Indian tourists have started to boycott the paradise island nation of the Maldives following disparaging remarks made by officials slamming Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being a “clown” and a “puppet of Israel.”
The disparaging remarks, which prompted the #BoycottMaldives campaign, came after Modi was pictured lounging in a chair on a secluded white-sand beach in Lakshadweep, a mini-Maldives-like Indian territory 150 miles from the mainland and about 100 miles north of the Maldives.
Modi’s comments on the beach — he called a morning walk “moments of pure bliss” — sounded like a threat to the people of the Maldives, with its half-million residents feeling disrespected and pushed around by India.
“What a clown,” Mariyam Shiuna, a deputy minister in the Maldives’s government, wrote on social media. The post was later deleted. She also accused Modi of being a “puppet of Israel” and bizarrely of wearing a lifejacket while pretending to scuba dive.
Other officials took to social media to poke fun at India and the millions of tourists who visit the island each year.
The comments underscored real tensions simmering between Modi and the leaders of the Muslim-majority islands, who have shown support for the Palestinians.
In India, the backlash against the Maldives was swift. Government officials, Bollywood actors, and even a few tech titans turned their outrage at the Maldivians, posting travel brochures of Lakshadweep and encouraging their followers to boycott the Maldives.
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The Maldives is a popular upscale island nation that brought in more than $3 billion in tourism revenues in 2019, which is about 25% of its national economy. When COVID-19 hit and most nations, including China, had strict lockdown procedures in place, the Maldives was kept afloat by Indian tourists, who became the island’s main source of luxury spenders.
India has recently seen some untapped potential in marketing Lakshadweep to travelers as an attractive alternative to the Maldives. If successful, it could bring a big blow to the Maldives’s economy.