Lakshadweep’s residents have been protesting a series of changes brought about by administrator Praful Khoda Patel, who wants to make the idyllic islands a tourist hub. How will this affect the archipelago’s economics, ecology and culture? We find out from Ayshabi Kalpeni, chief medical officer at Life Care Hospital in Kerala, who hails from Lakshadweep; M Rajshekhar, independent journalist, and Kanchi Koli, a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Research. News clips from ANI, India Today, Mathrubhumi News. Music from Mirshad Khan s YouTube channel.
NEW DELHI: In a rare show of discontent on the Lakshadweep islands, off the coast of the southern Indian state of Kerala, locals are complaining about a string of policies initiated by a new administrator appointed five months ago.
They warn that the changes, seen by some as blatantly anti-Muslim, threaten the peace and “COVID-free status” of the Muslim-majority archipelago.
Lakshadweep is a union territory run by an administrator appointed by the central government. Only 10 of its 36 islands, which are spread across a 32-square-kilometer area in the Arabian Sea, are inhabited. Muslims account for 93 percent of the islands’ 70,000-strong population. Kerala, the closest Indian state, is 240 kilometers away.
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“Our existence has come to be questioned with these decisions and we feel that the government is working with the same majoritarian mindset here as it is working elsewhere in the country.”
She also questioned Patel’s decision to open up the islands to tourists during the Covid-19 pandemic that is raging across the country.
“(Lakshadweep) did not have a single coronavirus case in the past year but since Patel allowed tourists to visit … it has over 7,000 cases and scores of deaths,” Kalpeni was quoted as saying in the report.
It is imperative that the number of infections is reduced, she said, because Lakshadweep does not have critical healthcare facilities; patients who require ventilators or other advanced forms of treatment have to be flown to Kerala.