‘No shortage of half-baked, ill-conceived policymaking’: Sonia Gandhi calls Nicobar project a planned misadventure

Days after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wrote to the Tribal Affairs Minister, expressing his concerns about the violation of forest rights, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi called the Great Nicobar infrastructure project a “planned misadventure”. She said that the Nicobar project would displace vulnerable Nicobarese tribals.

In an opinion piece published in The Hindu, Sonia Gandhi said the Nicobar project has been insensitively pushed through and makes a mockery of all legal and deliberative processes.

"Our commitment to future generations cannot permit this large-scale destruction of a most unique ecosystem. We must raise our voice against this travesty of justice and this betrayal of our national values," she said.

“There has been no shortage of half-baked and ill-conceived policymaking in the last 11 years,” said Gandhi, adding that misplaced Rs 72,000 crore expenditure poses an existential danger to the island’s indigenous tribal communities, and the flora and fauna. "Nevertheless, it is being insensitively pushed through, making a mockery of all legal and deliberative processes," she said.

The Nicobar project titled ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar’ includes the construction of a transhipment port, an international airport, a township, and a power plant covering more than 160 square kilometres. The area includes about 130 square kilometres of forest inhabited by two tribes.

Great Nicobar Island is home to two indigenous communities – the Nicobarese tribe and the Shompen tribe. "The ancestral villages of the Nicobarese tribals fall in the project's proposed land area. The Nicobarese were forced to evacuate their villages during the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. This project will now permanently displace this community, ending its dream of returning to its ancestral villages," she said, adding that the Shompen, a particularly vulnerable tribal group, face an even greater threat. The project denotifies a significant part of the Shompen tribal reserve. She said that they will find themselves cut off from the ancestral lands and will not be able to sustain their social and economic existence.

Yet, the government is stubbornly adamant and shockingly insistent, she said, adding that the constitutional and statutory bodies that were set up to preserve the tribal rights have sidestepped through the process.

Sonia Gandhi said the government should have consulted the tribal council but instead their pleas have been neglected. The letter of no objection, which should have been secured from the council has been revoked.

"The country's laws are being mocked wholesale. Unconscionably, one of the country's most vulnerable groups may have to pay the ultimate price for it," she said, terming the Nicobar project an “environmental and humanitarian catastrophe”. “The project will require the cutting down of trees on an estimated 15% of the island's land, decimating a nationally and globally unique rainforest ecosystem," she pointed out.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi said the Great Nicobar project violates the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in a letter to Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram. He stated, "I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding the violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in the grant of clearances for the Great Nicobar Project. The Tribal Council of Little Nicobar and Great Nicobar has brought to my attention that the tribal communities, including the Nicobarese and the Shompens, were not properly consulted under the FRA." The project, said Gandhi, threatens the livelihoods and ancestral lands of the tribals, who were previously displaced by the 2004 tsunami.

Additionally, Lok Sabha Congress whip Manickam Tagore a;sp urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene, citing threats posed by the project. Tagore's letter to the Prime Minister calls for an independent review of the forest clearance process, highlighting that the Andaman & Nicobar administration's claims of FRA rights being "settled" were categorically rejected by the Tribal Council.