Multipolarity makes waves in Indian Ocean Region

The third meeting of the India-Maldives High Level Core Group in Male on March 17 signals that Indian bullying to browbeat the newly-elected government in the Maldives under President Mohamed Muizzu is futile, and Delhi is ‘switchtracking’ to productive conversations.

The commitment to a timeline to replace the remaining few dozen Indian military personnel by May 10 is a rational decision. The ugly spat which the compliant Indian media sensationalised with vacuous jingoism orchestrated by unseen hands of the establishment, has come full circle. At the March 17 meeting, the discussion included “efforts to boost… enhancing people-to-people linkages through … travel.”

Inebriated by ultra-nationalist credos and dogmas, the Indian elite failed to appreciate that Muizzu is by far the best-educated head of government in all of South Asia ever since British rulers departed. He makes a formidable interlocutor combining erudition and legitimacy to rule with nerves of steel honed in the smithies of the highly competitive Male politics, and yet is an innately pragmatic politician.

Muizzu has a vision for his country, and it is exceedingly foolish to view him through the prism of the India-China binary. Paradoxically, his vision also has striking similarities with that of the Indian ruling elite — the nation’s Islamic identity, nationalistic orientation, sovereignty and independence, strategic autonomy, defence capability, and self-reliance and rejection of external interference. Above all, Muizzu understands that Maldives’ multipolar moment has come presenting seamless opportunities for development.

New Delhi should have had a compass ready to navigate the winds of change. But, the excessive intrusion by the intelligence and defence establishment into neighbourhood policies blocked new thinking. The flawed assumptions behind the attempt to bring Muizzu down on his knees by undermining Maldives’ tourism industry betrayed arrogance and hubris. The Maldivian resorts remain as alluring as ever combining luxury and adventure. 

An American couple’s video last month showcasing in Instagram their stay in a lavish underwater hotel room went viral, billed as the ‘world's most expensive underwater hotel room’. The point is, the Maldives has carved a niche to cater to tourists who have big money to spend. Vogue, America’s fashion and lifestyle magazine that covers style news, haute couture fashion, beauty, culture, living, and runway, wrote last week on the ‘fun side of the Maldives.’ 

The humiliation and scorn meted out to the Maldivian psyche will boomerang unless we come to our senses quickly. The termination of co-operation on hydrographic survey is a body blow, as the Indian Ocean seabed is a last frontier of minerals for the blue economy. 

The notion that India is an indispensable partner for the Maldivians is a legacy of time past. China is offering 1,000 slots for Maldivians to participate in short-term training programmes. The top-notch Dutch commodity trading group Vitol, one of the world’s largest companies in energy industry, signed an agreement on March 14 to market the Maldives as a bunkering hub in the Indian Ocean. 

Vitol sells 350 million tonnes of oil annually and owns more than 250 supertankers and other vessels. The Vitol project (part of a port city development project on the northernmost atoll of Ihavandhippolhu) is on the main shipping lane between east and west in the Indian Ocean through which more than 300 large ships pass daily, according to Maritime Movements. 

To be sure, China is moving in fast to offer military co-operation. But it is the drone deal with Turkey that takes the breath away. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sensed the strong antipathy among the Maldivians toward Indian hegemony and stepped forward as a provider of security. Bayraktar TB2’ military drone is a game changer in maritime security with a communication range of up to 300 kms, which can survey the Maldives’ Exclusive Economic Zone round the clock, flying for 27 hours at speeds up to 120 knots and at a maximum altitude of 25,000 feet. 

The Baykar group, incidentally, is owned by the Erdogan family, and given Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman ambitions on the geopolitical chessboard of the Indian Ocean Region — Turkey has bases in Qatar and Somalia — the military balance may phenomenally change. 

New Delhi should be mindful that this is a pivotal moment in the Indian Ocean Region’s transition to multipolarity, and the concept of ‘sphere of influence’ has become archaic — so, indeed, the postulate of ‘absolute security’. To characterise this historic transition as Muizzu’s ‘pro-China’ outlook is appalling. Russia’s decision on March 7 to open a consulate-general in Male captures the spirit of our times.

(MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.