Opinion The fate of Great Nicobar Island: Its Indigenous peoples displaced by aid, robbed by development

Great Nicobar, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve within the Sundaland biodiversity hotspot, harbours rare, endemic, and endangered species. Spanning approximately 910 sq km — 850 sq km of which is a tribal reserve — the island is home to two historically isolated Indigenous communities: the Shompen, a hunter-gatherer people classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), and the Nicobarese, who sustain themselves through horticulture, pig-rearing, hunting, and foraging.

For millennia, these communities thrived in perfect social and ecological harmony, embodying what anthropologists call “original affluent societies.” They were the island’s sole inhabitants until the government settled 330 ex-servicemen families between 1969 and 1980. Today, the Great and Little Nicobar Islands host over 8,000 people, including around 1,200 Nicobarese and 245 Shompen.

Idioms of development, of nationalism

In January 2022, at a carefully orchestrated public hearing, the Nicobarese were introduced to the megaproject. Officials, with rehearsed conviction, framed it as a historic opportunity, essential for both the island’s and the nation’s progress. They reassured the community that only “vacant” land would be used, leaving Indigenous territories untouched. Swayed by these lofty promises, the Little and Great Nicobar Tribal Council issued a No-Objection Certificate in August — only to withdraw it three months later when the truth emerged: the megaproject would devour their ancestral lands, piece by piece.

The government cleared the path for the megaproject, first by denotifying the Megapode and Galathea Bay Wildlife Sanctuaries in January 2021. Then, in a masterstroke of bureaucratic irony, it compensated for this ecological destruction by declaring the islands of Meroë and Menchal, along with a 13.7 sq km area (including 6.67 sq. km of water) on Little Nicobar, as wildlife sanctuaries in October 2022, purportedly to protect coral, megapodes, and leatherback turtles. What was glaringly absent from this conservation charade? The Nicobarese, who have long held traditional rights over these islands, were neither consulted nor considered — only overridden.

The Tribal Council submitted petition after petition, expressing their concerns about the megaproject and appealing to the local administration, the President, the Prime Minister, and key ministries — from Home Affairs to Tribal Affairs to Social Justice. They also reached out to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes and other relevant authorities. Yet, their cries for justice have been met with silence.

The megaproject’s proponents dismiss all criticism, framing it in the idioms of development and nationalism — an essential, inevitable leap forward for both the island and the nation. But if this initiative promises “holistic development,” why do the Indigenous peoples oppose it? What does this transformation mean for communities whose very identity is intertwined with their lands, forests, and seascapes? These questions demand urgent answers. But first, how did the Nicobarese ancestral lands become part of this megaproject?

The silent displacement

For the past fifteen years, I have studied the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in Nicobar — humanitarian governance, socio-cultural upheavals, and land conflicts. While the tsunami devastated the Nicobarese, it was the aid that truly ravaged them — dismantling their resilient, self-sustaining society. The government used aid to reshape their identity and, more insidiously, dispossess them of their ancestral lands.

After the catastrophe, the Nicobarese were relocated from their traditional coastal villages to relief camps at New Chinghen and Rajiv Nagar (Campbell Bay), with promises of monetary compensation, rations, and temporary shelter. But this so-called relief became a tool of control, undermining a historically self-reliant community while tightening the government’s grip on their lands.

Over time, traditional joint families disintegrated, livelihoods dwindled, and dependency on aid took hold. Market-driven consumption, alcoholism, and alien diseases followed. Despite their resistance, the Nicobarese were permanently resettled in these camps six years later, effectively rendering them internally displaced. Their ancestral lands are now ripe for state appropriation—paving the way for the megaproject.

Land as life

Once self-sustaining, the Nicobarese are now wage labourers, struggling for survival. They resist the megaproject because its encroachment on their lands would erase any hope of returning home. For them, land is not a commodity to be bought, sold, or owned — it is a sacred, sentient entity that defines their identity and sustains their culture.

In their worldview, death is not an end, but a transition to the spirit realm, where ancestors remain ever-present, guiding and protecting future generations. The land, forest, and ocean are not mere resources to exploit — they are the very essence of existence, where the social, natural, and divine realms converge.

What outsiders dismiss as vacant wastelands, the Nicobarese revere as sacred havens teeming with life — both tangible and intangible. Their lands are living archives of lineage, traditional knowledge, and collective memory. Islands like Menchal and Meroë, believed to be home to powerful spirits, are managed by strict cultural laws of visitation and resource use — protected with a reverence modern conservation evangelists can only dream of.

For the Nicobarese, losing land, forest, or ocean is like losing a vital limb — an irreparable severance that shatters their spiritual balance and way of life. Their plea to return to ancestral lands is not just about reclaiming territory; it is essential for their healing, cultural survival, and the restoration of the fragile harmony between the social, physical, and spiritual realms.

Yet, they remain trapped in cramped shelters at Campbell Bay, enduring the unbearable — the death of life and the life of death. Their lands, rich with ancestral spirits and memories, now stare down the same devastating future. “The way we miss our villages [lands], they will also be missing us,” the late Paul Joora, chairperson of the tribal council, once told me.

For the indigenous people, the megaproject is not a promise of progress but a death knell for their homeland, their culture, and their entire world.

The writer is an anthropologist with extensive research experience in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He teaches at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi