The administration for Mohamed Muizzu, President of the Maldives, had sent a proposal for his visit to India in December 2023, India Today has learnt. According to sources, “The Maldives had proposed dates before the November 17 oath-taking ceremony of President Muizzu, to visit India in December 2023. The Maldivian government is still waiting for the Indian side to confirm a date.”
At present, Muizzu is on a week-long visit to China, and before that, he travelled to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, rather than travelling to India as has been practised by many of the past presidents (upon assuming office).
While there was a proposal from the Maldivian side, and had India agreed, it still would not have made New Delhi the President’s first official foreign visit since he chose Turkey as the maiden destination and was there on November 26, upon the invitation of President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Muizzu’s Turkey visit was followed by his participation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference – COP 28, in the United Arab Emirates on November 30, 2023.
The Muizzu administration is clearly trying to send a message on its position and leanings when it comes to its pro-China and anti-India stance. It began with his election campaign, fought on the ‘India Out’ poll plank. The visuals of President Muizzu wearing a red T-shirt with “India Out” written in bold is still fresh in everybody’s mind. He demanded to withdraw Indian troops from his country, which was purely involved in assisting in medical and humanitarian efforts.
While President Muizzu met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai and told India Today that India is an important partner, he has not missed a single opportunity to convey that he wants the Indian troops out of the Maldives. In fact, his government went ahead and even cancelled the hydrographic agreement with India.
So, while India might have waited to see which way Male is moving, the positions taken and the increased engagement with Beijing certainly display Maldives’ foreign policy shift.
India has been a first responder for the Maldives in many crises, including natural calamities like the Tsunami of 2004, the Male water crisis of 2014 and the Covid-19 pandemic.
With calls to boycott the Maldives (a nation dependent on tourism) amid the disparaging statements made by certain government functionaries, President Muizzu will have to recalibrate his responses so India-Maldives relations do not sour to the point of no return, adding only to the woes of a reviving tourism industry which had suffered great losses during the pandemic.
