emojis in reply to his tweets. Such actions of sitting ministers called for diplomatic attention by the Indian government which raised the matter with its Maldivian counterpart. The controversy created due to the actions of Maldivian politicians on social media may be a new one but all is not well between India and Maldives anyway. In September last year, Mohamed Muizzu secured victory in the presidential elections ousting incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, a leader whose foreign policy was driven by the core tenet of India First. Unlike Solih under whom India-Maldives relations grew to great heights, Muizzu is someone who came to power through an ‘India Out’ campaign. One of the strongest reasons for his victory in the presidential election was the backing by Mohmed Yameen, the original proponent of ‘India Out’ campaign but is languishing in jail these days. Muizzu is now firmly in control and has even sidelined Yameen himself. Last heard Yameen had to float another political party, the People’s National Front. Meanwhile, Muizzu for whom ‘India Out’ was a campaign rhetoric has now started executing it as a government policy as well. At least the early signs are very worrying— his first foreign visit as the president was not to India as is the tradition in Maldives but to Turkiye, a country which is increasingly taking interest in the Indian subcontinent and is clearly not close to only Pakistan anymore. President Muizzu is currently on a five-day state visit to China thus further strengthening speculations that his foreign policy will give much higher priority to Beijing instead of New Delhi. Under Yameen, Maldives’s debt to China rose to dangerous proportions with certain estimates pegging it around $3.1 billion. In comparison, the total GDP of Maldives was only $4 billion at that time. Not just this, China also created many white elephant projects in Maldives which created a fear of Sri Lanka-like debt trap. While Muizzu is tilting close to China, he also met Prime Minister Modi on the sidelines of COP28 last year in UAE. One of the key issues that was discussed at the meeting included Muizzu’s demand for the removal of 77 Indian military personnel from Maldives. This demand by Muizzu in the very first meeting with Prime Minister Modi shows how eager he is to execute his ‘India Out’ campaign after finally gaining political power to do so. Muizzu also wants to re-examine more than 100 bilateral agreements that his predecessor Solih had signed with India. Not to forget his government’s decision to end the joint hydrographic survey with India which was aimed at boosting Maldives’s blue economy by preparing better navigational charts. However, according to Muizzu’s supporters who participated with him in the ‘India Out’ campaign, these joint surveys were infringing Maldivian sovereignty. The Muizzu dispensation may harbour suspicion towards India but it is showing great confidence in Beijing. However, its turn to China is significant for India’s security concerns. Sample this, the new Vice President Hussain Mohmed Latheef chose to attend the Indian Ocean Forum organised by China and skipped the Colombo Security Conclave comprising India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Maldives. The Colombo Security Conclave is India’s attempt to increase security cooperation in the Indian Ocean of which even Maldives is a part but today the Muizzu government considers it an exclusionary arrangement as apparent in its remarks last year. No matter how hard another president of Maldives is trying to push India away from this archipelago, the truth is that Maldives and India are natural partners. The Maldives is a group of more than a thousand small islands which didn’t even have a military of its own until the year 2006. The Indian troops that Muizzu wants to be called back by India are just 77 odd personnel who are there to operate two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft gifted by India to the Maldives. They carry out very important functions such as surveillance of exclusive economic zones in the Indian Ocean Region. India is also developing a coastal harbour for the country besides training more than 70 per cent of its defence force. India has conducted more than 500 medical evacuations using its infrastructure in the country and it remains a topmost choice for ordinary Maldivian people to seek economical medical treatment. Even the tourism sector which is the backbone of Maldives’s economy was initially supported by India’s State Bank of India through generous financing which helped it in capacity building. Most importantly, Indians remain the second largest group of tourists to the country who even saved the country’s economy during the lean COVID-19 pandemic years. The importance of India for the average citizen of Maldives can’t be denied at all. It is for this reason that a social media backlash started against Muizzu’s ministers by Maldivians who asked them to fall in line and behave cautiously. This reminds one of a similar backlash against the Yameen government as well when the tourism lobby started protesting against his anti-India stand. The people of Maldives value support from India to a great extent. This shows why the government had to fire its own ministers for disrespecting India’s prime minister. Maldives has much to gain from its relations with India and a cooperative equation between both countries is the only goal worth chasing for Mohamed Muizzu as well. The author is a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She writes on India’s foreign policy. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. 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