N E I G H B O U R SMADHU JA!N

THE MALDIVES

An IdyllicFriendshipThe island nation opens up

CUP your hand and a coconut fallsinto it. Dip it in the sea and youhave a fish. Paradise? Those sleepy

little islands in the sun which make upthe Maldives could well be that. Even I.K.Gujral in Male, on his maiden voyageabroad as foreign minister last fortnight,called the Maldives "the Shangrila of theEast". The beaches are a moon-bathedwhite, the seas a primal blue, the coralreefs spectacular and people seeminglyageless and content.

But something is stirring in thisneighbourhood paradise. It all beginswith the almost spoof-like coup-attemptin November 1988, when the Maldiviansare startled out of an age of innocenceinto one of guerrillas, guns and interna-tional diplomacy. Fear gate-crashes intothis carefree haven and changes thingsforever. They double their army tonearly 3,000. Women in snazzy darkgreen uniforms and young boys arebrought in to swell the ranks. Expertsfrom India and Great Britain train theirnascent intelligence services. The coun-try is also cautiously looking outwards.It is all set to host the South AsianAssociation for Regional Cooperation(SAARC) summit this year, Sri Lankanotwithstanding. The Maldivians' mainworry now is their lack of diplomats.Until now, their only full-fledged HighCommission was in Colombo—wherethey have five diplomats.

Now, India has entered the Maldiv-ian landscape—though discreetly. Itplayed Galahad in 1988 and left—muchto the relief of the fiercely independentMaldivians who look warily over theirshoulders at Sri Lanka. Today, only tooaware of its big brother image in SouthAsia, India is over here more like anuncle—but a benevolent and distant onewho only visits when invited.

Uninvited it has already been therefor the last few years. Courtesy Hindimovies. Boats blare out Hindi film music;Amitabh Bachchan cries freedom inMain Azad Hoon, the only film playing inMale during the Gujral visit. Their minivideo film industry churns out clones ofHindi films.

The Maldives had, until that fatefulNovember, turned its little back to India.Its existence was completely import-

I.K. Gujral and Maldives President Abdul Gayoom with Indian delegation

based, depending upon Singapore andthe Far East for its daily needs from milkto cokes and cars—so much so that asForeign Minister Fathulla Jameel says:"If you go to the poorest homes they willoffer you a can of Coke and not a freshcoconut." For its culture and religioussustenance (it has been an Islamic statefor nine centuries) it turned to Pakistanand the Arab world. For higher educa-tion: Australia and Great Britain.

And for income, to tourism, the topearner last year, with a ratio of as manyas 1,60,000 tourists to a native popula-tion of just 2,00,000. So, with an aver-age annual income of about $ 380(Rs6,460) the Maldivian is better offthan the Indian.

How far India was from the Maldiv-ian world-view is apparent from the factthat despite its being almost their closestneighbour (45 minutes by air from Tri-vandrum), the Maldivians fly to Bombayor Delhi via Singapore. The joint com-mission which met last fortnight after alapse of four years will change all that:visa restrictions will be waived and theMale-Trivandrum flight extended toBombay and eventually Delhi.

Post-November, India was put onthe front burner for the Maldivians. "Weare not afraidpf Sri Lanka now. We haveIndia in one hand and the United Statesin the other,'' says Ibrahim Rashid, a taxidriver from the atoll of Addo. Nor do therulers fear help from India. "India knewhow to say salaam,'' says a senior official.Deputy Defence Minister Ilyas Ibra-him—the brother-in-law of PresidentAbdul Gayoom and said to be the secondmost powerful man in Male—told INDIATODAY that there are 14 Maldivian Army

officers currently training in India. Inthe pipeline are scholarships—andMarutis with a local trader bringing inabout 10 on an experimental basis.

But India has to tread softly. ProbeMaldivians a bit and the old fears of beingdominated by India surface. Though thedomination of Indian businessmen—especially Bohras—ended in 1961 whensome of them were thrown out, todayIndians are back. This is a shoppers'paradise—saris and electronic goods—for Indians who come from Kerala andTamil Nadu. And many guest housesrun by Indians have also sprouted here.

For India, too, those little dots on themap have become importantly alive:their strategic location isn't lost. Whenthe British Royal Air Force withdrewfrom its Can base in Addo in 1977, theSoviets bid for the island immediately. Sodid the Australians later. And the rest ofthe world also threw covetous glances.

But the Maldivians—desperate topreserve their way of life—kept every-body at a safe, friendly distance. AsForeign Minister Jameel says:' 'ProfessorHiggins asks, 'why can't a woman bemore like a man.' We ask, 'why can't theworld be more like us?' " Good question.The crime rate in the Maldives is unbe-lievably low: there have been only threemurders in the last three decades. Thereare no prisons either. The only punish-ment: being sent to an uninhabited isle.A German was asked after he murderedsomebody whether he wanted to returnto Germany. He refused. He was sent toan uninhabited isle. After serving hissentence he returned to his isle andmarried a local Maldivian.

—MADHU JAIN in the Maldives