Not entirely idyllic
THE first thing I noticed as our plane descended over Maldivian territory was the colours. Submerged land formations with white sand appeared like turquoise patches in a darker blue sea. The flight landed at Velana International airport on Hulhule island. A new terminal is being built on reclaimed land, our escort said. He added that once the terminal was complete the airport would account for one-third of the island. Indeed, the tourist footprint in the Maldives is so massive that the existing airport requires expansion to handle the snaking immigration queues.
The Maldives presents unique governance problems as it is not a contiguous territorial nation state. There are 1,192 islands, of which 187 are reportedly populated. It has 26 atolls, with both inhabited and uninhabited islands. Some islands classified as uninhabited have been handed over to resorts for tourism. This also allows tourists to be separated from the Sharia norms that govern Maldivian society.
The 26 atolls are also the administrative units. Each atoll has a roughly circular coral edge where waves break and the coral reef is closer to the surface of the water. In Dhivehi, the island’s language, this is called “dhiyares”.
THE ‘INDIA OUT’ PROTESTS
Curious about the hashtag #Indiaout that trended in the Maldives on May 24, I spoke with Ahmed Azaan, a journalist and co-founder of Dhiyares.com, a news and opinion platform. Azaan explained that the “India Out” protests began in 2020 and are an expression of concern that Maldivians do not fully know the extent of their government’s security and economic entanglements with India. The protests, he says, are peaceful and not anti-india because Maldivian people have a shared cultural history with India. However, he says, many Maldivians are uncomfortable about Indian military presence on some islands.
The protests have been supported by former President Abdulla Yameen from the Progressive Party of Maldives, who is now in the opposition. On April 21, current president Ibrahim Solih from the Maldivian Democratic Party banned the #Indiaout campaign, saying that it disrupted ties with India. However, the protesters were back in May. Azaan was concerned about such criminalisation of protest. He was also concerned about why mainstream Maldivian media did not criticise their government’s policies in relation to India.
The Maldives appears to be the latest arena of geostrategic competition between China and India. China built the Sinamale bridge, the first inter-island bridge here, completed in 2018. In 2020, India commissioned the Greater Male Connectivity Project (GMCP), which will cost an estimated $500 million.
However, using the Maldives’ various islands for military or naval purposes has a long history. An inhabitant from Addu, the Maldives’ southernmost atoll, gave me an impromptu history lesson. During the Second World War, Gan Island in Addu Atoll was used as a refuelling base for the Royal Air Force. Few knew of its existence. Seventy stationed personnel from undivided India were killed on Gan Island between 1942 and 1944. In 2021, there was some talk of India opening a high commission on Gan Island. The Maldivian opposition promptly countered this, saying this could be a precursor to Indian military presence on Gan.
There is no doubt that President Solih is seen as a pro-india president. However, because of the Maldives’ fragmented geography, Male remains the largest locus of concerted political opposition. For its part, India has been pursuing diplomacy and partnerships that seem to further entrench its influence over the current regime. The Maldivian regime, however, has also pursued defence partnerships with the US and Japan, which when combined with India, means that it has ties with three of the four Quad countries. While President Solih was quick to allay any assessments that this signalled that the Maldives was favouring the Quad, it remains to be seen how the Solih administration will walk the tightrope between its engagements with these powerful countries.
Meanwhile, journalists like Ahmed Azaan are concerned about their country and about democracy. The state of democracy seems fragile everywhere. Just like the ecology.
On our second day on the islands , when we decided to go snorkelling, my friend surfaced with some dismay. A healthy coral reef she had seen on her previous visit a few years ago now appeared bleached.
Bleaching occurs when coral reefs are subjected to thermal imbalances--as surface water starts warming due to climate change, corals start dying. Three per cent of the world’s coral reefs are in the Maldives, but it has seen two major bleaching events: in 1998 and 2016. There is now a concerted effort to recover reefs, but the progress is slow.
1. The Utah or Newell ______ is a 3D test model that has become an in-joke within the computer graphics community. Using this object is considered the 3D equivalent of a “Hello, World!” program, a way to create an easy landscape where the object provides the basic geometry for a scene with lighting. The shape has a number of elements that made it ideal for graphics experiments of the time: it is round, has saddle points, a genus greater than zero because of the hole in the handle, can project a shadow on itself, and be displayed accurately without a surface texture. What was this everyday reference object?
2. Diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 1941, he underwent surgery that left him chair- and bed-bound. Painting and sculpture had become physical challenges, so he turned to a new medium. The result was a distinct and dimensional complexity—an art form that was not quite painting, but not quite sculpture. He said he was drawing with _______, directly into colour, abolishing the conflicts between colour and line, emotion and execution that had slowed him down all his life. Who is the artist/what was he ‘drawing’ with?
3. American football analysts often use the notion of “carrying a _______” as an object of derision indicating that the said football player is not good enough to play on the field. Fill in the blank.
4. This kind of packaging for this product would typically be considered cheap, but it is the new normal in Scandinavia. It is affordable, lasts longer, not to mention its convenience and ease of transport. The product is something Scandinavians are casual, everyday consumers of, while in other parts of the world it might be saved for special occasions. Lastly, the compact, minimal and functional design of the packaging is something Scandinavians typically like. What are we talking about?
5. One of the earliest antecedents to the modern speech bubble was the “speech _____”, wispy lines that connected first-person speech to the mouths of the speakers in Mesoamerican art between 600 and 900 AD. Fill in the blank.
6. _____’s szalonna (Hungarian for ____’s bacon) was a dense fruit jam eaten by Hungarians during World War II. It was made of mixed fruits and was solid; sold not in jars but sliced into blocks. Apparently, during World War II, Hungarian soldiers received food provisions from the Germans and they got this fruit-flavoured jam instead of the bacon they were used to. The soldiers mockingly started to refer to the jam as _____’s szalonna. Fill in the blank.
7. Historically, it was associated with high fashion, but could take on different meanings in different circumstances. For example, in 1798, during the French Revolution, women wore it as a homage to victims. Since 2010, it has become a popular fashion symbol for a certain group of people, thanks in part to its ability to conceal a prominent bodily feature. What is it?
8. Tsubakimoto Chain Co. is a Japanese manufacturer of power transmission and roller chain products. It was founded in Osaka in 1917 to manufacture bicycle chains and later became the first roller chain manufacturer in Japan. The company also makes an item used for a very specific purpose in some restaurants. What?
9. While its predecessor has been produced in India for hundreds of years (even named after the locality in Bombay where it was popularly made), the fabric itself was first produced in the French city of Nîmes. What do we know it as?
10. The False Face Society is probably the best known of the medicinal societies among the Iroquois, especially for its dramatic wooden masks. Used in healing rituals, they invoke the spirit of an old hunch-backed man. Those cured become members of the society. The masks are fed parched whitecorn mush and given small pouches of tobacco as payment for services, as they are considered to be living, breathing things. Why?