Like the famous novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by the Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, the slim and punchy little book, The Great Nicobar Betrayal, augurs a coming death. The portentous subtitle, ‘Pushing a Vulnerable Island Knowingly into Disaster,’ foreshadows the contents: a collection of essays and articles on the wonders of the island of Great Nicobar in the Indian Ocean and the impending tragedy of its developmental death. Here, the book declares, is a death about to unfold before our eyes. And this will be no ordinary death. It will be the death of over 130 square kilometres of some of the best-preserved tropical rainforests in the world. It will be the death of the most exuberant marine life and ecosystems our oceans have to offer. It will spell disaster for the vulnerable indigenous tribal islanders.

The stakes are high. In Great Nicobar, the union government and its think tank, Niti Aayog, have envisaged a giant project estimated to cost Rs. 72,000 crore. The project involves the creation of a new trans-shipment port, a new international airport, a power station, a township that will occupy 160 square kilometres, and facilities to spur a surge in tourism. As the book tells us, all this will extract huge human and ecological costs. Great Nicobar is home to two highly vulnerable indigenous communities. The nomadic, forest-dwelling Shompen and the Nicobarese, who were internally displaced during the 2004 tsunami, stand to lose their traditional villages and territories to the project. The island is a part of the Sundaland global biodiversity hotspot, containing relatively intact tropical rainforests that support a raft of endemic species, including numerous plants, herpetofauna, birds like the Nicobar megapode, and mammals like the Nicobar tree shrew. While the clearing of forests and loss of over a million old-growth trees will wreak devastation on land, the loss of coral reefs, turtle nesting grounds, and beaches will impact the marine ecosystems around. The scale of the project is such that the foretold death of these ecosystems is better described by the word ‘ecocide,’ indicating ecosystem destruction on a colossal scale.

A deconstruction of destruction

The first chapter titled ‘The great misadaventure’ presents an overview written by the scholar, writer, and activist, Pankaj Sekhsaria, who teaches at IIT Bombay and has written several earlier books and numerous articles based on his long familiarity with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Sekhsaria, who has also curated the set of chapters included in this book, describes the scale of the project and flags the wholly inadequate and hasty environmental impact assessment (EIA) and clearance process that has already set the wrecking ball rolling. He pinpoints the incongruity of the environment ministry’s issuing in January 2021 a National Marine Turtle Action Plan that talks about conserving Galathea Bay, a nesting site for the endangered leatherback sea turtle, when the sanctuary that protected this very bay had been denotified just two weeks earlier to make way for the project. In the next chapter, he goes on to assail the lack of transparency in the forest clearance process while bringing to the fore the sheer absurdity of the proposal to compensate for the destruction of the extraordinary rainforests of Great Nicobar by large-scale plantations of trees in distant Haryana in the dry Aravallis of northern India.

Shoddy and steam-rolled environmental clearance processes are not new in India’s poor system of regulation that privileges ‘development’ and the claims of project proponents and agencies hired by them to generate largely favourable reports. But what makes the Great Nicobar project rather egregious in this aspect is that the EIA hardly considers the serious risks involved in a project of this nature in a seismically- and volcanically-active region prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. This oversight is the subject of a chapter by Janki Andharia, a professor with the Centre for Disasters and Development at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, and her colleagues. They draw attention to the “… possible damage and destruction of national property that could be caused by future earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis…” and the need for a systematic risk assessment before proceeding with the project and such a large investment.

A series of chapters forefront the biological riches of Great Nicobar. The chapter by B. Chaudhuri describes how the islands’ geographical and ecological isolation contributed to their unique diversity and endemism. Ishika Ramakrishna presents a nuanced account of the Nicobar long-tailed macaques and their interactions with people while criticising the infrastructure project EIA for misrepresenting and villainising the primate. Uday Mondal highlights the value of different habitats, from the pelagic to coastal mudflats and mangroves to rainforests, for the birds of Great Nicobar, including many endemics and migratory birds.

An evocative chapter by S. Harikrishnan on amphibians and reptiles sparkles with details of the many fascinating and endemic species from camouflaged forest lizards and giant geckos with blue-green eyes to the large Shompen frog, colourful cricket frogs and many others found on the island. The chapters by Mahi Mankeshwar and Shrishtee Bajpai highlight species of marine megafauna, including whales, dolphins, and leatherback sea turtles, found in the waters around the island. Like the visible tip of a submerged mountain, these lifeforms are a tantalising subset of the biological riches of Great Nicobar, where many new species undoubtedly await scientific discovery.

Benefits to a few might be a cost to many

Two chapters, by social scientists Manish Chandi and Ajay Saini, touch upon the lives of the Indigenous and settler communities and their vulnerabilities, especially in relation to the forces of ‘development’ and the juggernaut of the project that seems set to further marginalise them. Even as the Nicobarese await returning to their original settlements from which they were earlier displaced by the tsunami, in what appears to be a bureaucratic sleight-of-hand, the authorities managed to obtain a letter of consent for the project from the Tribal Council. Subsequently, learning that they had been misinformed, the Tribal Council withdrew its consent for the project, as detailed in one of the Annexures to the book. As of today, their pleas remain unheard and unaddressed by the powers that be.

Together, the chapters in the book attest to how the remarkable crucible of nature that is Great Nicobar has thrived for ages alongside the indigenous Shompen and Nicobarese people. It is a pity that instead of showcasing Great Nicobar as a sterling example of conservation and human–nature coexistence in a time of global climate crisis, the government is pursuing the giant port and infrastructure project that appears geared to leave this tapestry in tatters.

The last port of call for a concerned Indian citizen in the face of environmental negligence, destruction, and injustice has been the judiciary, which, to its credit, has often stepped up to safeguard the environment. However, in the case of Great Nicobar, the events so far bring little credit to the judiciary as detailed in a chapter by journalist Aathira Perinchery and in another by advocate Norma Alvares. The latter presents an incisive analysis of the cases brought to the National Green Tribunal, the irregularities in its functioning, and the flawed judgements that have emerged to date. One hopes that more critical adjudication and better sense will prevail.

A compilation and a clarion call

Overall, the book chapters, along with the useful tables, informative boxes, and annexures documenting the timeline and various petitions, largely achieve their purpose of drawing critical attention to an issue of enormous importance. The book could have gone further by presenting an overview chapter on Great Nicobar, including relevant maps, and also bringing additional perspectives to critically assess the strategic aspects of the project and the economic feasibility of the port. As Vaishna Roy, editor of Frontline magazine where a number of the essays first appeared, writes in an opening note: “While this strategic importance is undeniable, as is the need to bring about economic and material progress on the island, the colossal scale of the project is short-sighted and self-destructive. A small and self-contained scheme that does not threaten the ecology or the indigene population but works towards inclusive growth would have been more fitting.” This idea could have been fleshed out or given more attention in the book.

The Great Nicobar Betrayal appears at a crucial time to create public awareness and stimulate discussions on a project that deserves much closer and critical scrutiny. It also suggests a different response than that of Márquez’s novella. In the novella, no one, despite being aware of the foretold death, is able to avert it. A reader may be left with little more to do than to savour the pleasure of a story well told or to ruminate on human fickleness and failings. But the voices of leading scientists, writers, and nature’s advocates in The Great Nicobar Betrayal do not just deliver grim prognoses to leave one with a sense of despair. This timely book alerts the government, the judiciary, and citizens to the need for a critical rethink on the project. It also serves as a clarion call to those concerned with nature and the nation to lend their support to those striving to stave off the disaster yet to unfold.

Banner image: Tree fern forests in the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve. Image by Pankaj Sekhsaria.

Credits

Renuka Kulkarni Editor

Topics

Andaman and Nicobar Islands

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