The Critic is at Sea

(The article was originally published in Indian Express on September 13, 2025 as a part of Dr Madhav’s column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.)

Senior Congress leader Sonia Gandhi penned an OpEd in a prestigious English daily recently, criticising the Development of Greater Nicobar Islands Project, being undertaken by the Narendra Modi government. All modern development projects entail environmental concerns like displacement of local communities and harm caused to flora and fauna these days. In that sense, the Greater Nicobar Islands Development Project, a $ 9 billion mega project conceived by the NITI Ayog and being implemented by the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Integrated Development Corporation (ANIIDC), too is no exception.

Greater Nicobar Island is the largest among 20 main islands in the Nicobar peninsula. Campbell Bay on the Western coast and the Indira Point in the South are known tourist places on the island. Indira Point, originally called Pygmalion Point, but renamed after former prime minister Indira Gandhi who visited that place in 1984, is the Southern-most land border of India. It is just 145 km or 80 nautical miles from the Aceh Province of Indonesia.

Proposed mega development project is expected to come up on the Southern part. It includes development of an international container terminal, an international greenfield airport, a solar power plant and two greenfield cities. Once completed, it has the potential to compete with port cities like Singapore. Sonia accused the government of causing severe environmental harm to trees and turtles, besides destroying abodes of around 1200 aboriginal people belonging to two tribes – the Nicobaris and the Shompen – in the name of this project.

It is important to understand why such a mega project is being contemplated by the government there. India’s dependence on the Indian Ocean for its developmental and security needs is a vital reality. Almost 80 percent of its external trade and 100 percent of energy imports happen through this region. Moreover, the Indian Ocean Region has emerged as the most influential sea route for global commerce and connectivity. Home to some of the world’s most populous countries, large and fastest growing economies and massive militaries, this region emerged today as the “21^st century global power axis”.

American naval officer and historian, Admiral Alfred T. Mahan insisted a century ago that “whoever attains maritime supremacy in the Indian Ocean would be a prominent player on the international scene”. That India’s future was critically linked to its maritime strength was underscored at the time of independence by scholars like K M Panikkar and Keshav Maurya. “It should be remembered that the peninsular character of the country and the essential dependence of its trade on maritime traffic give the sea a preponderant influence on its destiny”, Panikkar warned in 1946.

Yet, successive governments after independence neglected enhancing India’s maritime capability. While Panikkar called for understanding India’s “peninsula character”, governments remained prisoners of a “continental mindset”. For several decades, Indian Navy remained a “brown water navy” capable only of tackling littoral challenges. There is finally a realisation in early 2000s that power projection in the Indian Ocean region is critical to our own future as well as for maintaining peace in the region.

Indian Ocean neighbourhood is a crowded space today with vessels from all major countries – ships, submarines and sea drones – crisscrossing its waters. Next-generation undersea cable communication networks proliferate in the Indian Ocean. India is expected to face maritime challenges not only from other navies but also like piracy, sea-born terrorism, climate challenges, human and contraband trafficking, illegal and unregulated fishing, arms running, poaching, and humanitarian challenges like evacuations and disaster relief. The region is home to security hotspots like Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan and maritime chokepoints like Straits of Hormuz, Straits of Malacca and Sunda Strait.

Nicobar Peninsula is an important lynchpin in this region. Developing maritime infrastructure in that region is critical to India’s security and development, something that the Congress leadership refuses to acknowledge. Sonia Gandhi went to the Indira Point in 2009 to install a statue of Indira Gandhi on an acquired forest land. Concerns were raised at that time about the environmental impact of the statue project like acquisition of forest land, ecological impact due to increased tourism and seismic vulnerability. Those objections were overruled and statue installed by Sonia. It is hypocritical today for her to cite same reasons for criticising Modi government’s project, which certainly has much greater implications for India’s security and development than a statue there.

It is not to suggest that the environmental concerns raised by her are not relevant. However, the government took all those aspects into consideration before announcing the project. It involved not just the government agencies but academic ones like IIT, NIOT, NCCR and NIO also for assessing the environmental impact and suggesting remedies. Of the 1000 odd sq km island territory, only 160 sq km was allocated for the project. Even in that, 73 sq km – half of the land acquired – is being given back to the tribals as compensation for the forest land acquired. While a couple of villages of settlers will be relocated, not a single habitation of the tribes will be touched. For the remaining acquired land, “remote compensatory afforestation”, a standard global practise, is being adopted by choosing the oldest but most degraded Aravali Mountain Range ecosystem for afforestation.

Contrary to Sonia’s criticism, the nesting grounds of the Leatherback Sea Turtles are largely situated on the Western flank of the island while the project is coming up in the South. New conservation plans are prepared for megapodes, crocodiles and corals. Three new wildlife sanctuaries too are being developed on nearby islands to ensure protection of the species.

Greater Nicobar Development Project is a crucial peg in our Vikasit Bharat vision. Besides providing 1 lakh direct and 1.5 lakh indirect jobs to people in Andaman and Nicobar and outside, it will also catapult India into the league of major maritime powers in the Indian Ocean Region, all this while taking all necessary pre-emptive and prospective measures for environmental preservation.

Is there something more sinister in the opposition to the project than just environmental concerns?