{"id":38654,"date":"2024-01-23T12:12:20","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T18:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/?p=38654"},"modified":"2024-01-23T12:12:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T18:12:38","slug":"the-india-maldives-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/2024\/01\/23\/the-india-maldives-post\/","title":{"rendered":"The India-Maldives Travel Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is becoming increasingly polarized – each minor disagreement has a greater impact on bilateral relations. The latest spat happened between India and the Maldives, and it has influenced the <\/span>tourism industries<\/span><\/a> of both nations. This is the second such incident involving India in recent times, since Canada <\/span>withdrew <\/span><\/a>41 diplomats from New Delhi in retaliation for allegations that Canada was harboring Sikh separatists. <\/span><\/p>\n

The fallout started with a post by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in early January, containing pictures of him relaxing on the beaches of Lakshadweep, a picturesque and remote Indian archipelago. India has no dearth of tourist destinations, with the beaches of Goa and the hill stations of the Himalayas coming to mind. Modi\u2019s post likely was intended to bring awareness to Lakshadweep\u2019s beauty and untapped potential. However, three Maldivian officials interpreted it as an affront to their tourism industry, which heavily relies on Indian beachgoers. They <\/span>replied<\/span><\/a> to Modi\u2019s post, calling him a \u201cclown\u201d, \u201cterrorist\u201d, and \u201cpuppet of Israel\u201d, among other things. India\u2019s response to the insult of their beloved leader was quick and coordinated. Bollywood stars, government officials, and sportspeople encouraged Indian travelers to cancel bookings to the Maldives and promote local tourism by posting trip cancellations along with #BoycottMaldives. The Indian travel booking website EaseMyTrip.com <\/span>suspended<\/span><\/a> flight bookings to the Maldives in \u201csolidarity with our nation\u201d. Due to the Maldives\u2019 reliance on India for economic reasons, the Maldivian government tried to stop the bleeding by making the officials delete their posts, suspending them from their positions, and clarifying that their \u201cderogatory\u201d views did not reflect those of the Maldivian government. However, these measures have done little to stop the rising number of #BoycottMaldives<\/a> posts. <\/span><\/p>\n

As previously mentioned, India constitutes the largest tourist market of the Maldives, so a large-scale decline of Indian tourists will almost certainly affect the Maldives adversely. Former Maldivian official Ahmed Mahloof <\/span>expressed <\/span><\/a>his concern, stating \u201cI\u2019m deeply worried about the escalating situation regarding the sensitive comments about our closest neighbor. Indians boycotting the Maldives would have a huge impact on our economy. It would be hard for us to recover from such a campaign.\u201d Mahloof brings up another reason why alienating India may prove to be dangerous for the Maldives: geography. India is not only the closest country to the Maldives, it also has military units stationed there. President of Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, has also gone on a state visit to China, India\u2019s bitter rival. This visit aims to strengthen ties with and receive support from China in the wake of deteriorating relations with India. <\/span><\/p>\n

This diplomatic fallout and the one with Canada are signs of India\u2019s ascendancy to becoming a global superpower that will not tolerate any insults. India has taken an increasingly extreme stance towards any perceived slights, as evidenced by their expulsion of the 41 Canadian diplomats and the boycott of the Maldives. It remains to be seen how angering India will affect the Maldivian economy in the long term. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is becoming increasingly polarized – each minor disagreement has a greater impact on bilateral relations. The latest spat happened between India and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":816,"featured_media":38655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2724,1],"tags":[4320,1234,2685,3944],"coauthors":[3964],"class_list":["post-38654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-worldnews","tag-boycottmaldives","tag-politics","tag-travel","tag-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/816"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38654"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38781,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38654\/revisions\/38781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38654"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=38654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}