Does Muizzu's recent visit to New Delhi indicate a positive shift in relations between the Maldives and India?
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For the second time in a row, the Maldivian government has claimed that President Mohamed Muizzu’s India visit this year was ‘successful’. Returning from Delhi after attending Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in June, Muizzu himself said as much. It was unlike Muizzu’s sensational and controversial news conference after his China visit in mid-January that further strained Maldives’ India relations.
By avoiding newsmen on his return from the five-day India visit, Muizzu was avoiding queries, drawing local political criticism on his achievements in New Delhi. It prompted questions from the immediate predecessor, Ibrahim Solih from the Opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), as to why the incumbent decided to proceed with the same agreements with India that the latter had portrayed as a national security threat during their 2023 presidential campaign.
By avoiding newsmen on his return from the five-day India visit, Muizzu was avoiding queries, drawing local political criticism on his achievements in New Delhi.
Solih said that Muizzu had endorsed his presidency’s position on certain security-related issues, without acknowledging that his electoral defeat owed to domestic factors unrelated to India or any other nation—a fact seldom acknowledged. However, Muizzu’s estranged mentor and ‘jailed’ former President Abdulla Yameen was forthright in his attack, as anticipated, and claimed that the agreements signed with New Delhi during the presidential visit would ‘lead to Indian military presence’.
With criticism against his government being flagged while he was still in India, Muizzu emphasised that the nation's independence was paramount and assured that no foreign troops will be stationed in the Maldives. “Some may expect things to continue as they were in the past, but that will not be the case," he said.
In response to the criticism, Defence Minister Ghassan Maumoon, son of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, President for 30 years since 1978, has sworn by Muizzu’s ‘Maldives First’ policy and declared that the nation will maintain full control over its military affairs, with no foreign interference. He emphasised that the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) would safeguard the country's independence and sovereignty, in line with the wishes of the Maldivian people, and there would be no compromise.
In the same vein, Ghassan highlighted the government’s commitment to strengthening the capabilities of the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), particularly in the field of hydrography—a key aspect of the security-related agreements signed between India and Maldives during Muizzu’s Delhi visit. After Muizzu’s earlier decision not to extend an ongoing joint hydrographic studies in June this year, the two sides have since agreed for India to help impart the required capabilities to Maldivian personnel.
After Muizzu’s earlier decision not to extend an ongoing joint hydrographic studies in June this year, the two sides have since agreed for India to help impart the required capabilities to Maldivian personnel.
The same approach has marked the Maldivian government’s continuing interest in the India-funded coast guard harbour on UthuruThilaFalhu(UTF) Island, another bug-bear in the past. Earlier, the Muizzu-led People’s National Congress (PNC) and parent-party, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), had opposed the same, claiming that it was being developed as an Indian naval base and that a large number of Indian navy personnel were already operating there. Muizzu’s Delhi agreement in the matter endorses long-held claims by the Solih dispensation that it was an India-funded project for the exclusive use and benefit of MNDF coast guard.
The UTF issue had found some traction in Maldivian social media in the run-up to the presidential poll last year, especially after local journalist Ahmed Azan claimed to have visited the island by boat without required permissions, and posted photographs and video footage which did not prove much. An MP belonging to Muizzu-led PNC, Azan demanded that the Maldivian Parliament’s ‘241 National Security Committee’ probe all agreements with India during the Solih regime. After a gap, he referred to the subject again, recently.
After Muizzu’s recent India visit, Azan has sought to know, through a social media post, why trained MNDF pilots were not being allowed to fly the India-gifted Dornier aircraft. The fixed-wing aircraft was earlier being used for surveillance of the vast Maldivian seas and was being flown by Indian pilots on specific missions authorised and monitored by the MNDF. After India replaced military pilots and technicians with civilians, as sought by Muizzu, both before and after his election, the Dornier joined two helicopters, also gifted by India, in medical evacuation.
The fixed-wing aircraft was earlier being used for surveillance of the vast Maldivian seas and was being flown by Indian pilots on specific missions authorised and monitored by the MNDF.
Maldivian and overseas observers are watching for the next step after the Defence Ministry recently withdrew the High Court appeal moved by the Solih regime, against the information commissioner’s directions in the matter, for a positive response to an RTI query. With this, the Muizzu dispensation has in principle agreed to positively respond to the RTI query, which the previous government has denied, citing ‘national security’. The current interest is in what the government will have to tell the media house in the matter.
During Muizzu’srecent India visit, the two sides agreed on a ‘Vision Statement’, which aimed at ‘A Vision for Comprehensive Economic and Maritime Security Partnership’. As was to be expected under the circumstances, the Vision Statement included a separate segment dealing with ‘Defence and Security’. It was the first-of-a-kind statement between the two countries after India and Sri Lanka came up with a similar Vision Statement focusing near-exclusively on economic cooperation. Muizzu’s critics, including the India-friendly MDP, are peeved at the positive developments on the bilateral front, purely owing to domestic political compulsions and electoral considerations.
The Vision Statement and the accompanying agreements signed during Muizzu’s visit provide for a US$ 400 million currency-swap, alongside a INR30 billion swap, at a time when the Maldivian economy is facing an unprecedented crisis. Since 2016, Maldives has used US$ 750million under Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) currency-swap programmeto help fellow SAARC nations. Since March, India has also rolled over two tranches of US$ 50million loan each as a part of budgetary support that the Muizzu government urgently neededto tide over an engulfing debtcrisis.
Since 2016, Maldives has used US$ 750million under Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) currency-swap programmeto help fellow SAARC nations.
As a part of meaningful cooperation in the fiscal field, President Muizzu and Prime Minister Modi also operationalised the use of India’s RuPay services, which was agreed upon during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s Maldives visit in August. The facility will help Maldives to reduce forex outages and Maldivians to save on exchange commissions in transactions involving the Indian rupee. The two sides agreed that Indian funding for the ongoing ‘High-Impact Community Development’ (HICD) Projects will continue and that work on the prestigious US$ 500 million three-island Thilafushi sea-bridge project too would stay.
In conclusion, India’s quiet diplomacy appears to have paid off. Muizzu, in his meeting with Maldivians in Bengaluru, said, “It is in the best interest of our country that the relationship with India remains strong and that things are shaped in such a way as to maintain security and stability in the region.”
Muizzu, for his part, must also walk the talk, without succumbing to domestic pressures. The former president’s frequent concessions to such pressures had not only cost him the presidential poll last year but also impacted the bilateral ties with India.
Muizzu’s ability to balance India and China, two nations that many Maldivians believe their nation cannot do without, would also play a crucial role A week after Muizzu’s second ‘successful’ India visit, state sector Maldives Airports Company Ltd (MACL) signed two agreements with China's Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG). One was to delay the abandoned first runway in the MaléInternational Airport. The second project aims at introducing railways, this one a mono-rail, funded by Dubai’s International Freezone Authority (IFZA), which has been contracted to develop SEZs in Maldives
The coming weeks and months will show how the Muizzu government balances India and China on the development fund and how much he acts on his side of the deal on India’s security concerns. This includes not only acting on the commitments to India but also reconsidering the agreements signed with China during the President’s January visit to China, which had made India uncomfortable.
N Sathiya Moorthy is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator
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N. Sathiya Moorthy is a policy analyst and commentator based in Chennai.
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