Maldives Fish

The Maldives is mystifying. Away from the resorts priced at USD 1000 a night with sharks running wild under glass shower floors, there is a country that is deeply dysfunctional underneath the surface of wealth and affluence. (and wealthy it is; the capital Male has no beggars, no rickshaws - only airconditioned cabs, and no filth, shanty towns, no visible signs of poverty even though tourists rarely come to Male).

And yet, the divorce rate is 80% in this Muslim country that is drifting towards fundamentalism (with a lot of young men leaving to train in Pakistani Lashkar camps); health outcomes are poor due to a lack of freshwater and vegetables, political repression is high with torture victims everywhere, patriarchal domination and sexual abuse (somehow the two seem to be always connected) and a stagnating economy due to the deterioration of the fishing sector and a lack of labour discipline leading to low diversification in the economy.

And as the Country Manager of a large bank here mentioned, there is no alcohol sold here, so life is very difficult and sometimes we have to go to the resorts to get a drink, otherwise we cannot survive. (no prizes for guessing which country he was a national of; hint; it starts with sri).

It would be nice for a SAARC country with the highest development outcomes and indicators, to be on an upward trend of progress. But even here, in this country of 300,000 scattered over 1200 islands, - our manifest destiny makes itself apparent.