Let the chips fall where they may

Let the chips fall where they may

Dealing with the unfolding political drama in the Maldives requires a great deal of craft, patience and diplomacy.

Context:

• Instead of restoring democracy and civil liberties in Male, India must look after its strategic interests in the increasingly chaotic Indian Ocean Region.

What is in news?

• Ever since Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom became the President of the island nation in 2013, the country has grown closer to China.
• There are also fears that Male might eventually allow Chinese military presence on its soil, thereby providing China with a strategic military base in the Indian Ocean.
• The current events, therefore, have India worried, and rightly so.

Changing dynamics:

• India’s fundamental concern is not the suspension of civil liberties or setback to democracy in the Maldives.
• It is how China would increase its stocks in Male at the expense of India.
• India has of late been anxious about its steadily losing stature in the neighborhood i.e. its inability to act in the Maldives will only further accentuate this reality.
• South Asia traditionally had one hegemon, India; today it has two, India and China.
• India should desist from undertaking “civilising missions” to educate its neighbours on civil liberties and democracy.

Costs of an Indian intervention:

• The costs of an Indian intervention gone wrong would far outweigh any potential benefits from a successful intervention.
• An Indian intervention, especially by an overtly Hindu-right wing government, will push the Maldives towards more Islamist politics, something the Gayoom regime will use to its advantage.
• There is no guarantee that a military or some other overt form of intervention in the Maldives would ensure a rift between China and the Maldives; instead, it may even have the reverse effect.
• Indian intervention could also complicate life for over 25,000 Indian expatriates who live and work in the Maldives.
• Sermons about civil liberties and democracy are a double-edged sword that could easily come back to haunt us.

Conclusion:

• Intervening in what is strictly a domestic political issue of the Maldives would also be in breach of India’s traditional approach to dealing with crises in its neighbourhood.