NEW DELHI: The Indian dream of hegemony over the South Asian Nations isfast shattering and many South Asian nations have started to openly defyIndia, courtesy China.
Only yesterday Nepal and Bangladesh have ruled in favour of China anddefying India on various accounts and now tiny island nation Maldives isnext in line for India.
Maldives on Tuesday extended the State of emergence by 30 days defying arare warning by India to refrain from doing so, opening the door to furtheractions by India against Yameen’s dictatorial regime.
On Tuesday afternoon, with hours to go before the present emergencyexpired, India asked Maldives to not extend the emergency in the country.In a statement MEA said, “It is our expectation that the Government ofMaldives will not be seeking extension of the State of Emergency so thatthe political process in Maldives can resume with immediate effect.”
The statement came after a national security parliamentary committee inMaldives parliament on Monday approved a request by the president Yameen toextend emergency by another 30 days. Yameen’s actions are a directcontravention of Maldives’ commitment to India and the internationalcommunity that the emergency provision would be in place for only 15 days,starting February 5.
India is not favour of the current Maldives Regime and considers it asclose to the China with whom it is competing for influence in South Asia.
According to reports from Male, only 38 MPs were present for the vote thisevening, despite 43 MPs being needed for the vote to take place as requiredby the constitution. All 38 were from PPM, the ruling party and all of themapproved the extension. To ensure the vote, Yameen even tried to officiallyreduce the number of members in the Majlis from 85 to 73 so his party wouldhave a majority.
The opposition had boycotted the vote, and the debate on Monday about thestate of emergency and Yameen’s extension request, to ensure the vote couldnot happen. But the extension was approved anyway. The emergency will endon March 22.
The MEA continued, “After the revocation of the Emergency, democraticinstitutions including the judiciary should be allowed to functionindependently and in a fair and transparent manner in accordance with theConstitution. The order issued by the Supreme Court of Maldives on 1February 2018 should be implemented in letter and spirit. “
The emergency extension will have to be cleared by the Majlis orparliament, which was supposed to meet on Monday night but did not. Theopposition MPs boycotted the parliament vote on the extension, but it waspassed by the ruling MPs.
Last week, Yameen issued a cryptic statement appearing to warn Indiaagainst a military intervention in the Maldives. Sources said that thiscame after Yameen’s office complained about Indian TV discussions on thepossibility of intervening in Maldives militarily.
Yameen has leveraged his ties with China and his Sunni Islamic credentialswith the likes of Saudi Arabia to overturn all democracy in Maldives. Untilrecently, India didn’t push the democracy card too much, recognising thatother countries don’t have systems similar to India’s.
But Yameen’s repeated flouting of every known democratic rule has led Indiato now push for democracy in the island country, the absence of which isnot only creating a repeated political crisis but also giving an opening topowers like China to gain a bigger foothold.