Yoga event was branded 'un-Islamic', attacked in Maldives as part of anti-India hate

It was International Day of Yoga and people were meditating on a football field in the Maldives. The peace and calm were broken as over 150 protesters broke into the stadium and chased away those practising yoga. That was in 2022.

The violent mob attacked the participants who ran for their lives. It ransacked food stalls and vandalised whatever they could lay their hands on.

The reason -- the Maldivians believed that "Yoga was against the tenets of Islam".

The yoga event, conducted by the Indian High Commission in Male, was being attended by ambassadors, diplomats and the general public. The International Day of Yoga was celebrated in 192 countries, including 44 Islamic nations, but nowhere did it see such hatred and violence as it witnessed in the Maldives.

Cut to 2024, Maldives is at it again.

CONTROVERSY AFTER PM MODI'S LAKSHADWEEP VISIT

In the latest episode of anti-India hatred, Maldivian ministers posted offensive remarks on social media against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indians in general.

This came after PM Modi shared photos from his Lakshadweep visit on January 4. He promoted Lakshwadeep as an untouched and tranquil tourist destination.

After chatter on the internet and some reports, politicians in the Maldives took the promotion of tourism in Lakshadweep as a target against the island nation. They went on a tirade against Indians and PM Modi.

That saw joint protests by Indian celebrities, common folk and Indian travel and tour companies, calls for boycotting the Maldives as a tourist destination and the summoning of the Maldivian Envoy to the Indian foreign office in New Delhi. Maldives suspended three lawmakers after protests by Indians.

Interestingly, the India-Maldives controversy comes at a time when Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu started a visit to China, a country that backed him against his predecessor, Abdulla Yameen. Muizzu has also been requesting more Chinese tourists to visit the Maldives.

China sees the Maldives as strategic to its geopolitical interests and has been trying to edge out India, which has been a traditional friend of the Maldives.

The recent controversy over Lakshadweep or the 2022 The Yoga Day attack are part of the same chapters of anti-India hate campaigns. Experts believe them to be in some part fuelled by anti-India sections.

YOGA DAY EVENT ATTACKED IN MALDIVES

The International Day of Yoga event, organised by the Indian High Commission in the capital Male, was held at the Galolhu Stadium and was stormed by around 150-strong mob. The mob attacked participants practising yoga and vandalised property.

According to Reuters, the protesters were armed with sticks and were sloganeering while they disrupted the event. The rampage continued until police dispersed the rioters using anti-riot measures like tear gas and pepper spray.

According to a report from the Maldivian news agency, The Edition, a segment of Islamists in the Sunni nation believe yoga is similar to worshipping the Sun, a no-no act according to Islamic tenets.

Multiple Islamic groups and supporters had posted about the protest on social media much before the event date.

The attack was seen as fuelled by anti-India sentiments with a larger geopolitical game of China in the background.

Faran Jeffery, the deputy director of Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism (ITCT), an international think tank countering the narratives of Islamic terrorism, said after the Yoga Day attack that pro-China elements were involved in the anti-India incitement in the Maldives.

“The disruption looks like a planned incident and as per my sources in the Maldives, two groups, Salaf and Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) were behind the disruption. Salaf is a Salafi organisation that has links to extremism and terrorism and PPM is an Islamist political party that has been leading the India Out campaign in the Maldives. The India Out campaign was recently banned by the government. So, in short, the disruption was clearly a planned event,” counter-terrorism expert Faran Jeffery said.

HOW PRO-CHINA MUIZZU BECAME MALDIVES PRESIDENT

Right after the incident, then President Ibrahim Mohamad Solih took to X (formerly Twitter) to say that the incident was "a matter of serious concern", and ordered an investigation into it. Relations between India and the Maldives reached new heights, under PM Modi and President Solih.

The Islamist mob attack on the yoga event in the Maldives appeared to have been motivated partly by the involvement of the Indian government in the event, said Faran Jeffery.

The attack came before the crucial elections in the Maldives in September 2023. The current Maldivian President, Mohamed Muizzu, was propped up by China-leaning Abdulla Yameen.

Muizzu, rode on his flagship 'Indian Out Campaign' to come to power, which basically wanted Indian military troops out of the Maldives.

China, which had always been looking to make inroads in the region, recognised the opportunity and capitalised on the situation by pushing several infrastructure and connectivity projects, including the Male-Thilafushi project under its broader "string of pearls" plan.

Going by what experts say, the latest row over Lakshadweep seems like a chapter from the same anti-India book as the 2022 Yoga Day attack.