Experts on Indigenous Peoples have warned that India’s controversial Great Nicobar Development Project must be scrapped. Crucially, their open letter demands that the Indian government alter course before they cause the extinction of the Shompen.

Moreover, the letter follows a similar recent warning from 39 international genocide scholars. Importantly, they said that if the project goes ahead, Great Nicobar’s Shompen People, who are mostly uncontacted, isolated tribes could perish due to the destruction of their habitat and livelihoods.

The Shompen are one of the most isolated tribes on Earth. Since before records began, they have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers, inhabiting the rainforests of Great Nicobar Island in the Indian Ocean. Whilst some Shompen have had limited contact with Indian officials, they mainly remain uncontacted, declining all interactions with outsiders.

As non-profit Survival International wrote:

They live in small groups, whose territories are identified by the rivers that criss-cross the rainforest. Being nomadic, they typically set up forest camps where they live for a few weeks or months, before moving to another site.

Now, scholars are warning that the Indian government project could lead to their extinction.

The Indian experts include the former head of the Anthropological Survey of India. They took part in early government missions to attempt to contact the Sentinelese tribe. Now, they advocate that:

We should respect their wish to be left alone.

Moreover, the damning letter states that:

If this project is not scrapped, the Andaman and Nicobar Administration and the Government of India will be knowingly subjecting the indigenous communities of the Great Nicobar Island to irreversible damage, which will in due course lead to their extinction.

Ultimately, the signatories concluded:

We urge the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to intervene immediately and put a halt to this project before it’s too late.

Catastrophic transformation of the island

The Great Nicobar Development Project aims to transform the remote island into the “Hong Kong of India”. Alarmingly, if the government green lights the project, it will destroy huge areas of the Shompen’s unique rainforest.

Instead, in its place, it intends to build a $9bn development which will include a mega-port; a new city; an international airport; a power station; a defence base, and an industrial park. As a result, it will draw in 650,000 settlers. Significantly, this will mean a population increase of nearly 8,000%.

Notably, the open letter states that Andaman & Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation Limited (ANIIDCO) has allowed a project which spans over 50% of the Tribal Reserve (166.10sq km), without even knowing the patterns of land used by the communities.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the approvals granted for the project have violated multiple laws and policies that protect the rights of tribal communities.

Given this, Survival International’s director Caroline Pearce said:

This is the second time in a matter of months that a group of experts has demanded that the Great Nicobar Island Development Project is scrapped. Anyone with any knowledge of the Shompen and other uncontacted tribes knows that this project would completely destroy them – they simply won’t survive the catastrophic transformation of their island that the Indian government is planning. No national development project can justify genocide. Will the Indian authorities finally listen to their own experts, and alter their plans before it is too late and they have the extinction of the Shompen on their hands?

The letter finished by pointing out:

In conclusion, if this project is not scrapped, the A&N Administration and the Government of India will be knowingly subjecting the indigenous communities of the Great Nicobar Island to irreversible damage, which will in due course lead to their extinction.

The southern Great Nicobarese have barely recovered from the aftermath of the tsunami, and if the project is not stopped, they will be forced to see their ancestral land getting ravaged by pillars, earth cutters, and dredgers. The forest-dwelling Shompen community will be subjected to the unfathomable trauma of seeing a million trees cut. - The Canary