WI: Maldivian thalassocracy

This is an idea which had struck me recently--how can we get the Maldives to become an Indian Ocean thalassocracy? Basically, we need the Maldives to be able to project power and trade influence throughout the region, as well as to have a substantial influence on the politics and foreign relations of the Keralan states. At best, I imagine it could be a Chola Empire in miniature.

The biggest problem is that the Maldives are small islands and rather out of the way. IIRC, they weren't united until the early 2nd millennium. One of the main industries in the Maldives was the trade in cowrie shells, which was highly valuable throughout the Indian Ocean and beyond. Presumably, the Maldives would gain power based on taking advantage of this trade.

One idea I had is somehow getting an agricultural revolution on the Maldives to massively increase the population and thus keeping food prices low for the common man. Some elements (perhaps even most elements) would come from being able to import lots of food from abroad. This would give a bit more people for the Maldivian rulers to work with, ideally to staff a powerful, well-trained navy which would be innovative in ship designs like the Chola were. The Maldivian land forces would be small yet very well-trained. The main strength of the Maldives would come from being able to easily recruit mercenaries and privateers to bolster their forces, as well as playing potential opponents off of each other.

This Maldives would thus be able to seize Lakshadweep and perhaps assimilate it into Maldivian culture, since the Maldives would have excess population relative to the small islands. Beyond that, the Chagos Islands could also be settled, since there would be more of a reason to settle on the islands. They'd be trading as far as Madagascar, which would have interesting effects there, like maybe reinforcing Islam (we'll assume they adopt Islam as IOTL) amongst certain Malagasy groups? I'd love to see the Seychelles and Mascarenes settled by Maldivians, perhaps as a response to overpopulation on the main islands--in time, the states there (on *Mauritius and *Reunion) might even surpass the Maldives proper given the size of the islands and potential resources. I like the idea of dodo birds being domesticated and used as ornamental birds like peacocks, or even just as peasant food (since evidently their meat was of low quality).

Although I'm thinking mainly of the modern Dhivehi-speaking Maldives with cultural links to Sri Lanka, a Maldives which is Dravidian (as it was at one point) or even an Austronesian Maldives (as proto-Malagasy people at one point lived there) would be just as acceptable for this.

Thoughts on this concept? Have I gotten all my facts wrong, am I exaggerating the potential, etc.?
 
Any interest here? I fantasise about some sort of innovative Greek fire/explosive-type weapon used by Maldivian fleets along with a heavy use of fireships to give them an advantage in battle to make up for the small amount of ships and especially population. Working around the small population size/potential of the Maldives is definitely the biggest challenge here, and might be insurmountable to developing any Maldivian state which can properly be termed a thalassocracy.
 
Where would they get all the necessary lumber?

Obviously they'd have to import it. To some degree, they can rely on indigenous sources of coconut timber for shipbuilding and of course to "get things started" (so to speak). Maybe a growing state ends up seeking out new sources of lumber for shipbuilding, which would help drive trade. Getting new sources under Maldivian control is of course helpful, and it so turns out that historically the main industry of the Chagos Islands was coconut plantations, so they could settle people there.
 
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