Surely when the discussion revolves around tourist destinations, the Maldives often takes the lead. However, perhaps not many people want to visit Lakshadweep due to various reasons, as several restrictions have been imposed. You can see in the given image that on the Kerala side of India, if you head west, you will find Lakshadweep, and further down, you’ll see the Maldives.
The geography of both Lakshadweep and the Maldives is quite similar in this region. This means that the natural beauty, corals, and other elements you find in the Maldives are also abundant in Lakshadweep. In fact, you might find even better features in Lakshadweep.
Because currently, commercialization hasn’t reached a significant level here. This is why its original beauty still lies within Lakshadweep. Although, in the Maldives, you are aware that commercialization has reached a considerable extent. Now, what’s happening is, as you might have seen, PM Modi recently visited Lakshadweep and inaugurated several development projects. Alongside that, he shared many pictures, and suddenly, you can see the enthusiasm among Indians.
But amidst all this, some members of the Maldives Parliament pass racist remarks against Indians. This has raised questions about whether Indians who used to prefer visiting the Maldives before are now considering boycotting it in favor of Lakshadweep in the future.
What actually Happened
The ruling party in the Maldives, known as the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), has recently come to power. They are perceived as being pro-China and anti-India. During their election campaign, they prominently advocated the slogan “INDIA OUT.” A Twitter user reacted to Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Lakshadweep “what a great move, it’s a big setback to the new Chinese puppet government of Maldives. Also, it will boost tourism in Lakshadweep”
In response to this, a council member of the Progressive Party of Maldives, Zahid Rameez, made remarks that: The move is great. However, the idea of competing with us is delusional (Meaning, you cannot compete with us). How can they provide the service?
The service that we provide in Maldives How can they do that? How can they be so clean? The last sentence after this somewhere shows racist remark towards Indians and because of this, a lot of discussion started here
This led to extensive discussions on Twitter. The users who were on Twitter started writing in the comments of Zahid Rameez that India will show one day, you can watch it after one or two years. How Lakshadweep will become a main tourist hub Indians will boycott here. So, such discussions have started
These events are seen as having a connection to the impact of Prime Minister Modi. Additionally, there’s a reference to a tweet from PM Modi during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, where he posted a picture of the Tulip Garden in Kashmir And seeing this, many tourists started going to Kashmir. The sign of tourism there, to see Tulip Garden, started to increase. So, this is clear that whenever PM Modi goes somewhere, and asks people to go there, to see how beautiful it is, then suddenly tourism starts to increase.
And somewhere, the same thing, in the beginning of 2024, PM Modi did.
About Lakshadweep:
Lakshadweep was made up of 36 islands. Actually, if you want to go to Lakshadweep, then there is only one way, that is Kochi.
From there, you are allowed to go. The plane or the ship, you can go from here. And Lakshadweep was made up of many islands. If you see its literal meaning, in Lakshadweep’s Malayalam and Sanskrit, it means 100 islands.
If we talk about it, there are 36 islands, but actually, there are 35. Because one island is drowned out of this.
The capital of Lakshadweep is Kavaratti.
Lakshadweep is a union territory.
Its area is total is 32 .6 square kilometres.
The population is less than 1 lakh population.
Languages: Malayalam and English
And the people of the most ethnic group, you can see Malayali there. Anyway, the most important thing here, you have to keep in mind, that its beauty is lovely. The beaches there, Blue water, white sand, friendly people, nature.
You can see all pictures during the tour of PM Modi. And there was a sign to people in India that you should go to Lakshadweep. But actually, it is not so easy to go to Lakshadweep.
You have to take permits here. Usually, people don’t want to take any restrictions. You have to stop and take permits. There are many issues. People want to go to a place where there are no restrictions.
Because if you are going for tourism purposes, you will go with a free mind. So, because of this, people knows Lakshadweep very little.
Actually, if you look at Lakshadweep, in last year, in 2022, around 1 lakh foreign travellers went. And if you look at it just before, in 2021, this number was only around 4000.
But the problem is that foreigners in India, they go to a lot of places. The problem is that Indian people themselves cannot go there. And that’s why there are a lot of restrictions, but now things can be much easier.
There is one more reason for this. As soon as PM Modi visited there, as soon as he put the pictures here, after that, if you look at it, in Google Searches, Lakshadweep came into the top 10. That is, in Google India, the top 10 searches were getting to see Lakshadweep on the 9th number. Lakshadweep Within a day, you got to see more than 50 ,000 searches. You can see that on the 5th of January, after the 4th to 5th of January, you see that suddenly, a lot of search started getting started about Lakshadweep.
It means that there are a lot of people interested in this. They want to go there. PM Modi was there on 2nd and 3rd of January. Basically, there were many projects to inaugurate. Like Kochi, Lakshadweep Island, which is a submarine optical fiber connection, were done there. During their stay, they did many activities. And the beauty there was shown to the people.
But the final question here is, can India boycott Maldives? What will it do? Look, the way people are interested in going to Lakshadweep, there will be no surprise in it. Because the way relations between India and Maldives are happening, and the way they are happening, it seems to the people that why should they go to Maldives?
When you get the same thing in your own country, then they will prefer to go there.
Both are the same because the location of both is very close. There can’t be such a difference in their beauty. The picture above is of Lakshadweep and below is Maldives.
But you can see a huge difference. The difference is that in Maldives, they have created a very good facility for tourism. Look at the villas, they are called water villas. People have a dream to go there one day.
So, we can say that a lot of people spend money, because of which the entire economy of Maldives is because of tourism.
In Maldives, in 2021, around 3 lakh Indian tourists, went to Maldives.
In 2022, around 2.5 lakh Indians, went to Maldives.
And this sign is important because in 2021, the time of Covid was still running, or the waves were coming, people were also liking to go to Maldives. If you look at the market share, then you have a share of 13 -14% of India alone.
There is one more interesting thing.
Taj Hotel, India’s largest hospitality company, they announced last year that two Taj properties are going to be opened in two different islands in Lakshadweep.