India's role in Maldives isn't pretty, but pragmatic

A book autographed by Amitav Ghosh, a close association with Indian Defence Minister AK Antony, frequent visits to India , and repeated reiterations of his goodwill for India: all these were markers of the fact that until Tuesday, when he was deposed as Maldives President, Mohamed Nasheed considered himself a “friend of India”. Yet, in the days leading up to his resignation under duress, when his close aides sought Indian military assistance to pre-empt a “creeping coup”, India declined to intervene. A “friend in need” was evidently a friend to stay away from. [caption id=“attachment_207860” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Trouble in the Maldivian paradise. Reuters”] [/caption] India’s reluctance to intervene marked a departure from its response in 1988, when it scrambled within hours of a distress call from the then President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who faced an armed “invasion” by the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), a Sri Lankan militant group. At that time, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi despatched paratroopers to quash the coup and restore the Gayoom presidency. It was one of the most extraordinary instances of India’s power projection on behalf of another “friend of India”, who was sufficiently considerate to Indian strategic interests in the Indian Ocean region. So why did Nasheed, for all the markers of his friendship with India, not qualify for similar help, particularly since he (unlike Gayoom) is an elected leader who is hailed as the “Mandela of the Maldives” and as the “Obama of the East”? One critical difference was that in 1988, Maldives faced an external threat, and India, which had in 1987 signed an accord with Sri Lanka aimed at taming the Tamil separatist groups and bringing peace to that island, felt obliged to quash the coup. Whereas on this occasion,the Indian government played with a straight bat because it was a domestic political dispute that was playing itself out, however messily. The Indian government has since drawn up a contingency plan for some form of intervention if the situation deteriorates, but it has been quick to embrace the new leadership of President Mohammed Waheed. It is not immediately clear what form the intervention will take or whether the plans are oriented only towards an evacuation of ethnic Indians in the Maldives. Yet, the fact that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has offered Waheed all help clearly indicates that the Indian government stands by Waheed, even if the manner in which the transition came about may prove embarrassing. That’s only because the transition itself may not prove unkind to India in terms of protecting its long-term commercial and strategic interests in the Maldives. Indian strategic analysts, for instance perceived the beginnings of a Maldivian tilt towards China, which too is looking for a foothold in the Indian Ocean as it expands its naval footprint. China, it was felt, was adding to its “string of pearls” strategy to strategically surround India. In November 2011, just ahead of the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, China scrambled to open its embassy in the Maldivias, even going so far as to rent some space while the embassy itself was being built: prior to that, only India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had established embassies in Male. At that time, Reuters quoted an unidentified Asian diplomat as saying that China’s move, opening an embassy right before SAARC was “a way to tweak India." Secondly, Nasheed’s international reputation as a climate change champion and as the poster child of Maldivian democracy isn’t quite matched at home, where resentment over his “dictatorial” way of governing, which is at variance with his international image, runs deep. In an article he wrote for the New York Times, Nasheed claimed that he had paid a high price for trying to cope with a criminally corrupt legacy left behind by Gayoom, who had been in power for three decades. He further argues that he lost his job while trying to cope with a looted treasury, ballooning budget deficit and rotten judiciary. Those may well be the case, but Nasheed took liberties with the constitutional provisions on at least four occasions, most recently when he had the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court, Abdulla Mohamed, arrested on charges of corruption, which triggered the current crisis. There is, however, one disquieting aspect of the leadership transition: it rode on the shoulders of a hardline Islamist campaign against Nasheeb that was believed to have been supported by Gayoom (who is looking to re-enter politics in 2013). The demands made by the Islamist campaigners (most visibly at a rally in Male in December) point to the adroit playing on religious sentiments. They were centred around the denunciation of progressive voices, including those of progressive women in Maldivian society and politics, securing an end to Israeli airlines operations in the Maldives, and “culture wars” rhetoric that denounced the Maldives’ place as a centre of international tourism, with all the “decadent” cultural effects. Some of Waheed’s early appointments to key posts in the government don’t also augur too well, given that they lean towards excessive accommodation of Islamists. The appointment of Dr Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, whose party published a controversial pamphlet accusing the Nasheed government of conspiring with “Jewish and Christian forces” to “spread vice”, as Minister for Home Affairs is particularly regressive. Other appointments point to a return of Gayoom’s influence. Having backed the Waheed leadership, the Indian government will doubtless come under criticism at home for “abandoning” a “friend” and for throwing in its lot with Islamists. But that merely reflects the cynical mechanics of big power geopolitics that governs calculations in situations such as this. It’s not always a morality play: but about protecting larger strategic interests. India’s role in the leadership transition in Maldives may not look pretty, but it’s driven by pragmatism. India’s moral posturing has, over the decades, lost it more than a fair share of friends and strategic interests. But it is learning, tentatively, to play the pragmatic game in the Indian Ocean.