In 1988, when armed mercenaries had almost taken over the Maldivian capital of Male in a coup d’état, India’s daring rescue with the 17th Parachute Field Regiment (‘Operation Cactus’) flying non-stop from Agra, had saved the day for the Maldives.
The infamous trio of the current Maldivians-in-news i.e., Maryam Shiuna, Malsha Shareef, and Mahzoom Majid may have either been too young or perhaps not even born, thirty-six years ago – but as Maldivian politicians with apparent education, they couldn’t be oblivious to this historical reality.
What perhaps, they were pandering to was competitive partisan one-upmanship, albeit, in its most uncouth, boorish and pun-intended ‘clownish’ ways (after all, they had called out the Indian Prime Minister’s recent visit to Lakshadweep with grossly unbecoming terms like ‘puppet of Israel’, ‘terrorist’, ‘clown’ etc.,).
For all conjectures of lopsided partiality that the newly inducted Maldivian Government has been making, the role of India (with all its dispensations of varied ideological persuasions over the decades) has been supportive of its sovereignty and above all, non-expansionist, something that can never be said of China with its established ways with neighbouring Sri Lanka (taken over Hambantota Port pursuant to patent ‘debt-trap’) or the Gwadar port in Pakistan (to be militarized with Chinese naval presence and suction of natural resources).