NEW DELHI: The Maldives government and GMR are headed on a collision course, but India is the ultimate loser, exhibiting a stunning diplomatic failure and political naivete of a country crucial to India's security considerations.
Maldives has given GMR until Saturday December 8 to get out of the Male airport. GMR's CEO Andrew Harrison, in a statement said, "The injunction clearly prevents them from taking the action outlined in their notice issued to us stating that the airport would be taken over at the end of the 7 day period. We remain resolute in our position and there is no question of an offer being made and certainly no question of any alleged offer being accepted as we will simply not agree to our rights nor the injunction being undermined in any way."
This can only have an ugly ending. While there has been no communication with Maldives president, Waheed, the foreign minister told Salman Khurshid that they were determined to evict GMR. India can either look the other way, or adopt strong-arm tactics neither of which has any good implications.
When India fell over itself to recognize Waheed as president, who had overthrown Nasheed in February, he was an unknown quantity. But Indian government were happy to dump Nasheed for Waheed, including indicating that Nasheed was acting against Indian interests. The GMR deal was one of the big reasons behind the February events anyway, so it should have been incumbent on the Indian government to ensure that the problems were ironed out.
Ousted Mohamed Nasheed, wrote this week, "India should have foreseen the consequences its investments would later face in endorsing a regime consisting of elements that had previously shown its disapproval towards major Indian investments. India should have taken its time to assess the political situation of the country and should have confirmed the legitimacy of the controversial regime before accepting it. However, failure to do so resulted in the scrapping of its single largest investment by the very government it had recognised."
Maldives has lurched from protest to protest, even though India by and large protected the Waheed government from certain censure by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG). But India failed to secure its own interests in return, because India wasn't actually engaged with the implications of what was clearly happening in Maldives.
Foreign minister Salman Khurshid, said India was keeping Maldives "at arms length" since the departure of Nasheed. India is now paying the price for that decision. Waheed's special advisor, Hassan Saeed wrote a letter to Manmohan Singh in September, asking India to assist in the termination. In his letter, he said, "The Indian Foreign Secretary's visit to our country in February failed to resolve the political crisis largely because India is no longer seen as a friendly and fair neighbour who could broker an honest and fair deal."
This was not just about GMR. Maldives complained that the government was being forced to pay GMR, that Maldivians were being charged for the airport fee. Indian officials said GMR was ready to make a deal with the Maldives government, which should have been facilitated. This vaccum gave Islamists like the Adhaalath party room to push Waheed on this issue.
Indian officials complained "outside" interests have muddied the waters __ which is not surprising. The Adhaalath party, said sources, has strong links with Pakistan, which is only now being acknowledged in India.
GMR row: Diplomatic failure for India
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GMR row: Diplomatic failure for India
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GMR row: Diplomatic failure for India
