Comment: Taking the political momentum forward

After a lull, the Indian media did wake up though not to the same extent. However, their Maldivian counterparts gave more and instant coverage for his than for President Nasheed’s visit. An indicator for this was the better media management for President Waheed than his team is credited with in comparison.

Coming as they did in quick succession, the two visits reflected the personalities and politics of the respective leaders, their relative strengths and weaknesses.

President Nasheed’s has been people-centric politics. It has often boiled down to cadre-centric protests. In New Delhi, he made one too many media appearances. His face and his charge of a mutiny that he said had forced him out of power were familiar themes in India. But his charge of collusion by Indian High Commissioner Dnyaneshwar Mulay as kind of a co-conspirator in the alleged coup was not. The issue, and not necessarily his accusations, thus caught the imagination.