The controversial ₹72,000-crore Great Nicobar Island (GNI) project is being pushed forward under a shroud of confusion, threatening to permanently uproot the indigenous Nicobarese families from their ancestral lands. A recently surfaced draft plan for the “relocation” of these communities has triggered widespread alarm, as families who survived the 2004 Tsunami now face a man-made disaster: the loss of their heritage to a massive transshipment port and international airport.
The draft plan is riddled with inconsistencies, leaving the Nicobarese people in the dark about where they will be sent or how their traditional way of life could possibly survive such a radical upheaval. Experts and activists warn that this project is a textbook case of “development by displacement,” where the Precautionary Principle is ignored in favor of industrial expansion. Moving these communities isn’t just a change of address; it is the systematic erasure of a culture that has been the island’s primary protector for millennia. We must demand an immediate halt to this opaque process.
