On Great Nicobar, and what integration would actually require
- Is the port separable from the township in practice, or only on paper?
- Can 229 people hold a veto over a national project? If they cannot, who can?
- Does Indian elite capital reinvest at home, and what would it look like if it did?
The Strategic Case
In August 2024 the Public Investment Board, the Finance Ministry body that vets projects with a financial fallout, examined the Great Nicobar proposal brought to it by the Ministry of Shipping. It recorded that the project did not have strategic objectives, and that strategic objectives should be added to it.
They were added. In March 2026 the Ministry of Defence notified the project as strategic. The Hindu has reviewed both the 2024 board documents and the March 2026 records of the Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee, the Finance Ministry branch that must clear anything above five hundred crore.
In between, the shipping ministry asked for ₹12,300 crore of viability gap funding. The appraisal committee asked why a commercially viable project required a subsidy, and why the ministry wanted to depart from the funding norms in this case. It also asked how the port would compete with Colombo, Port Klang and Singapore. The funding was refused and the Ports Ministry was told to find the money internally.
Congress Intervenes
Jairam Ramesh has written to four ministries over two years and three have replied. His letter of 25 July puts the arithmetic plainly. The transhipment port at Galathea Bay accounts for roughly half the budget. The dual-use airport, the single component with a defence function, requires about five per cent of the 166 square kilometres sought and about ten per cent of the money.
Rajnath Singh’s reply of 17 July is the serious version of the government’s case and deserves to be stated at its strongest. Great Nicobar sits beside the Sea Lanes of Communication in a way that INS Kohassa and Car Nicobar do not. Maritime domain awareness at the mouth of Malacca is not an invented concern, and the Bay of Bengal is not a quiet ocean. Expanding INS Baaz at Campbell Bay was examined during the environmental impact assessment and rejected as requiring heavy land reclamation. The National Green Tribunal found no ground to interfere.
A project whose strategic rationale is supplied on the instruction of a finance body, eighteen months after the fact, is a commercial project that has been retrofitted.
The denotified sanctuary
In January 2021 the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change listed Galathea Bay as an important marine turtle habitat and as the largest leatherback nesting ground in the country. A week later the sanctuary was denotified.
Two classifications, moving in opposite directions, each one adjusted to fit the project rather than the project adjusted to fit the classification. A protection is removed in January 2021 because it obstructs. A strategic purpose is inserted in 2026 because it is required. This is the mechanism, and once it is visible it is hard to unsee elsewhere in the file. The compensatory afforestation for a Nicobar rainforest is to be carried out in Haryana.
The entrepôt
The draft master plan notified this year names tourism as the primary economic driver. It describes Great Nicobar as a seaside destination in a pristine, unspoilt, protected environment, and proposes business tourism, adventure tourism, biodiversity tourism, family entertainment and amusement parks. Ramesh’s reading of the 2047 plan adds cruise tourism, casinos and a finance hub, which he says reads more like an ambitious real estate project.
Population projections need care, because two different numbers are in circulation and confusing them would be fatal. The 2026 draft master plan projects roughly 336,000 people by 2055, up from around 9,000 today, with the Nicobarese rising from about 7,500 to about 11,500 and annual tourist arrivals above a million. The much-quoted figure of 650,000 belongs to earlier planning material and to the 2024 letter from genocide scholars. The smaller number is the current one. It is still a thirty-seven fold increase.
Hong Kong of India
The phrase attached to the scheme in the planning literature and repeated by its promoters is the Hong Kong of India.
Hong Kong was not an integrated part of anything. It was an entrepôt, a jurisdiction deliberately held at a distance from its hinterland so that capital could move through it without touching the interior. A free-trade zone with a finance hub attached is designed to be permeable outwards.
Consolidation and integration are different operations. Consolidation controls territory. Integration circulates value. The state can accomplish the first at Galathea Bay and still fail entirely at the second, and the plan on the table does not seriously attempt the second.
The port survives
India sends roughly three quarters of its transhipment cargo through Colombo, Singapore and Port Klang, and pays for the privilege. The shipping ministry’s own estimate is around two hundred million dollars a year in foreign exchange leaving the country for a service India could perform itself. Galathea Bay has more than twenty metres of natural depth and sits on the route.
That is an anti-extraction argument. It is the same argument we would make about elite consumption, applied to logistics. If the objection to this scheme is that value generated in India leaves India, a port that stops fees flowing to Colombo is worthwhile to consider.
So the case for an Indian transhipment port survives. The case for this port-city package does not, and the distinction matters more than it first appears. A port needs labour accommodation, power, water and roads. It does not need a casino, an amusement park, a finance hub or a million tourists a year. The township is not infrastructure for the port. The port is the anchor tenant for a real estate development, which is what the appraisal committee was circling when it asked why a commercially viable project needed public money.
One note on attribution. Rahul Gandhi’s petition of 5 June says the project is meant to benefit Adani. The expressions of interest on the public record name Larsen and Toubro, Afcons and JSW Infrastructure among eleven bidders, and construction tenders have not been awarded. The allegation may prove correct however it is not established by the tender record as it stands.
The Shompen
There are 229 Shompen by the 2011 census, perhaps three hundred. They are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group, Austroasiatic, related to the Nicobarese, present on the island for at least a few thousand years. Many of their communities remain highly isolated and avoid sustained contact with outsiders.
Free, prior and informed consent was never obtained, and cannot be obtained from people who refuse contact. India voted for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which requires that consent in several contexts, and is bound by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, whose monitoring body has insisted on effective indigenous participation in decisions affecting ancestral land. Nearly forty scholars of genocide wrote to President Murmu in February 2024. Survival International made the same submission to the UN in April 2025.
The mechanism they identify is not malice but exposure. A population of three hundred with almost no contact with mainland pathogens sits alongside a projected city hundreds of times its size. Nobody can demonstrate the outcome in advance. That is precisely the problem with proceeding.
The Gilded Age
The Shompen are where the Gilded Age comparison breaks, and the comparison is worth making because the developmental self-image on offer is genuinely of that period.
American industrialisation happened on territory its builders narrated as empty. The narration was false, and the falseness was settled by killing the people who disproved it. The tycoons never had to answer the question because the cavalry had answered it in advance. India in 2026 cannot narrate Great Nicobar as empty, because it has counted the Shompen, scheduled them, and classified them as particularly vulnerable. The state’s own paperwork forecloses the frontier story.
Which is why Rajnath Singh’s reply repays a second reading. The stated ground for rejecting expansion at INS Baaz is that it would disturb tribal populations, flora and fauna. The principle is accepted exactly where it rules out the cheaper option and set aside where it would rule out the expensive one.
Consent withdrawn
The Shompen are the moral test. The Nicobarese are the legal one, and they are the part of this story that has been under-reported.
They are a contacted, settled community of about 7,500. They have withdrawn their consent for the project on the ground that their forest rights remain unsettled, and the matter is now before the Calcutta High Court.
That is not a submission from an international NGO. That is the resident population of the island, using a domestic statute, in an Indian court, saying that the process by which their consent was recorded was defective. Whatever one thinks of Survival International, this cannot be dismissed as foreign interference, and it is the single most likely thing to delay the scheme.
If integration is the goal, these are the tests and not the obstacles. A polity that cannot integrate seven and a half thousand people without a High Court challenge, and three hundred more without a warning from genocide scholars, has not demonstrated a capacity for integration. It has demonstrated something else.
Reinvesting into India
Vantara is the version at scale we would point to. It was seriously contested and the contest was resolved: a Supreme Court appointed team under Justice Chelameswar cleared it in September 2025, the Court accepted the finding and closed the proceedings. Take it or leave it as an example. The underlying category is what matters, which is Indian capital committed to something in India that does not extract from India.
The Indian Eilte that Summers in Italy not the Andamans
Oligarchic resources generate Indian returns which are recycled into Western institutions, Western education, Western property and Western luxury. The elite this island is being reshaped to serve does not holiday in the Andamans.
Which brings us to the argument circulating in defence of the resort component: more than nine in ten Indians hold no passport, so India must build destinations at home. An Indian who cannot afford a passport cannot afford a Galathea Bay resort either. The figure describes one population and the development is priced for another. If the concern is that Indians spend their holiday money in Phuket and Bali, the direct remedy is not a domestic imitation of Phuket built on a tribal reserve. It is visa-free movement (passport-free) across the entirety of the Indian Subcontinent and maybe a Dharmic Union (which would be long-lasting and effective), which costs no rainforest at all.
Galathea Bay takes its name from the Danish vessel that surveyed Great Nicobar for minerals between 1845 and 1847.
The case for an Indian transhipment port survives. The rest seems patchy on interrogation.
The case for transshipment survives with the naval port/airfield at the mouth of a strategic sea lanes. I would like to hear the case for a resort/casino/finance hub from a more steel-man perspective. At a basic level, there is no reason for so many Indian startups and commercial entities to be domiciled in Singapore and Dubai.
“That is not a submission from an international NGO. That is the resident population of the island, using a domestic statute, in an Indian court, saying that the process by which their consent was recorded was defective. Whatever one thinks of Survival International, this cannot be dismissed as foreign interference, and it is the single most likely thing to delay the scheme.”
The statute and most of Indian laws/constitution are themselves are copy/paste version of NGO/Woke fads of the times.
As I mentioned those laws are not the reason why India has maintained the huge diversity of flora, fauna and humans. It is something ingrained in Dharmic mindset.
This is a case of non-dharmic peoples projecting their past guilt and current designs on to us.
Will Indian startups and commercial entities switch to Nicobar?
Agree on your points on the Dharmic mindset however it seems the government isn’t so found of the traditional Dharmic mindset (which is accomodating of staggering diversity)..
“Will Indian startups and commercial entities switch to Nicobar?”
They will if they are provided similar legal/tax benefit as those domiciled in dubai/singapore/mauritius. The benefit would be that our valuable start ups would not be exposed to legal/regulatory exposure in other jurisdictions.
The other point about this government not being accommodative is just rehashed propaganda.
it seems the indigenous populations of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are declining propitiously.
yeah India is supposed to keep A&N in pristine isolation only from other Indians so that they are ripe pickings for missionaries. Just like the NE.
the Nicobarese have been Christians since the 19th century?
To prevent the soul harvesters from doing a repeat on the rest, the A & N population is kept in isolation in an attempt to preserve their indigenous culture.
Most north easterners chose to be christisn as their own history’s attest.
The isolation of the Andaman and Nicobar else prevent missionaries not help.them.
The northeast was christianized by its own tribals after all.
> Most north easterners chose to be christisn as their own history’s attest.
yes yes, they have been christian for 4000 years already.
Whats the big deal in acknowledging the factor of economic incentives and foreign missionaries?
What’s the big deal in admitting that the majority of north east Indians were introduced to christianity by their own tribe members?
And that none of them credit economic incentives for conversion? Have you ever read anything written by a northeast person about their own history or is this another case of believing second hand knowledge about someone and taking it to be the truth? Looks like it is.
What’s the big deal in admitting that many parts of the country were brutalized by Christianity? Women had their breasts scooped out so they couldn’t nurse their babies. Entire tribes and groups were designated as criminal to expand Christianity.
Goa is not the entire country.
And the British and portuguese are not representative of the culture and values of Indian christians who themselves were victims of these activities. Learn to separate the cultural practices of these empires from that of modern day Indian christians by reading what indian christians have written about themselves and their belief and practice.
Furthermore the criminal tribes wete designated as such because they were opposing the British in extracting revenue from many places in central and north india not to expand christianity.
It is well known that the east india company and the British were not interested in spreading the faith but extracting profit.
NE was converted mainly during the British rule. Their Christianity cannot be divorced from the British.
No, that isn’t well known or true. Missionaries were given a free hand to do conversions as much as they liked. Almost all English educated Indians were educated in religious convent schools.
//NE was converted mainly during the British rule. Their Christianity cannot be divorced from the British.//
The tribes that converted and the culture and practise they do now are a creation by them and not a cheap copy of what the british did.
If anything, the east India company and later british did not want to encourage missionaries too much since it could lead to rebellions.
//No, that isn’t well known or true. Missionaries were given a free hand to do conversions as much as they liked. Almost all English educated Indians were educated in religious convent schools.//
Missionaries could sing and praise how glorious they thought christianity was all they wanted but that is it.
Between keeping order and stopping christian missionary work, the british chose keeping order all the time. That is why the British never banned other religions or supported the missionaries in any coercion they did or wanted to do.
Saurav Das was funded by known anti India operative Dinesh Thakur
https://www.grantmakers.io/profiles/v1/831198429-thakur-family-foundation-inc/?query=Saurav
I don’t know enough about that.. but yes foreign monies can be very pernicious.
I happened to know Dinesh Thakur professionally many years back. His mama was a BJP CM and he himself was pro-BJP until the Ranbaxy lawsuit happened and he made a huge amount of money. Not sure what changed.
Hope lakshadweep’s development plans are still in place
This project is supposed to be built over 30 years.
Which when you look at the speed that other project of this nature are executed is a weird feature.
As you mentioned without the port this tourism project cant survive, and I do believe that this ports viability as a transhipment vis-a-vis not onlt Colombo but also Vizignam, and Sabang as well.
Then there is the matter of the ecology as well, this island has never supported even a lakh people, whether it has the water to support these people, will it be affected by earth quake since it is in a seismic zone and ultimately the wisdom in having so many important people from India to begin with.
Without the port and the military base this place is impossible if it later turns out that the island does not have the carrying capacity it will reallt need to be extremely successful to afford to keep people fed and give the luxury experience that has been promised.
Maybe in a way the govt is hedging its bets?
If a lakh people ever make it that far then making a desalination plant to cater to them won’t be the most difficult thing. If you are so worried about the island being able to support so many people you should support building of more infrastructure. Most of the countries in the Arabian peninsula are unable to have the capacity for the populations they already have and they survive by integrating these essential technologies into their day to day services. Let the govt handle the basic planning and then let the privates figure out how far they can take it. This insanely hypocritical opposition for the sake of opposition on every subject is tiring and makes everyone avoid you.
Most of the countries in Arabian peninsulas are deserts and only can support the amount of people due to oil business
This is neither a desert, nor is it clear even as per some in the govt itself that it can sustain itself as XTM haa shown
I have already outlined my own reason for not wanting Nicobar to be developed as a tourist hotspot, and think Sri Viajaya is a better place.
The main question is why put that much pressure on this island to begin with when there are better options elsewhere.
You may think it is an empty piece of real-estate I dont think so.
I am not opposing for the sake of opposing the problem is you guys seem to take everything as an attack on the honor of one person even when that is not the case. Please dont project your own biases onto me.
Reunion is an island the French have colonized in the Indian ocean for about 300-400 years and have around 1 million people living on it. The size of Reunion is close to the size of the Great Nicobar Island. It shouldn’t therefore exceed the capacity of the island to host a 10th of the population of the Reunion island. This isn’t about state capacity or preservation of nature. This is just some anti-development agenda that you’ve grown an attachment to for some reason. Everything the Great Nicobar island can be supplied through shipping initially and then can be produced locally to some degree.
I’m not clear what you mean by the govt being unable to sustain itself. The current Indian govt’s capabilities are vastly superior to the French in terms of their budget and capability in the Indian Ocean. They should be able to provide for an Island with 100k people if it came down to it.
The question you should be asking yourself is why shouldn’t the Indian govt expand the living spaces available to its citizens on all fronts. Why should we exclude the Nicobar Island from this? No amount of conservationism makes that argument valid to me.
What do you think of it as? I don’t think you have made your position clear at all.
You are weirdly attached to the Nicobar for some reason.
The people who are there dont want it. If you ask anyone in India whether the money proposed to be spent on Nicobar for the rich to have a playground for themselves should be spent on upgrading tourist facilities in mainland india or whether sri vijaya which actually has basic infrastructure is a better place or not, they would agree that Nicobar tourism should not be priorities.
I want tourism facilities to be upgraded all over India and think Sri Vijaya and Vishakpatnam are better fits for the project being proposed
The fact that an evergreen forest is being destroyed for a place most Indians would only be able to visit once make it even worse.
This is not me being anti development.
You choose weird hills to die on, rather than asking a simple question why is the money proposed to being spent in Nicobar not spent elsewhere with basic infrastructure already, why cant places where forest have been cleared for projects like this, should not be chosen instead
You link your honor to these kinds of projects and then put words into my mouth. Wanting development proposed here to be done elsewhere is not anti development.
//The question you should be asking yourself is why shouldn’t the Indian govt expand the living spaces available to its citizens on all fronts. Why should we exclude the Nicobar Island from this? No amount of conservationism makes that argument valid to me.//
Because evergreen forest like the Nicobar help to maintain the climate that over a billion people depend on
I am ok with expanding living spaces but choose places where forest have already been cleared and basic infrastructure is already present.
You like many others here see the forest as just empty real estate not a living ecosystem and getting deeply emotional for some reason.
//What do you think of it as? I don’t think you have made your position clear at all.//
An ecosystem built over millions of years, that helps to keep the climate we all depend on stable.
Destroying it when there are other spaces available is tragic. Hope people move away from seeing such forests as nothing more than pieces of empty real estate.
I’m just going to have to disagree on this. Making an island inhabitable for people isn’t going to change that much about the global climate. It’s just an anti-development take. Your entire argument is based on emotional attachment to an Island which matters rather marginally and still be preserved while being inhabited with humans.
//Your entire argument is based on emotional attachment to an Island which matters rather marginally and still be preserved while being inhabited with humans.//
Every bit counts, just because some rich people may want a vacation spot closer to India does not make the trees and the forests there less valuable.
The same money being spent there can be spent on other places, that actually have infrastructure and where most Indians, not just the rich can go multiple times in their lifetime.