India and Maldives trade barbs after Modi’s beach visit
It started with a perfect snapshot. An image of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi lounging in a chair on a remote white-sand beach drew heated words from officials in the Maldives, a small archipelago country in the Indian Ocean.
Indians responded on social media with a wild wave of outrage, sending ripples as far away as Beijing.
Mr Modi had posed for a series of photos to highlight the natural beauty of the beach of the islands of Lakshadweep, an Indian territory 150 miles from the mainland and just 100 miles north of the Maldives.
Lakshadweep is like a mini Maldives, with barely a tenth the landmass of the better-known atolls in the south. The people of Minicoy, the southernmost island, speak the same language as the Maldives, and retain some of the oldest customs.
But in Mr. Modi’s seemingly innocent words of praise — morning walks on the beach were “moments of pure bliss” — the Maldives heard a threat. About half a million people are sensitive to the feeling that India, with a population of 1.4 billion, feels pressured.
“What a clown,” Mariyam Shiuna, a deputy minister in the Maldives government, wrote on the social media platform he was diving. The message was later deleted.
In fact, Mr. Modi had been snorkeling – an activity compatible with a life jacket. But he is actually friendlier to the Israeli government than is popular on the Muslim-majority islands. Other Maldivians used their social media posts to insult Indian tourists and India in general.
The response was swift and, by some accounts, apparently coordinated. A barrage of messages from high-profile Indians, including government officials and Bollywood stars, simultaneously sparked outrage across the Maldives. These messages were illustrated with travel brochure-like images of Lakshadweep, making the competition explicit. (Many of these photos were actually taken in the Maldives, however.)
It came down to it on Monday. An Indian travel portal, EaseMyTrip, joined Indian celebrities in boycotting travel bookings to the Maldives. The Maldivian government finally called uncle. Ms Shiuna was suspended from office along with two other ministers who had joined her in comments seen as insulting to India.
Since the 1970s, the Maldives has become one of the favorite resort destinations of the global jet set, generating $3 billion in tourism revenue in 2019, worth about a quarter of its national economy. After lockdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic came into effect and outbound Chinese tourism came to a standstill, India became the Maldives’ biggest source of big-spending visitors.
India had always hidden the smaller Lakshadweep. Until recently, the islands attracted only 10,000 visitors a year, almost all of them Indian. In 2021, the Modi government indicated that it saw great untapped potential there. If Lakshadweep’s coral lagoons can be sold to the world as an alternative to the Maldives, they would erode the small country’s economic lifeline.
Just as the war of words with India reached fever pitch, with some Indian celebrities vowing to confine their luxury vacations to India’s own shores, the Maldives’ new president Mohamed Muizzu embarked on a five-day state visit to China. His trip was planned much earlier, but the rivalry with India was already on the agenda.
The Maldives, like several other countries in South Asia, have been floating on the surface of great power competition between India and China for years. Successive governments from 2013 to 2018 have been more pro-China, such as that of Abdulla Yameen, or pro-India, such as the one led by Ibrahim Mohamed Solih until November. Mr Muizzu, who defeated him in the polls, had campaigned on a platform of ‘India Out’.
Mr Muizzu had already broken with tradition by skipping his visit to India and spending his first state visit in Turkey. So it was no surprise that he chose China for his second state visit. His government also plans to expel about 80 Indian soldiers who fly planes stationed in the Maldives.
But Mr Muizzu’s country and India may want to be cautious about further escalating tension. India has major infrastructure projects underway in the Maldives, which neither side wants to cancel. To suspend Ms. Shiuna and her colleagues, Mr. Muizzu sent a message.
India, in turn, does not want to erode its influence among its smaller neighbors. In the Himalayas, Nepal and Bhutan have made unusually open gestures toward China recently. The importance of retaining allies in its rivalry with China is one reason why India has doubled down on its close relationship with Sheikh Hasina, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. This week she claims to be in power for the fourth time in a row.
Mahil Mohamed contributed reporting from Male, Maldives.