On a February evening in New Delhi, Hamdullah Sayeed, a former parliamentary colleague and the current chief of the Lakshadweep Pradesh Congress Committee, called on me with a disturbing petition. Widespread distress was mounting in the idyllic and peaceful islands of Lakshadweep. An insidious attempt to invest autocratic powers in the Union Territory’s administration had begun to take root.
The growing fears of the islanders have come to a head this week, with thousands of residents — joined by their concerned fellow-citizens from the mainland, including Opposition politicians and celebrities — protesting the gross overreach of the union government through their appointee, Praful Khoda Patel, as Administrator of Lakshadweep since December 2020.