News In Test-Tubes
I went there for an international conference on press freedom. A bit like holding a skiing convention in Varanasi. President Maumoon Gayoom's almost thirty years in power have seen little in the way of a lively media. But towards the end of his long years in power—and prompted by both international criticism and internal dissent—he's now presiding over remarkable political change. The Maldivian Democratic Party and other opposition groups have been allowed to operate. Newspapers and magazines have sprung up, some starkly critical of the government. Opposition journalists say they still face harassment and arrest, and ministers admit that the road to genuine political and media pluralism has been bumpy. The editor of the main opposition daily faces the prospect of jail for an article which the authorities argued was inciting violence. She admits that the language used was over the top, but says the government needs to learn tolerance of a critical media. Whatever the continuing problems, signs of change in what some might still regard as a dictatorship are also apparent. The editor of the main establishment paper even praised the role of the opposition in helping to secure greater press freedom.
Break Ice with Sand
The eve of conference get-together was a splendid high tea on a picnic island. Under a dazzling sunset, the protocol team told everyone to feel the sand between their toes, and get down to a Maldivian version of dodgeball. Two groups stood at either side of a rectangle traced in the sand, with their targets in the middle. What better way of making friends of strangers than hurling a ball at them. Every conference should start this way. It could be a Maldivian model for international mediation.
(The author is India Director of the BBC World Service Trust.)
Friendly Ties
The information ministry’s attentive protocol team was largely made up of women. Many, but not all, wore Islamic headscarves. The Maldives is among the most uniformly Islamic nations in the world. The prohibition on other religions extends even to forbidding Sinhalese labourers from carrying Buddhist icons. Islamic radicalism is said to be on the increase—the government has pointed the finger at ‘foreign’ clerics. But the streets of Male bear a relaxed air. Although the political leadership is overwhelmingly male, women have managed to carve out space in public life.
It was one of these women minders who warned me that I would be on the podium for the President’s keynote speech. The message was unstated but clear—could I please dress accordingly. But how many people would pack a tie for a trip to the Maldives? Happily, Javed Jabbar, twice Pakistan’s information minister and another conference participant, is a wiser man than me. With minutes to spare, he lent me a splendid sky blue tie. It may have clashed with my salmon pink shirt. But at least I was not naked in the conference chamber.
Food And Thought
The information minister is a young, forward-looking lawyer who addressed the conference in an unorthodox way—an impromptu lunch-time speech in the cafeteria, where he said media reforms were still incomplete, while warning against ‘multi-tasking’ journalists (I think he meant reporters who are primarily political activists, though the nature of life here is such that everyone multi-tasks). Then he fielded questions, quite a few opposition reporters complained about colleagues who had been detained. The grievances were real, and so was the minister’s desire to see through the process of reform.
Too Many Taxis In Heaven
When you think of the most crowded places on earth, where comes to mind? Dharavi—Calcutta—the high-rise hell of some first-world suburbs. But not, I'm sure, the Maldives, that string of atolls lazing in the Indian Ocean. After all, the total population would make up just one-sixth of a Lok Sabha constituency. As you fly in to the capital, Male, you look down on the magical sight of palms surrounded by white sand, coral reefs, and translucent turquoise shallows. Yet the capital island has a population density among the highest in the world. One-in-three Maldivians live in Male. That's 1,00,000 people, not counting the Sri Lankans and Bangladeshis brought in to do the hard work. All in an island of under four square kilometres.
And what a place. Luxury tourism has made the Maldives rich, by South Asian standards. In Male, street fashions are smart and the shops are well-stocked. And although everywhere is easy walking distance, this tiny island has twenty traffic lights, 500 taxis, and at least ten times that number of motorbikes. Everyone is living on top of everybody else. Narrow alleyways lead to tiny apartments. Families gather to gossip in courtyards barely big enough for a couple of plastic chairs and a parked scooter. Male has got just about everything—apart from personal space.