Table of Contents
What’s happening?
- Former Maldives President Abdulla Yameen who was jailed on corruption charges in 2019 has returned to politics with a campaign against Indian influence in the country,
- Despite the fact that Male’s food security depends a lot on imports from New Delhi.
Back to politics
- Yameen, who is a political manager of the China-backed “India Out” campaign, was freed from house arrest recently after a top court overturned a money-laundering and embezzlement conviction, allowing him to potentially make a return to politics.
- He was sentenced to five years in jail and fined USD 5 million in 2019 for embezzling USD 1 million in state funds.
- As President of the Maldives, Yameem had laid the foundation for the Chinese debt trap in 2015.
Dependency on India
- The Maldives’ food security somewhere depends on Indian imports. Considering this the government ministers told Parliament’s Security Committee of Maldives, how the Opposition’s programme was motivated and hurt Maldivian interests more.
- “Our food security depends a lot on imports from India”, a minister quoted by Observer Research Foundation said.
- He also listed rice, flour, sugar, chicken, eggs, potatoes, onions, and lentils as amongst the basic foodstuffs consumed by Maldivians in substantial quantities and supplied by India.
Opposition rally stopped
- On March 23, the Maldivian Parliament accepted an emergency motion disallowing a planned opposition rally two days later in the capital Male.
- It had been called by former president Abdulla Yameen and his Progressive Party, and its ally, the People’s National Congress.
- The emergency motion was moved by Abdulla Jabir, a member of former president Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party.
- It stated that the rally was endangering national security, and sowing discord between the Maldives and one of its neighbours.
- It asked the Maldivian National Defence Forces to stop the rally and other similar events.
- The theme of the rally was “India Out”, a slogan coined two years ago by protesters who claimed that the MDP government led by President Ibrahim Solih had “sold out” the Maldives to India.
- The protest, a day before External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar arrived in the country, was not allowed to take place,
- With police cracking down on rallyists travelling to the event in Male from other parts of the country.
Political context in Maldives
- A small country of about 500,000 people that won democracy only in 2005, and which lies at a strategic crossroads of the Indian Ocean, Maldives has been buffeted over the last decade or more by the geopolitical crosswinds in the region.
- India and China have vied for influence in the Maldives over the last 10 years.
- As the closest big neighbour, India has been Maldives first responder for decades in all sectors,
- The relationship cemented by the strongman former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who was the unchallenged ruler of the country until the closing years of the 20th century.
- In a sensational South Asian moment of the time, India’s National Security Guard thwarted a planned coup against Gayoom by a businessman who had hired Sri Lankan Tamil militant group PLOTE for firepower.
- Over the last two decades, as political parties fought elections to win office, foreign policy has played a big role.
- The period coincided with China’s rise and its projection of power in the region and beyond.
- In the Maldives, the MDP, and its top leaders, especially Nasheed, are seen as pro-India, while rival Yameen is seen as a China proxy.
- In the last presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018, the MDP was voted back to office.
- Yameen was convicted on corruption charges soon after.
Elections in 2024
- Yameen’s release in December 2021 from a long house arrest after the Maldives Supreme Court overturned his conviction, led to an immediate increase in the pitch and frequency of the anti-India rallies.
- Protesters carry posters of the politician, who is a half-brother of Gayoom’s. Yameen has been present at some of these protest sites, and led some rallies.
- The next presidential and parliamentary elections are in 2024, and Yameen is using the campaign to shore up his support base, by painting the MDP as a party that has enslaved the country to India.
India out campaign
- What began as a general protest at the Solih government’s perceived India-friendly policies has now turned into an allegation that,
- New Delhi has sent a large military contingent to the Maldives, a claim that the Solih government has repeatedly denied.
- Attention has focused particularly on the co-operation between the two sides to develop a harbour on the Uthuru Thilafalhu (UTF) atoll for the Maldivian coast Guard.
- The Solih government has said there are no Indian military personnel in the Maldives other than a maintenance and flight crew operating three Dornier aircraft used for surveillance, and for rescue and air ambulance operations.
- “Statements that allege UTF to be a foreign military base are simply untrue,” the Defence Ministry said.
Q) Maldives became a British protectorate in 1796. When did the last British troops leave Maldives?
- 1947
- 1960
- 1976
- 1987
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