Open Letter to the High Commissioner of India in the Maldives

Chagos: Conscience, Neighbourhood, and the Integrity of Decolonisation

Maldivians for Chagos (civil society coalition)
Website: www.maldivians4chagos.com
Email: admin@maldivians4chagos.com
Media: maldivians4chagos@gmail.com
Twitter/X: @MaldivianChagos
Tel: (+960) 9913632

His Excellency Shri G. Balasubramanian
High Commission of India
Malé, Republic of Maldives

Your Excellency,

A shared ocean and a shared memory

In the Indian Ocean, geography is biography. The question of Chagos is not merely a dispute over charts; it is an unfinished chapter of law and neighbourliness. We appeal to India because you know these waters well and because your scholars and sailors have long understood that the ocean’s memory outlasts empires.

Older than empire: Maldivian presence in Chagos

The master navigator Ahmad ibn Majid, writing in the late 1400s, described a Maldivian-centred oceanic sphere that encompassed Chagos and extended as far as Mauritius, Rodrigues, and the Seychelles. In 1561, Sultan Hassan IX of the Maldives, later known as Don Manuel, issued letters in Cochin describing himself as the ruler of the Maldives, including the “seven islands of Pullobay,” which are understood to be Foalhavahi/Peros Banhos in the Chagos group. This is the earliest written Maldivian claim to the Chagos Islands.

The continuity is reinforced: Pyrard de Laval’s 17th-century account of the Maldivian range, Maldivian folklore that remembers slave-raiding centuries as “giant cats from the sea,” Dhivehi gravestones in Diego Garcia, and a 1924 British newspaper that referred to Diego Garcia as “one of the Maldive Islands.” Each is a strand in the same thread: Chagos is Maldives.

A separation that the Maldives never accepted

The first official cut came with Moresby’s survey of 1834, which separated Chagos from the Maldives on his charts. Maldivian authorities protested immediately, and Moresby himself recorded it. Later came coercion: the 1887 Protectorate, and the control arrangements of 1948 and 1953. By the time Britain established the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965, the path to silence had been laid.

The UN defect and expulsions

The crucial defect was that BIOT was not listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory. This withdrew the C-24 and Fourth Committee from the field and silenced the Maldives. Yet at the time BIOT was created, 1,200–1,500 islanders lived there. Britain was bound by Article 73(e) of the UN Charter to transmit information on them. Instead, in the early 1970s, they were expelled to both Seychelles and Mauritius, a dual exile that proves Chagos was not simply a Mauritian dependency.

From omission to distortion

This omission deformed the record. UNGA Resolution 2066 (1965) condemned detachment from Mauritius while the Maldives was procedurally silenced. UNGA Resolution 71/272 (2017) referred the matter to the ICJ on a UK-Mauritius frame. The ICJ Advisory Opinion (2019) and UNGA Resolution 73/295 (2019) reflected that narrowed canvas. Meanwhile, the defect has manufactured a fiction: a plantation colony rebranded as a trans-oceanic state with a non-contiguous reach of more than 2,000 kilometres. That is not decolonisation; it is neocolonialism by distance.

The law is clear

Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) is unambiguous: a treaty cannot create rights or obligations for a third state without the consent of that state. The Maldives is that third state. A bilateral arrangement between London and Port Louis cannot extinguish our sovereign rights nor decide title in our absence.

A respectful request to India

We ask India, as a neighbour and a voice of the Global South, to support the lawful path: encourage the United Kingdom to list BIOT/Chagos and transmit the overdue Article 73(e) information; support referral to the C-24 and the Fourth Committee so that the Maldives and the Chagossian people can finally be heard; and affirm that bilateral shortcuts cannot replace multilateral justice.

Chagos is Maldives. It was written in the verses of navigators, in the parchment of a sultan, in the protest recorded by a British surveyor, and in the ink of a British newspaper. We urge India to stand with the Maldives to make it true in law.

Respectfully,

International Outreach Coordination Desk
Maldivians for Chagos
www.maldivians4chagos.com
admin@maldivians4chagos.com
maldivians4chagos@gmail.com
(+960) 9913632

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Annex I — Timeline of Historical Facts

Date / Period	Event	Significance
Late 1400s	Ibn Majid maps a Maldivian oceanic sphere, embracing Chagos, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles	Pre-colonial regional knowledge placing Chagos within Maldivian sphere.
1561	Sultan Hassan IX (Dom Manoel) letters in Cochin incl. “seven islands of Pullobay” (Peros Banhos/Chagos)	First written Maldivian claim to Chagos.
1600s	Pyrard de Laval records Maldivian maritime reach	European corroboration of Maldivian presence.
17th–18th c.	Folklore of “giant cats from the sea”	Cultural memory of slave-raiding era affecting southern islands/Chagos.
Undated	Dhivehi Thaana gravestones in Diego Garcia	Physical trace of Maldivian presence.
1715	France applies terra nullius to Mauritius/Chagos	Colonial erasure of earlier sovereignty.
1810/1814	British capture & Treaty of Paris dependencies	Chagos attached to Mauritius without Maldivian consent.
1834	Moresby’s separation; Maldivian protests	Immediate resistance recorded.
1887 / 1948 / 1953	Protectorate & controls	Narrowed Maldivian diplomacy pre-UN era.
1924	Western Morning News: Diego Garcia “one of the Maldive Islands.”	UK press recognition.
1965	BIOT proclaimed; non-listing despite population	UN oversight evaded.
1971–73	Expulsions to Seychelles & Mauritius	Refutes “purely Mauritian” thesis; human rights harm.

Annex II – Timeline of the UN Defect

Date / Period	Event	Significance
1946	NSGT list omits BIOT	Exclusion blocks C-24/Fourth Committee mandate.
1960	UNGA 1514	Decolonization norm undermined by omission.
1965	BIOT created; no 73(e) reports	Charter duty ignored.
Dec 1965	UNGA 2066 (Mauritius detachment)	Maldives unheard due to non-listing.
1971–73	Chagossian expulsions	Denial of self-determination; confirms harm of defect.
1969 / ongoing	VCLT Art. 34	Bilateral UK–Mauritius cannot bind Maldives.
2017	UNGA 71/272 to ICJ (UK–Mauritius frame)	Maldives still excluded.
2019	ICJ AO & UNGA 73/295	Mirror the narrowed frame.
2023–25	Decolonisation norm undermined by omission.	Requires NSGT listing and UN review first.