What are Congress’ principal concerns regarding the Great Nicobar Project?
Our concerns are ecological, social, legal and humanitarian. Great Nicobar is not just another development site. It is one of the last large, intact rainforest ecosystems in India, with around 85 per cent forest cover and species found nowhere else in the world. Galathea Bay, where the government wants to build a massive transshipment port, is one of the most important nesting grounds for the endangered Leatherback Turtle. After the 2004 tsunami devastated these beaches, it took nearly five years for the turtles to return. Now the government is proposing dredging, large-scale construction, heavy shipping traffic and constant human activity at the very place the turtles depend on. There is a real risk that they will be driven away for good. The project will divert 130 sq km of forest and chop one crore trees. These are old-growth forests that have existed for centuries. Our objection is not to development. Our objection is to pushing through a project of this scale without properly addressing its environmental impacts, respecting tribal rights or allowing genuinely independent scientific scrutiny.
What message is Rahul Gandhi seeking to send through his campaign?
His message is that environmental governance cannot become a box-ticking exercise. The concern is not only about what is being built, but also about how decisions are being taken. There are reports that scientists involved in the clearance process were bound by confidentiality agreements and worked under unusually compressed timelines. There are also allegations that environmental assessments and public consultations were treated as procedural hurdles rather than independent safeguards. He is also asking a larger question about who really benefits from this project. Geographic Information System-based mapping is already being prepared to carve out tribal reserve land for denotification. Transit accommodation for project staff has been constructed before forest rights recognition and community consultation have even been completed. The government is operationalising this project before legal due process is completed. Its response to the National Green Tribunal amounted to post-facto justification rather than genuine accountability.
The government argues that the project is critical for India’s economic growth and maritime ambitions. How does the Congress respond to it?
We fully recognise Great Nicobar’s proximity to the Malacca Strait, through which 30-40 per cent of global freight passes. So INS Baaz could be expanded and further developed for strategic purposes. The economic case for this specific project does not hold up to scrutiny. The plan to build a global shipping hub on an island more than 2,000 km from Chennai or Kolkata, with no natural hinterland and no existing industrial base, is economically unrealistic. There are concerns that the government is preparing the ground to hand this over to its favourite crony. But developing a Singapore-style port city on a remote, forested island with no supporting infrastructure is economically unrealistic. Singapore handled around 39 million TEUs [twenty-foot equivalent units, a measure of cargo capacity] in 2023. India’s largest port, Mundra, managed around seven million. The proposed Galathea Bay port is targeting 16 million TEUs on an undeveloped, ecologically fragile island. That ambition requires massive investment for limited and uncertain return. The island also lies close to the same fault line that triggered the 2004 tsunami. The American geological survey records around 40 to 45 earthquakes every year in this zone, with magnitudes between 4.0 and 6.6. The proposed port site at Galathea Bay subsided by nearly 15 feet during the 2004 event.
“There are reports that scientists involved in the clearance process were bound by confidentiality agreements and worked under unusually compressed timelines.”
Does the Congress oppose the project in its entirety, or does it believe the project should be reassessed?
What we need is a credible, transparent reassessment. Scientists working on the clearance process were required to sign confidentiality agreements and given tight timelines. That kind of pressure does not produce an independent scientific review. It produces assessments that are shaped to serve the project rather than evaluate it honestly. Then there is the coral reef mapping. Between 2020 and 2021, official maps prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management showed coral reefs running right along the coastline of the island, including around Galathea Bay. By 2022, those reefs had simply disappeared from the maps, shifted offshore, conveniently clearing the way for port construction on land that was previously under protected coastal zone status. Conservation specialists have pointed out that the new locations shown for the reefs are in waters too deep for coral to actually grow. That is not a mapping correction. It is a manipulation. And then there is the compensatory afforestation plan. The government proposes to make up for the destruction of 130 sq km of ancient tropical rainforest by planting trees in the Aravalli hills of Haryana, more than 2,500 kms away. You cannot replace a Leatherback Turtle nesting beach or a coral reef by planting trees in a completely different climate zone on the other side of the country.
How concerned is the Congress about the potential impact on indigenous communities?
The Shompen are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group who have lived in the forests of Great Nicobar for generations. Their lives, culture and survival are inseparable from the island’s forests, rivers and natural resources. The project will bring large-scale construction, thousands of workers, tourists and settlers into an area that has remained relatively undisturbed for centuries. For a community as small and vulnerable as the Shompen, that kind of change can be devastating. The Shompen have lived in near isolation for generations and have little immunity to many diseases that are common outside their community. In the 1980s, contact with outsiders led to disease outbreaks that killed around 100 Shompen.
Does the Congress accept the strategic rationale behind the project?
There is no disagreement on the need to strengthen India’s maritime presence and security capabilities in the Indian Ocean Region. The question is whether the current project, in its present form, is the only way to achieve those objectives. India already has important strategic assets in the region. The existing infrastructure there can be strengthened to meet security requirements without causing this scale of environmental destruction. Our concern is, strategic arguments are being used to justify a project whose environmental and social costs have not been addressed. National security is important, but it should not mean setting aside legitimate concerns about biodiversity, indigenous communities and long-term sustainability.
What does the debate reveal about the tension between development and environmental protection in India?
The lesson from Great Nicobar is that environmental safeguards, scientific assessments and the rights of local communities should not be seen as obstacles to development. They are essential to ensuring that development is sustainable and serves the public interest in the long run. The real question is not whether India should develop. The question is how India develops.
