Maldivian President Nasheed's arrest puts Modi govt's foreign policy on the back foot

The sudden political crisis in Maldives, triggered by the arrest of former Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed under terror charges, is a bolt from the blue for the Narendra Modi government. [caption id=“attachment_2115857” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed’s arrest puts India in an uncomfortable position yet again. PTI[/caption] The Maldivian crisis also brings the Modi government face to face with harsh diplomatic realities with regard to a small-sized but strategically important neighbour. It triggers a serious diplomatic challenge for the present ruling party in India – the BJP – considering that the BJP had hauled the then UPA government led by Manmohan Singh over coal when the Maldivian political crisis had first erupted three years ago. The arrest of Nasheed brings India-Maldives political relations to full circle and all eyes will be on the Modi government. The international community will be keenly waiting for Modi-led India’s reaction to the development. Significantly, the present Maldivian crisis has erupted at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s maiden official visit to Maldives is less than three weeks away. One will have to see whether the Modi government continues with the previous government’s non-interventionist policy or whether it makes a departure from that policy and takes a different and bold approach. Firstpost had read the tea leaves of the Maldivian politics correctly when it had reported that the government of President Abdulla Yameen was contemplating to arrest former President Nasheed under terror charges. The sixth paragraph of the above-mentioned article had said thus: “Incidentally, the Yameen government has accused Nasheed himself of fomenting terrorism and is contemplating to book him under terrorism charges.” This is exactly what has happened in Maldives. The arrest of Nasheed, Maldives’ first democratically elected President who was deposed exactly three years ago, has thrown the Maldivian polity into turmoil. The then Indian government was widely perceived to have botched up India’s Maldives diplomacy because of its non-interventionist policies. After fumbling in dealing with the sudden crisis in Maldives, the then Indian government had failed to come up with a credible policy commensurate with Indian national interests. As a result, the pro-Indian President Nasheed lost the crucial round of power politics and had to make an exit from the government. What followed thereafter was a tenuous political arrangement that couldn’t have succeeded. And it didn’t. The Manmohan Singh government was accused of letting an Indian government die its political death, slowly but surely. The UPA government had projected an image that it did not want to interfere in the domestic politics of a foreign country – though the strategic imperatives from the Indian point of view were to the contrary. In the process, India lost an important friend and ceded Maldives’ strategic space to rivals like China. A similar scenario has exploded in the face of the Modi government now, after a gap of three years. The Modi government should look at this not as a challenge but as an opportunity to correct the past mistakes. It needs to go beyond the goody-goody politics of tokenism and take a stand, this way or that way. Nasheed is still available to India. And his public statements expressing concern about the increasing strategic footprints of China should be a déjà vu of strategic sorts as a similar situation recently unfolded in Sri Lanka. It should not matter whether India is accused of being an interventionist in domestic affairs of Maldives as long as India’s national interests are served and duly protected. Therefore, the first and the foremost thing that the Modi government has to do is to come up with a bold stand on the current Maldivian crisis. New Delhi will inevitably condemn Nasheed’s arrest but that alone won’t be enough. This writer understands that Male had given a solemn undertaking to New Delhi before the Presidential elections in November 2013 that (i) there would be no witch-hunting against Nasheed; and (ii) that nothing would be done to marginalize Nasheed from the national politics or debar him from contesting elections. Nasheed’s arrest on Sunday on terror charges in a case pertaining to his act of detaining a judge while in office in January 2012 effectively negates and nullifies this informal understanding between New Delhi and Male. This alone is enough for the Modi government to take up the case of Nasheed’s arrest with the Yameen government on a pro-active basis without being seen as taking sides. As for the Yameen government, it is clearly showing signs of desperation after it had sacked its own defence minister, sacked the Chief Justice and axed its auditor general. Last but not the least, PM Modi will have to determine whether he wants to pay an official visit to a country at a time when its former President is arrested under terror charges. PM Modi’s visit to Maldives will be counterproductive if Nasheed continues to be behind the bars till then. The ball is in the court of PM Modi.