Rijiju to represent India as Modi skips swearing-in of new Maldives president

Anirban Bhaumik, NEW DELHI, DHNS

New Delhi: With the relations between New Delhi and Male on edge, India will be represented by a Union Minister at the ceremony to swear in the new president-elect of Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, on Friday.

Though Muizzu sent an invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Male for the inauguration, New Delhi decided that Union Minister for Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju would represent India in the ceremony. This is in sharp contrast to November 2018 when Modi flew to the capital of the neighbouring island nation to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Muizzu’s predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

Muizzu’s campaign for the presidential polls saw him opposing and promising to reverse Solih’s ‘India First’ policy of treating India as a preferred partner for the Maldives. He vowed to start the process of removing Indian military personnel from the Maldives immediately after taking oath.

India had been represented by the then Vice President M Hamid Ansari in November 2008 when Mohammed Nasheed was sworn in as the president. No one from New Delhi attended the swearing-in ceremony of Nasheed’s successor Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom in November 2013.

Yameen, who was voted out in 2018, had led the Maldives into a debt trap by awarding China’s state-owned companies contracts to build several infrastructure projects ignoring the security interests of India. Though Beijing’s influence over Yameen's regime had resulted in strained ties with New Delhi, it saw a reset after Solih and former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed led the MDP to victory in the November 2018 elections.

Yameen led an 'India Out' campaign over the past few years, setting a narrative against New Delhi. The campaign significantly helped him and Muizzu set the narrative against Solih’s India First policy during the presidential polls, leading to the change in the regime in Male.

The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi, however, on Wednesday played down the downgrading of representation in the swearing-in ceremony. “Maldives is India’s key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and occupies a special place in the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the MEA, said, adding: “This high-level Ministerial representation from India at the inaugural ceremony underscores India’s commitment to further deepen the substantive cooperation and robust people-to-people ties between the two countries.”

The “India Out” campaign gained momentum in the Maldives after New Delhi on February 21, 2021, signed an agreement with the Solih government to “develop, support and maintain” a harbour at Uthuru Thila Falhu naval base in the island nation. Though the new harbour is being built for the Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard, it is also being seen as a strategic asset that could give India an edge over China, which has been trying to spread its tentacles in the Indian Ocean region.

The 2023 presidential elections saw the parties of Yameen and Muizzu campaigning that the naval facility the Solih Government allowed New Delhi to build would eventually be turned into India’s military base in the Maldives, thus undermining the sovereignty of the archipelago. Solih and his party countered it, claiming that the naval facility would rather enhance the capability of the Defence Forces of the Maldives in exercising jurisdiction and undertaking maritime surveillance of its exclusive economic zone and the islands.

Yameen and Muizzu have been criticizing the Solih Government’s decision to keep the two Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters New Delhi gifted to Malé in 2010 and 2015, although the erstwhile Abdullah Yameen’s regime was keen to return both the choppers. India last year also completed the installation of a coastal radar system, comprising 10 radar stations, in the Maldives to help keep watch in the Indian Ocean.

Not only did the defence cooperation between the two nations expand over the past five years but India also announced, launched and completed several infrastructure projects in Maldives over the past few years to stop its drift towards China.