The incident began when Maryam Shiuna, Malsha Shareef, and Mahzoom Majid, three deputy ministers in the Maldives’ Ministry of Youth Affairs, made disparaging remarks about India and the Prime Minister during his recent visit to Lakshadweep. Subsequently, they speculated that the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Lakshadweep was intended to undermine Maldivian tourism, which is notable for its beachside attractions. Before long, posts on India on social media were racial, xenophobic, and hostile.
After that, a few Maldivian news websites covering local news ran dramatic headlines in the local dialect, claiming that India plans to degrade Maldives tourism via its prime minister’s provoking posts.
As soon as they noticed, other Maldivian social media users followed suit, insulting and making derogatory comments about India and Indians while also drawing parallels between the Maldives and the Lakshadweep islands.
In response to the Maldives’ ridicule, several Indian social media users said they would never go on vacation there and encouraged others to boycott Maldivian accommodations. In response to the decision, travel website EaseMyTrip likewise suspended all reservations for flights to the Maldives. Indian athletes, celebrities, and businesspeople including Pooja Hegde, Madhur Bhandarkar, PV Sindhu, Shilpa Shetty, Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar have all written about their travel goals and expressed a wish and request to fellow Indians to visit Lakshadweep.
- The Maldives government suspended the three ministers when the Indian government brought up the matter with them.
- Muizzu suspended the ministers’ work until an inquiry was carried out, following his election victory in September on the platform of removing a limited number of Indian military pilots marine jets from his island.
- It is alleged that Mariyam Shiuna, called our Prime Minister Modi a “clown” after he visited Lakshadweep island of India, promoting Indian tourism.
- On an average around more than 3,00,000 Indians visit Maldives each year contributing to 11% of their Tourism. Moreover Russia, India’s ally contributes to another 11% of their tourism altogether India also contributed to 20% of Maldives GDP due to exports.
