Expert Speak Raisina Debates
Published on Jan 24, 2025

Despite associations with ex-President Abdulla Yameen’s “India Out” campaign, the current Maldives administration looks to balance its India ties

Maldives and India: Navigating strengthened ties amid geopolitical shifts

Image Source: Getty

With two high-profile visits in two weeks, the new year seems to augur well for bilateral relations between India and the Maldives. Considering that this time, last year, bilateral ties were at their worst, rendering the visits by Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Khaleel and Defence Minister Ghassan Maumoon even more significant.

Minister Khaleel, in an interview, distanced the incumbent government leadership from former President Abdulla Yameen’s India Out campaign, which the current administration was a part of as the Opposition. “As such, the government will completely disassociate with isolated comments from such figures, whether they represent the government or the Opposition,” he said. The Minister pointed to the fact that President Muizzu suspended three junior ministers from the government last year (after they independently posted anti-India comments) as an example of the administration’s commitment to honour its ties with India.

In an interview with an Indian television news channel, Khaleel also dismissed The Washington Post’s claim that India’s external intelligence agency R&AW had plotted to topple the Muizzu presidency in January last year. For its part, India too dismissed the Post report that appeared right before the twin ministerial visits to New Delhi.

Minister Khaleel, in an interview, distanced the incumbent government leadership from former President Abdulla Yameen’s “India Out” campaign, which the current administration was a part of as the Opposition.

Of equal importance was Defence Minister Ghassan Maumoon’s subsequent visit, when he acknowledged that India is the first responder during times of crisis faced by his country over the past decades; as the son of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the archipelago nation’s longest-serving President (1978-2008), he is well-aware of this fact. It was during the regime of Maumoon Gayoom that New Delhi flew in armed forces personnel post-haste to abort a coup bid against the government in 1988.

Civilian tasks

 Operation Cactus in 1988 was followed by India rushing out its military assistance for a massive civilian task—rescue and rehabilitation measures in the aftermath of the 2004 “Asian tsunami”. A decade later, in 2014, under President Yameen—a leading proponent of the “anti-India” movement, New Delhi, through Operation Neer, despatched potable water in large quantities to the capital Malé, after the city’s sole desalination plant was destroyed in a fire accident.

Independent of political changes in its leadership, New Delhi acted with equal concern and swiftness with its COVID-19 assistance, in the form of medicines and US$250 million in monetary aid when Maldives’ tourism economy was tottering due to the global lockdown. Throughout this period, and after Muizzu became President in 2023, India has continued to extend developmental assistance, in pre-agreed phases. During the recent visit by Foreign Minister Khaleel, the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to further High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP) funded by India, first initiated in the past presidency of Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih.

Mutual respect and trust

In a TV news interview in Delhi, Foreign Minister Khaleel asserted that President Muizzu sought to bolster the Maldives’ ties with India. “Categorically, our President has mentioned several times that he is building, he is moving forward with a stronger relationship with India and Indian people. So that is our stand,” he said in the exclusive media interview.

In this context, Khaleel noted that, at present, the two nations have economic and security ties that are growing. “We are having a very close and strong relationship based on this mutual respect and trust and historical evidence that there is no space for these kinds of disturbances in the relationship, it will not be there,” he asserted.

New vigour

Likewise, after the defence talks, India’s Rajnath Singh said that their exchanges added a new vigour to India-Maldives relations. India also reiterated its commitment to strengthening the Maldives’ defence capabilities, including the provision of defence equipment and personnel training. India also announced a US$4 million grant for the supply of specific items sought by the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF). The two sides reaffirmed their shared commitment to the bilateral document titled,  India and Maldives: A Vision for Comprehensive Economic and Maritime Security Partnership, announced during President Muizzu’s first state visit last October.

The UTF project aims at improving Maldives’ maritime security infrastructure, enabling better surveillance and monitoring capabilities.

The two ministers also discussed the work being done on the ongoing India-funded “Ekatha” harbour project on Uthuru Thila Falhu (UTF) Island, as well as the renewal of a pact for the continued use of a fixed-wing Dornier and two helicopters for medical evacuation. As is known, the UTF project aims at improving Maldives’ maritime security infrastructure, enabling better surveillance and monitoring capabilities. As a part of this initiative, India has committed to supplying radar systems and other critical equipment to Maldives, the Atoll Times recalled.

Strained relations? 

At the centre of past strains in bilateral relations were two factors: Yameen’s virulent “India Out” campaign and the China factor. Though Muizzu and Ghassan, among other present-day government leaders, had participated in the campaign, Minister Khaleel’s decisive Delhi interview should put concerns over these matters at permanent rest.

Barring a lone ruling party MP, Ahmed Azaan, who continues to claim that the “India Out” campaign was grassroots-led, there has not been any purposeful repudiation of Khaleel distancing the present dispensation from the Yameen campaign. Referring to the current trajectory of India ties, Yameen has claimed that the Muizzu government has ”no backbone in foreign policy. It is another matter that the parliamentary elections last year showed that neither the “India Out” campaign nor the Yameen leadership was a major poll plank, together or separately.

The remaining bilateral strategic issues were sorted out after India replaced its military personnel operating the three aerial platforms with civilians and through the non-extension of the joint hydrological survey.  Muizzu had made these concerns his poll plank and needed them to retain his conservative vote bank. The need for hydrological surveys may still arise as the Maldives too could benefit from the joint exploration and exploitation of sea-bed minerals, which was also said to be among the hidden tasks of Chinese research vessels visiting the Indian Ocean in the past three years.

The remaining bilateral strategic issues were sorted out after India replaced its military personnel operating the three aerial platforms with civilians and through the non-extension of the joint hydrological survey.

In this context, Minister Khaleel reiterated the Muizzu government’s earlier claims and said that no Chinese research vessel had visited Maldives. That might be extending the truth a little, according to the pro-opposition Raajje.mv web journal in Malé . Yet, he might have implied that said ship did not undertake any research work or indulge in spying activities for India to be concerned about while in Maldivian waters in January-February last year.

Dragon in the room

China is the proverbial Elephant, or rather, the “Dragon in the room” about Maldives’ ties with India. Beijing has lost no opportunity to reassert this self-assigned role now and again. Thus, after the two ministerial visits to Delhi, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Malé and called on President Muizzu on a stop-over visit during his return from a tour of Africa. Onward, his entourage had even stopped over at Colombo Airport, but there was no report of any senior Sri Lankan minister or official meeting him.

In talks with Wang Yi, Muizzu stressed the importance of fast-tracking key infrastructure projects outlined in the agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), particularly in the housing and road construction sectors. Many of them were signed during Muizzu’s state visit to China in January 2024. In a meeting with the Chinese visitor, Muizzu also sought Chinese assistance in the agriculture and fisheries sectors, the media reported.

Wang described Muizzu as a good friend and trustworthy partner and thanked the President for working to strengthen bilateral relations.

An official Chinese website quoted Muizzu saying that “Maldives is willing to always be China's closest partner”. According to the report, Muizzu “appreciates China's leadership in safeguarding world peace and stability and is willing to strengthen coordination and cooperation with China in international and regional affairs”. Wang described Muizzu as a good friend and trustworthy partner and thanked the President for working to strengthen bilateral relations.

No mention

Noticeably, there was no mention of any strategic dialogue between Muizzu and Wang. As if to assert the nation’s strategic autonomy, the MNDF also began a month-long Exercise Flash Metal 2025-7006 with the United States (US) at the MNDF Training Centre in Girifushi, some islands in the Laamu Atoll, and in the surrounding seas. A Maldivian statement said that this was part of a series of training exercises being conducted by the US to enhance the capabilities of the MNDF.

The current exercises are possibly a part of the bilateral defence cooperation agreement signed by the Solih government in the US, in September 2020. Yameen, then in the Opposition, did not make this a domestic issue, unlike in the case of India. As applicable to all matters American, Yameen, then serving a jail term for money laundering, welcomed the visit of outgoing US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in October 2020.

The geostrategic message to India is clear. The message for Maldivians may be clearer. If the domestic Opposition was satisfied, the Muizzu dispensation was willing to play the US against India—even though the two are on the same side vis-á-vis China’s craving for dominance in the Indian Ocean. From an Indian perspective, that would be a better option when compared to the Maldives encouraging Chinese presence and dominance in the triangular geo-strategic space.


N Sathiya Moorthy is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst and Political Commentator.

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