Twelve years ago, Daniel Bosley came across an ad from the Maldivian high commission in London, which said it was looking for interns. The Englishman, in his twenties and desperate for a job, lunged at it, only to realise that even his master’s degree in international relations hadn’t equipped him with enough knowledge of the country.“The Maldives was certainly synonymous with some turquoise corner of my grey matter with unattainable luxury,” he wrote later. “But what else was there to know about the place?”Once you really get into it though, the Maldives reveals itself as a riveting study of contrasts.It’s an Islamic republic where conservatism ends at the shores of its luxury resorts. A laidback culture that has the distinction of sending some of the highest per capita recruits to ISIS. It is so vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels that scientists don’t think it would survive beyond this century. Yet, such existential issues only appear as a footnote in the political discourse, as the recently concluded presidential elections showed.It’s a material so rich that you could write a book on it.It’s exactly what Bosley did.Descent: A journalist’s memoir of the untold Maldives is an account of the 10 years that Bosley spent in the Indian Ocean archipelago. After his internship (he did land it), he flew to Malé and joined the Maldives Independent as a journalist and then as an editor. He then went on to be a writer for a host of magazines, before launching Two Thousand Isles, a unique website chronicling the rarely told slices of the island life, with his Maldivian wife.His book is a loving and roving tale of this unique country. It’s deeply researched and masterfully told. And it is among the most perceptive books on the islands yet.Daniel Bosley. Photo: LinkedIn.The book also comes at a time when the Maldives is set to witness a change in government. President-elect Dr. Mohamed Muizzu is seen as a stand-in for Abdulla Yameen, the ex-president convicted for overseeing the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the country. Yameen’s rule saw the press censored, Islamic extremism rise, political dissenters exiled, and India-Maldives relations deteriorate. Muizzu had sworn to release Yameen and get rid of the Indian troops stationed in the country if elected. And it seems to have worked.We spoke to Bosley about his book and what recent political developments mean for India. Excerpts:§In your book, you recall instances of how often may don’t want to understand the country beyond its cliches. What are people missing out when they don’t get to know the Maldives?People are missing something that cannot be seen anywhere else on earth and, sadly, something that may not exist at all in a few decades’ time. Maldivians have been living on these islands for at least 2,500 years, carving out a unique civilisation millennia before the world even knew they were there.The resorts are certainly mind- and budget-blowing, but perfection can also be bland. There will always be luxury resorts somewhere, but there won’t be another Dhivehi Raajje.The country has high literacy rates, including in spoken and written English. Yet, it’s only ever been foreigners who deep-dive into its history/culture and bring them to the world. Why do you think that is?Traditionally, it’s been missionaries, castaways, explorers, colonialists or journalists who’ve written about the Maldives – usually while passing through. Before tourism, Maldivians were taught to be suspicious of outsiders, and the official narrative of history has been tightly controlled by central government.High literacy rates are a relatively modern phenomenon, but writing openly and honestly from within any small and highly politicised community is still difficult. When a country relies on a pristine image for its livelihood, this further exacerbates the problem and the Maldives’ recent past has shown that talking about life beyond the resorts can be deadly.But I also found that – like many people everywhere – most Maldivians simply don’t realise how fascinating their own society and culture are to outsiders.Dr. Muizzu has had a chequered record as the housing minister, and Yameen was convicted for his role in the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the Maldives. How did the two manage to secure an electoral victory?It feels like an election lost, rather than an election won.Yameen’s term between 2013 and 2018 was calamitous, with opposition leaders thrown into jail, his vice president arrested for attempting to assassinate him and two states of emergency declared. It felt like the country was slipping into autocratic anarchy.Maldivian president-elect Mohamed Muizzu meets outgoing president Ibu Solih, October 1, 2023. Photo: X (Twitter)/@Muizzu2O23Yet, the outgoing President Solih’s leadership since 2018 has been so disappointing that it eventually split his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) down the middle. The ebbing influence of the MDP’s former figurehead, Mohamed Nasheed, didn’t stop him from acting as a one-man opposition from the Majlis speaker’s chair, calling out the government for its record on corruption and extremism.So bitter was this rift that after leaving to form a new party, this clutch of MDP defectors still refused to endorse Solih in the run-off, preferring instead to take their chances under the rule of Yameen and Muizzu’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) once more.Also read: Maldives Elects Mohamed Muizzu as New President, India-Friendly Mohamed Solih LosesThe two candidates in the elections – Mohamed Muizzu and Ibu Solih – were seen as pro-China and pro-India. How much is this outcome a referendum on the two countries? Also, do people believe that Indian troop presence threatens the Maldives’ sovereignty?The threat of foreign occupation is a common rhetorical device in Maldivian history and politics, but I don’t think most Maldivians genuinely fear losing sovereignty to India.India has certainly been looking to increase its military presence in the country, but some of these deals were arranged during the previous PPM administration, which itself had no qualms about sovereignty when amending the constitution to allow unprecedented foreign ownership of land in the country.Some have, rightly, been unsettled by the Solih government’s secrecy over agreements with the Indian military, but the opposition’s ‘India Out’ campaign won’t continue in office and I don’t imagine this will affect their re-election prospects much.Also read: Ahead of Maldives Presidential Polls, Solih Government’s Ties With India Emerge as Main IssueThe Maldives has traditionally maintained its independence by practicing balanced international relations. It was probably former president Yameen’s previous lurch to the east that prompted India’s new scramble for the Maldives in the first place.Muizzu’s claims to be ‘pro-Maldives’ should mean a return to pragmatism, including recognition that sinking the country further into Chinese or Indian debt is the fastest way to cede sovereignty, and that no sane leader would ever sever ties with its largest neighbour.What was the sentiment for India you noticed in your travels across the country?Despite the xenophobic tub-thumping of a few politicians in Male, individual Maldivians must be among the kindest and warmest people in the world.I never noticed any specific prejudice against Indians during my time in the country and the infamous Yoga Day attack last year was the work of religious radicals.Indian tourists have only begun to represent a major market share in the last few years, but Maldivians have been raised on Bollywood songs and Hindi soap operas for decades.As well as depending on visits to India for medical care, the Maldives’ own hospitals are staffed by Indian doctors, and its classrooms are filled with Indian teachers. These are the places where it really counts, and I think people-to-people relations between India and the Maldives will always be strong.What do you anticipate in the next few years for the country to be?President Solih tried and failed to tackle this persistent problem, but the previous PPM government did not even try. There was strong evidence of official collusion in the disappearance and probable murder of my former colleague Ahmed Rilwan in 2014, and those eventually charged have already been released to house arrest, indicating they will soon be allowed back into the community.I fear the next five years will bring more repression and self-censorship now that radicalised gangs have learned they can act with impunity. I also fear the Maldives will continue to slip back into the same state of stable suppression it experienced before the arrival of democracy in 2008, forcing more and more free thinkers into exile.Scientists say Maldives will likely go completely underwater by the end of the century. Why was it that climate change and rising sea levels still weren’t the big topics of debate in its elections?Maldivian adaptation measures currently include modern sewerage systems and water supplies in the atolls as well as a switch to renewables, which have become a standard part of most parties’ development rhetoric.But, as with many places all over the world, there is a sense of helplessness when it comes to such a huge existential problem. It’s one that political systems everywhere are ill-suited to deal with, particularly unstable ones like the Maldives.My concern is that Dhivehi civilisation faces the climate crisis before the rest of the world, and only Maldivians can decide how they handle what may have to be a managed decline. For this, a functioning and responsive democracy will be the minimum requirement. Without it, a resort-owning elite will steadily leave for higher ground overseas, taking the country’s wealth with them, and leaving the rest to their fate.
