Thank you, Prakash and Mike and the AIIA, for inviting me here today.
First of all, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking to you today on the lands of the Wurundjeri people who have been custodians of this land for thousands of years and I acknowledge and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to any First Nations peoples joining us today.
It’s wonderful to see so many of you, many familiar faces, and overall, a great sense of enthusiasm for building knowledge about South Asia.
I think it would be worthwhile to discuss the regional importance of the Indian Ocean as a whole – to give context to the role the Maldives plays on a broader geostrategic scale.
Australia is an Indian Ocean natioN, our identity is formed through our multicultural population and the stories and traditions shared with our indigenous communities and other migrant communities. The Indian Ocean’s GDP is projected to make up over 20% of global GDP by 2025. Despite its significant recent economic performance, development across countries has been uneven with some facing challenges that affect their development pathways in diverse ways.
To put things into context, the Indian Ocean region covers about 20 percent of the world’s water surface, around 80 percent of the world’s maritime oil and 9.84 billion tons of cargo pass through the Indian Ocean region annually. With so much of our global trade passing through Indian Ocean waters, we should all have a shared commonality in our interests to build a stable and secure region.
I have recently returned from a visit to South Africa, where we co-hosted two roundtables specifically on Indian ocean security, both from a defence and human security focus. What came out of this visit was a broad agreement to view the Indian Ocean region as one region – looking beyond the Indo-Pacific to include the Western region. In fact, I refer to South Africa, Australia and India as the anchors of the Indian Ocean. Unlike the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Indian Ocean is enclosed on three sides by land masses.
There’s a history of big powers calling the shots for small island state communities but in geopolitics, there is a lot of imbalances in priorities between states.
In today’s political, economic and cultural climate, there is a greater appetite for a more regional perspective. To really get what’s going on between India and Maldives, we should look at why the Maldives are such a significant strategic player in the Indian Ocean region.
So, consider this: Despite its small population of around 500,000—about the same size as my home Island State of Tasmania, this country’s importance lies beyond its size and population. The capital of Maldives Male’s strategic importance becoming increasingly realised by Western nations. Why? Because it finds itself at the heart of the Central Indian Ocean, a region where India and China have been in unspoken competition for influence since Maldives embraced a multiparty democratic Presidential system in 2008.
The change between leaders sympathetic to India or China has deeply influenced the country’s developmental discourse. My fellow panelist David Brewster has described it as a ‘strategic Prize’ by big powers. This holds relevance now as the rivalry between India and China shifts from territorial disputes to the maritime domain of the Indian Ocean. Like I mentioned before, with the Maldives situated so close to these mineral-rich zones, it finds itself at the crossroads of global interest and opportunity. But very recently, the Indian-Maldives relationship has been put under strain with the 2023 Presidential Elections and the 2024 Parliament elections, having just passed in April.
Significant diplomatic tension arose between India and Maldives following the commencement of the recent Maldives election held recently, initiated by the leader of Maldives’ People’s National Congress Party, now President Mohamad Muizzu. It was President Muizzu who championed the ‘India Out’ campaign. As he ascended into power in the 2023 Presidential elections, he said “Using the instrument of diplomacy, I will ensure that this country has no foreign military presence on its soil,” and further explicitly calling for the withdrawal of Indian military personnel.
In January this year, Indian PM Narendra Modi made an official visit to the Indian Union territory of Lakshadweep (a tropical archipelago) to promote domestic tourism. It seemed to cause quite a stir, with some ministers in Maldives perceiving it as an attempt to draw Indian tourists away from Maldives. Well, I am not sure if it was a deliberate provocative act from the Indian side or an innocent act of promoting Indian tourism?
But after Modi’s Lakshdweep visit, three junior Maldivian ministers took to social media to call out Modi and India’s strategic intentions with the Maldives, leading to an uproaring response from Indian communities. Having since been dismissed and removed from posts, these Ministers’ derogatory remarks had strong responses from Bollywood actors to cricket players – all of whom appealed to fans to travel to local destinations instead with the hashtag #Chalo Lakshadweep, which means “Let’s go to Lakshadweep”. Tourist arrivals from India to Maldives decreased by 42 percent in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Despite these recent conflicts, India has consistently shown up to lend a hand when needed, from providing humanitarian aid during natural disasters and COVID-19 to patrolling Maldives’ waters. Many maritime challenges that the Maldives face on their shores are similarly found around Indian coastlines. Both grapple with illegal undocumented fishing and piracy threatening coastal communities’ livelihoods.
And just yesterday, the Indian government confirmed a budget support of USD 50 million to the Maldives, which came following a request made by Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer to India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar, during the official bilateral visit to India last week.This trend of kick back from Maldivian government and communities in their perception of India.
Last year at the Aii’s Kolkata Dialogue, experts raised concerns over the increase in disinformation campaigns in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly about spreading disinformation to create negative perception of countries like India, among island states. Some Maldivian media have spread rumors on Indian military espionage and alleging secrecy surrounding documents related to India-Maldives maritime security deals.
However, the reality is quite different. In fact, a substantial portion of Indian aircraft operations in Maldives—around 70%—consists of medical evacuation missions and flying doctors’ services. Another 20% is dedicated to search and rescue operations, with the remaining 10% focused on assisting in combatting illegal fishing through surveillance efforts.
Disinformation has seeped into the fabric of election campaigns. According to a report by the European Election Observation Mission (EU EOM), the ruling coalition led by Muizzu’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and People’s National Congress (PNC) orchestrated disinformation campaigns across social media platforms. Their tactics aimed to sway public opinion and manipulate election outcomes. This included peddling anti-Indian sentiments, exploiting fears of Indian influence, and stoking anxiety over the presence of Indian military personnel within the country.
Firstly, Maldives is gravitating towards China. This shift in alliances could exacerbate Maldives’ economic dependency. Indian tourism, which accounted for over 14% of Maldives’ tourism in 2022, is at risk, potentially impacting the 28% of Maldivian GDP generated by tourism. So I think we are bearing witness to a strategic shift in the region with political alliances between Island State nations and their ties to India and China. The Maldives most recent engagement with Turkey to discuss defence technology and agreements is a clear indicator of a departure from traditional diplomatic ties. The integration of Turkish warfare technology like drones will be difficult to substitute the role played by Indian troops.
India has historically covered 70% of Maldives’ defense training needs and offering crucial aid during crises like the 2004 tsunami and the 2014 water crisis in Male. The repercussions of the India-Maldives clash extend beyond the immediate region, impacting countries with stakes in the Indian Ocean, including Australia. The Indian Ocean comprises 40% of Australia’s top trading partners, who are actively engaged in blue growth initiatives. As assertive powers vie for influence in the region, there’s a risk to the principles of free and fair access to the Indian Ocean.
As discussions like this one today shed light on new priorities Australia needs to address. At the end of the day, it is our effort towards ensuring the Indian Ocean remains free, open, inclusive, and accessible to all that remain pivotal. Strengthening existing institutions like the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) is crucial in achieving this objective. Mini-lateral cooperation brings together India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Mauritius, along with Bangladesh and Seychelles as observers, an active security-focused group operating in the region.
Australia’s experience and expertise on the CSC’s five pillars, ranging from maritime security to countering terrorism to combating trafficking and other transitional threats, would likely be welcomed by the CSC countries, including India and Maldives. In fact, Australia has been quite attentive to small Indian Ocean states, including Maldives, in the recent years like the opening of the Australian High Commission in Male last year.
Through institutions like the CSIRO, on Maldives Marine Research Institute to train and empower local communities on methods for coral larval restoration techniques, helping safeguard Maldives’ vital marine resources. And the constant engagements between Australian and Maldivian ministers, including the recent meeting between our Foreign Minister, the Hon Senator Penny Wong and the Hon Sheryna Abdul Samad, Minister for State for Foreign in the margins of the Indian Ocean Conference 2024 in Perth.
While it is important to understand the significant role of domestic politics, in the Maldives we must build greater advocacy for regional peace and prosperity in the region