Marooned

Praful Patel’s war on Lakshadweep

- M RAJSHEKHAR

ON THE PHONE, Muhammad, a shopkeeper from Minicoy, the southern-most coral atoll in the Lakshadweep islands, sounded worried. Sales at his provisions-and-stationery shop had crashed. By March 2022, his monthly income had dropped from up to ₹60,000, to down to as low as ₹10,000. “Buying has come down. Everyone is facing a problem in their business,” he told me. He had had to dismiss a couple of his employees. “There is no work.”

The story is the same on all the other islands, a resident of Kavaratti—Lakshadweep’s capital, located around two hundred and fifty kilometres north of Minicoy—who keenly tracks government data told me on condition of anonymity. Businesses had recovered from the economic shocks of demonetisation and the COVID-19 pandemic fairly quickly, he said, but this time was different. “Every shopkeeper I have spoken to, including those running medical shops, cites at least a seventy-percent drop in sales in the past few months.”