President of Maldives Ibrahim Mohamed Solih issued a decree to ban Anti-India Protests which have been picking steam amid the ‘India Out’ campaign for the past several months. The notorious campaign was being led by pro-Chinese and former Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen since his release from prison in December 2021.

The decree titled “Stopping Campaigns that Incite Hatred Against Various Countries Under Different Slogans” was issued in Dhivehi language and stated that the state has a duty to ensure the security of diplomats posted to the country and diplomatic missions. The decree specifically mentioned ‘India Out’ campaign with aims to create unrest in the country and disturb the evolving relationship between India and Maldives.

Mohammed Aslam, Head of the parliamentary committee on national security said that Yameen is specifically using the campaign to incite hatred against India and use it as his ticket to winning the elections which are due in 2023. He added, “Former President and his gang are using these protests as a means to create large-scale unrest and instability in the entire country. They want to engineer an uprising against the government.” A big “India Out” banner was also seen hanging out of Yameen’s residence in Male which was removed by the police with a court order.

The issued decree says maintains that while the government is trying to protect the freedoms of expression and assembly, those behind the campaign were misusing these freedoms to serve their own ulterior motives that may cause unrest in Maldives sooner or later. It also clearly mentions that the National Security Council had concluded the campaign meant “to incite hatred against India” and was therefore a threat to the country’s national security. The present government had earlier mulled on bringing in legislation to ban the India Out campaign, a draft of the proposed law had also circulated but was later dropped.

The relations between India and Maldives look stronger than before but are still at a budding stage, to clear its intentions Solih government also declared an India First foreign policy in the past. Currently, the two nations have also signed a security cooperation pact wherein India will furnish a credit line of $50 million for capacity building in the maritime domain. A number of High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP) are also in the pipeline in various islands of Maldives with India’s cooperation.