The receding migration wave

After battling natural disaster, their fight is now against the state machinery. According to T.B. Yadav of the Ex-Servicemen Association Campbell Bay, Great Nicobar, 8220;the administration is wary of letting us return to the mainland since then the island will again become sparsely populated and the security issue will have to be re-addressed.8217;8217;

IN 1969, the Indian government brought in the first batch of Punjabi ex-servicemen families to the remote island and settled them around Campbell Bay with a grant of 14.5 acres of land, incentives in cash or kind worth Rs 25,000 and assistance for building homes and livelihood. The following batches from states like Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh came in 1974 and 1979-80 and were settled with 11 acres of land and other incentives. 8220;Most ex-servicemen who decided to settle here came from a poor background. Naturally it was difficult for them to resist the temptation of free land and other enticements offered by the government,8217;8217; says Captain V R N Setty, who retired from the Indian Army and came to Campbell Bay in 1979.

The tsunami left behind nothing but debris of their picture postcard lives. And 19 months after that ferocious water rush, the carcasses of their homes still stand in the advanced sea, much of their cultivable land has turned into swampy water bodies and the stumps of their coconut trees stand merely as throwback to the terrible past. The only road that led to their homes at Joginder Nagar, Vijaynagar, Lakshminagar, Gandhinagar and Shastrinagar villages, situated between 13 and 35 kilometres from Campbell Bay, continues to lie buried deep below landslides, thereby cutting off commuting means between their former homes and their temporary shelters in Campbell Bay.

8220;None of the settlers has earned a single rupee since December 26, 2004,8217;8217; says Vijaya Kumari, wife of ex-serviceman Das Manoranjan who settled here in 1979. What has compounded the agony of the ex-servicemen settlers is that even the administration does not foresee a stable livelihood for them in the next few years. 8220;Constructing the road is the main challenge. Unless the road is in place, construction of permanent homes will be impossible. I8217;m hoping the road, till 35 km, will be completed in the next two years,8217;8217; says the Assistant Commissioner at Campbell Bay, Amit Kumar. Officials of the Border Roads Organisation, which is in charge of building the road, say it will take much more than two years for work to complete once the clearance of the forest ministry for the entire stretch comes through. 8220;We plan to build 300 houses here, but have not been able to start work on one because of the absence of the road,8217;8217; says V K Malik, project manager of the CPWD8217;s 8216;Tsunami Reconstruction Project8217; in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

And finally, even after the road comes, fresh plantations of coconut will take 8220;another six-seven years to bear fruit for the settlers,8217;8217; says S K Verma, an agricultural expert working with the ANI administration.

CURRENTLY living in their tin shelters, surviving on government-doled ration of basic essentials and faced with an uncertain future, the clamour among 8220;almost 90 percent of the settlers8217;8217; is for leaving for more secure pastures. The Ex-Servicemen Association had demanded Rs 30 lakh as compensation for their loss and resettlement-in-mainland costs per family from the government. But their demands turned down, they filed a case in the Port Blair bench of the Calcutta High Court in 2005. They lost the case with the court ruling against payment of the compensation. Counters Yadav: 8220;The government said that since we were not forced to settle here, we could not ask for compensation. But with the land and incentives, they certainly did coerce us to come here. Besides, they built the road and settled us here in the danger zone within 500 metres of the sea, and which went against the Coastal Regulation Zone rules CRZ. Now everything is under water.8217;8217;

Though the association is planning to file a fresh plea before the Calcutta High Court8217;s double bench this month, the Assistant Commissioner is unperturbed. 8220;We have already selected sites for their land and homes and getting permanent shelters is their right. It is also their right to file a case and ask for resettlement in mainland India. And even if a few people leave, many will stay behind,8217;8217; says Kumar.

But the waves have left behind a sense of persisting gloom.The tsunami, agonises Harcharan Singh, a school teacher whose ex-serviceman father was killed by the waves, 8220;has set us back by thirty years. There is nothing left for us here.8217;8217;