Operation Cactus: Indian Military Intervention in the Maldives, 1988

In 1988, the Indian Army and Air Force, ably supported by the Indian Navy, carried out a daring intervention in the Maldives. The government of the Maldives, led by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, facing an attempted coup by PLOTE, a renegade group of Tamil insurgents from Sri Lanka, sent out a request for help, to which India responded.

Operation Cactus details this, India’s most ambitious out of area intervention to date. The book describes the history, economy, demography and politics of the Maldiv...