BackMaldives looks to host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year
After narrowly missing out on Modi's visit to the Maldives in March last year, the nation is looking to host him now on the back of improved relations
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New Delhi: After narrowly missing out on an Indian prime ministerial visit to the Maldives in March last year, the Indian Ocean nation is looking to host Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year on the back of improved relations.
“The signals" from the Indian side “have higher luminosity than what we used to see" in the past, Maldives high commissioner to India, Ahmed Mohamed, told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday, when asked about the possibility of Modi’s visit.
Modi was supposed to visit the Maldives while on a tour of the Indian Ocean nations of Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka in March. But Maldives was struck off the agenda at the last minute, just before former president Mohamed Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges.
Ties between India and the Sunni Muslim nation, made up of more than 1,200 atolls and home to a population of 300,000 people sitting astride some of the busiest sea lanes in the world, have stabilized in recent months after going through a rocky patch for some years.
India was upset by a series of steps taken by the Maldives in recent times that seemingly tilted it towards China.
A case in point is Maldivian president Abdulla Yameen’s backing for China’s Silk Road initiative, a trade route from China’s Fujian province to the Mediterranean Sea via South Asia and East Africa.
Chinese president Xi Jinping won Yameen’s support when he visited the Maldives in September 2014 ahead of his visit to India.
In August, the Maldives amended its constitution to allow foreign nationals and entities the right to own freehold land reclaimed from the sea, including entire islands, a move that is seen by some in India as an attempt to allow China to acquire space for a possible military base in the country.
These concerns stem from the rising Chinese naval profile in the Indian Ocean region, which India considers its backyard.
Underlining India’s primacy in South Asia has been one of Modi’s key foreign policy aims since taking office in May 2014. Yameen was one of the leaders invited to Modi’s swearing-in ceremony.
A visit to the Maldives by foreign minister Sushma Swaraj in October produced a blueprint for re-energizing ties—from health to economy to tourism and skill development. The trip was seen setting strained ties back on track.
According to high commissioner Ahmed, “India has always been helpful even with the recent developments that have been happening," a reference to political developments including Nasheed being allowed to visit the UK for medical treatment and the arrest of former vice-president Mohammed Ahmed Adeeb on charges of allegedly plotting to assassinate Yameen.
On Tuesday, a court in the Maldives sentenced the leader of the country’s main Islamist party, Sheikh Imran Abdulla, to 12 years in jail after convicting him on a terrorism charge.
According to critics of the Maldives government and international and domestic rights groups, the government was disregarding human rights and putting many of the regime’s political opponents behind bars. It’s something that has been noted in India.
Ahmed, however, described the detentions and arrests as “law and order problems".
On a visit last week by a group of ministers from Commonwealth countries to the Maldives to take stock of the situation in the country, Ahmed said it “went off well", though a person familiar with the developments on the Indian side seemed less sure.
“If everybody was satisfied that the Maldives was upholding Commonwealth values, there would not have been a Commonwealth team in the Maldives," the person said, on condition of anonymity.
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), members of which visited the atoll nation, “acts on behalf of Commonwealth Heads of Government as the custodian of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values including democracy, the rule of law and human rights," said a post on the Commonwealth website.
“Having an Indian presence in the (CMAG) team that came to the Maldives I think will help us... India understands what is going on in the Maldives," Ahmed said.
He expressed confidence that the CMAG would not put the country on notice for alleged human rights violations.
“As far as we can see, it is the maintenance of law and order and if we are to be penalized for maintaining law and order, that is a different debate that we have to take up once somebody decides to put us on the CMAG agenda or any other sanctions," Ahmed said.
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